First it was the quiet, then it was the cold. Her lungs had felt like they filled with the browned water on impact, and with a gasp she had then swallowed a mouthful. Spitting and coughing, she found the slippery rocks at her feet and pushed, straightening her knees and feeling Earth's air once again as she stood in the chest high running water. Water had filled her ears, and all she could hear was her heart pounding, in a muffled cry she heard herself call for Ocatavia.
Amber pushed and thrashed the water around her, drawing the beast's attention away from the younger girl and onto herself. She grabbed the rocks at her feet and threw, right as the beast began to rear up to deliver another blow at Octavia's body. The weathered stone had splashed at the beast's snakelike tail, and there was a small breathless pause before it thrashed it's body around and came writhing and wriggling across the creek floor towards Amber.
Amber caught a glimpse of Jasper pulling Octavia from the water before all she saw was green, then brown, then black. The beast took her left arm first, spinning her and throwing her body into shallows. She jerked her body, fighting its tightening grasp, and it pulled her under again. Her chin grazed a jagged stone that lay wedged in the creekbed, and she realized quickly as her vision became dotted and that the beast's firm grip had her pinned down now, attempting to drown and incapacitate it's prey before delivering it's fatal blow.
She felt a pinch at her side and used her free arm and all the energy she had left to reach for the knife her brother had given her, which she had tucked away in a makeshift sheath between her breasts. She gripped the handle and pulled, her eyes began to fill with black quicker now, and she lazily kicked her body up and threw her armed hand forward, hearing a splash as her dagger penetrated the beast's thick green gray flesh.
It released its grip, and she pulled her knife back, her body still rested beneath the water. She pushed herself up, sensing the beast's recoil, and took one quick breath before swiping the retreating beast once again. It was gone now, and she crawled to the shoreline, not panicked but breathless. She coughed and spat, the brown creek water escaping her mouth in a short but violent gag. She dropped the knife, and her body fell onto the dry pebbled shore. She felt no pain, but she saw the red dripping off her. She closed her eyes, and tried to steady her breathing but couldn't find any air.
Her head laid back now, feeling suddenly calm and completely content with basking on the rocks with the sun hitting her skin. She heard a scuffle and panicked murmurs, and ignored them. She began to dream as her staggered breaths became shorter, until the dream stopped when no breaths came to her at all.
There was a pressure on her chest, she thought, steady and firm, it pumped over and over again. A mouth met hers, a kiss of sorts, and she felt air enter her once more, but it was met with the remaining liquid that coated her lungs, and so one of the two occupants had to leave. The creekwater shot up her body and out of her mouth once again, and her eyes flew open, her body was pushed to it's side by hands that weren't her own and she coughed and coughed it all out. Her breaths were quick and painful then, but they were breaths. Her vision focused on her surroundings and she sat her body up weakly.
"Put pressure on that Monty." Clarke ordered, and with a torn piece of cotton fabric he laid his hand on Amber's arm. Clark's hands, also with a makeshift rag, held Amber's right abdomen. A deep, claw-like gash ran from Amber's left forearm to her elbow, and a shallow surface wound spotted her stomach.
Amber saw the blood and bit down hard, flashes of red clouding her vision, the drone she once heard seeping into her present day consciousness. Jasper tripping over a rock while on the way to Amber's side cleared her head of any flashbacks that crept towards the forefront of her focus.
"Are you okay?" The slender body asked, an expression riddled with concern and perpetual anxiety shown clear across his face.
"Yeah." Amber croaked, nonchalantly, as if she felt no pain at all.
"You almost got yourself killed–" Clarke began, demonstrating her clear distrust of Amber for reasons probably personal to her, but Amber shrugged as Octavia cut the blonde off.
"Thank you." The young girl whispered sincerely. And at that, Amber was unsure of how to react. She hadn't had those words directed at her before, not ever. Her parents never used them, and consequently, neither did the two Murphy kids. A vile taste in her mouth came then, and her stomach dropped, she couldn't place the feeling. She couldn't admit it herself, but guilt ate at her, as it always did. These voices, sounding much like her own but then again not at all, would fight at any ounce of self determination that Amber's mind could conjure up, destroying them before her own voice could ever speak up. When she had reunited with her brother outside of the dropship, she heard the voices, but this time, for the first time in a long time, they were outside of her head. They whispered and gossiped, they knew exactly who Amber was, or she was made out to be. Her face, captured in servellience footage, had been plastered across the Ark, on the doors of every common space and on the screens of service desks. The people here, surrounding her as she bled on the forest floor, knew her and what she had done and yet given her the kiss of life. She realised then, Octavia was waiting for a response.
A mechanical and abrupt nod was all that Amber could offer, with her eyes darting to everywhere else but Octavia afterwards.
She was a murderer, she deserved no thanks.
/
Jasper, Monty and Octavia were fast asleep on the mossy ground, 10 feet away from Amber. She woke when footsteps broke the bark debris close to her head, sluggishly and with blurred eyes, she watched Finn follow Clark into the treeline. She was up then, there was no going back to sleep. She had slept soundly until she had woken, which came as infrequently as a thank you did. Nightmares of red often lulled her through the restless night, and suddenly it became ironic that for the red dreams to go away, all she would have to do was bleed a little during the day. She felt her injuries now, she felt the pine needles poking at her scrapes and gashes, she felt the bruises grow into their final blush, and she felt the headache that helped to cloud her vision. But still, she laid there, eyes drifting close with no sleep to grace her for the hours to come.
/
When Jasper swung across the lake, Amber only stared. She swayed in the gentle breeze as sleeplessness wouldn't let her stand as still as she'd like. She hadn't spoken a word to the others, but they didn't try her either. To others, she looked as she probably felt. Her skin was paler now, her eyes sunken and swollen. A purple brown blush painted her eyes and right cheekbone. She was clean of blood, the wet moss she had laid on and a restless night did the cleaning for her. Her wounds were covered, the one on her waist with a thin wrap fastened securely in the belt loop of her baggy jeans, and the one on her arm covered by a makeshift bandage fashioned from the gray shirt she came down with. The torn remnants of said shirt now tucked into the back pocket of her jeans, hanging like a rag, ready for use the next time she would get herself into trouble. She now wore only her dirty white wife beater (A/N: pleaser), and her bare arms welcomed the warmth of the sun that beat down on her.
She watched the others, encouraging Jasper, slapping him on the back. He swung forward and across the beast pit of a creek. They were all wearing jackets, Amber noted, she had never been given a jacket. Then, everyone screamed in excitement, something about apogee, and now it was Clarke's turn to swing.
Amber studied Jasper then, distracted with something in the short green brush that tickled his shins. He grabbed the distraction with his two hands and held it up so the others, and Amber, could see. 'Mount Weather' it read, and with a smile on his face Jasper yelled just that in triumph. Octavia released a breath from beside Amber, hanging her head back, and Monty somewhere kept repeating variations of the word 'yes'. Finally, when Finn yelled Jasper's name in excitement, Amber watched Jasper's body recoil and then fly back, lifeless.
The body of a spear pointed upward and out of Jasper's quiet form. And everyone, for a moment, stood reactionless. Amber's mouth hung ajar, and she finally stood still. Death followed her, she confirmed then. And she ran.