Chapter 4
The prisoners of the mountain
On the Ark? Jake Griffin had been allowed out of his skybox and he joined his wife and Wells and Callie, who had been waiting in the hall, listening in to Thelonius Jaha, and glaring at him.
Jake came up to Abby, and Abby smiled, about to come over to him to embrace him, but he held up his hand, stopping her from hugging him.
"Don't," he said, shaking his head, "You…," he stared at Abby as if he didn't recognize her and that hurt Abby so much, "You hurt us. Clarke and me. You're the reason why Clarke has been left on the ground, alone."
Abby cringed, as if Jake hit her.
Jake didn't have to say a thing. It was right there in the open. His relationship with Abby, would never be the same.
The only consolation they had? Was seeing Clarke's vitals on the screen and seeing that she was safe and alive.
Months went by.
On the ground, in Mount Weather? Clarke had become close friends with the youths in the mountain.
Clarke giggled, grinning and running as some of the younger kids ran to catch up with her. Clarke kicked the soccer ball she had in her possession between her feet as she went.
"After her!" Young eight-year-old Eddie Emerson laughed, chasing after her.
Clarke grinned back over at him.
She had learned almost every child's name. She knew all the guards' names too. They made her uneasy, but she knew their names.
She knew that part of the reason why the guards made her uneasy, was because guards in general, reminded her of the guards on the Ark.
There was also the fact that she kept getting the feeling that the adults were keeping something from her. But she couldn't be sure.
Clarke ran by the eating area, waving and grinning to Maya, as she ran by. Maya smiled and waved back to her.
Clarke was closest to Maya.
Maya was an older girl and seemed to take to Clarke startlingly well.
Clarke moved and kicked the ball around, hearing Eddie and the others following her, laughing, and Clarke ran over to where she spotted one of the other kids, Lottie waving her down and she kicked the ball to the other girl. Lottie then stuck her tongue out at Clarke and kicked the ball Eddie's way.
Clarke feigned a gasp. "Traitor," she accused the other girl, with no anger in her voice as she grinned.
Clarke and the rest of the kids laughed as they continued playing, Maya looking on, watching, pain in her chest growing as she watched Clarke.
Maya was old enough to know the secrets of this mountain. To know what her superiors here did to the Outsiders, to the people of the tribes.
And she knew that Clarke, as a visitor, had no idea what was going in this place. The younger children didn't know either.
The small children never learned about the prisoners in their cages in the lowest part of the mountain, until they turned fourteen.
Maya was fifteen years old. She had learned of what was done to the Outsiders a year ago.
Because the Outsiders were painted as such monsters by her people, by the time children reached the age of fourteen? None of the kids who learned the secret, cared about the Outsiders and if the Outsiders suffered.
In the eyes of the children of the mountain, because of the stories which their parents and the staff told them? The Outsiders deserved what was done to them.
Maya knew that not everyone in the mountain believed that. Maya herself certainly didn't believe that.
But she knew many people in the mountain did.
To many of the people here in the mountain? The Outsiders were all savages. People that deserved no sympathy, and all needed to be killed. And existed for one purpose, to give their blood to those in the Mountain Men who needed it.
Maya knew that she couldn't blame how the children that were going to grow up hearing those things, would think of the Outsiders. It wouldn't be the children's fault what they were taught to think.
And no one would give them reason to think otherwise.
Maya only had sympathy for the Outsiders, because her mother had, and her mother had taught her to be sympathetic to their plight.
Maya didn't know what Dante and Dr. Tsing had planned for Clarke.
She hoped for the girl's sake, that they weren't going to hurt her.
But since she knew how the Mountain Men tended to use people who were not part of their culture? Maya feared for that girl a great deal.
So far, no one had seemed to try to take any blood or anything from her, except for that first day.
Maya had seen the patch on Clarke's arm, where a needle had been put to extract her blood.
But apart from that? There had been no other marks.
It made Maya wonder why. Surely, the people that Clarke had grown up with, were even more exposed to the sunlight than the Outsiders were? Surely, Dante and Tsing had found a use for Clarke's blood or bone marrow?
Which forced the question, why wasn't Clarke covered with more needle marks than she was?
Maya would never want that for anyone, and certainly not for a ten-year-old child. But the question still entered her mind the less she saw of Dante taking any interest in Clarke's blood.
However, that wasn't to say that Dante didn't take any interest in Clarke, whatsoever.
No, in fact, Dante seemed a great deal interested in Clarke. Just not in what her blood could offer him and the rest of the Mountain Men.
Dante's interest in Clarke, in fact, made Maya unnerved on its own.
Maya would see Clarke and Dante walking together in the halls and talking. Clarke would look at Dante with nothing but trust and would smile. Maya never sensed any threat from Dante to Clarke or any distress on Clarke's part. Which led Maya to the question of what was going on with Dante and what his special interest in Clarke was.
What troubled Maya even more, was when she would see Dante showing Clarke some pictures he would draw of the…beings that Dante and the higher ups in the Mountain Men had worshipped at the beginning.
Maya's maternal great-grandmother had been amongst the first of the Mountain Men to worship these beings.
And because of that? Maya knew what these beings looked like. Her grandmother had told her, because her own mother had told her.
She knew what very few civilians in this mountain knew.
The machinery and advanced computers they had? It only was granted to them, by the beings which Dante's father and the rest of the first generation in this mountain had started to worship. The first generation of Mountain Men, were allowed to create a home inside this mountain and have all the advanced technology, including advanced weaponry, by Yog-Sothoth, who had transported those items here to this mountain with his abilities. And he hadn't done it for free, either.
There had been a price. Everything had a price.
That price had been called for years later. What was the price?
Well, people thought that Dante's wife and daughter had both died from exposure to the outside world. But they hadn't.
Either way, it wasn't that hard to realize that something was off. Because there was no way, logically that anyone could create this system of tunnels and have all this advanced technology, including missiles, in only a few decades. Ninety-seven years might be a long time by human standards, but it still wasn't long enough to create the home in which the Mountain Men currently lived in.
Which meant that they had help.
From something…
Maya truly hoped that Clarke never learned what that something was. Or the price that Dante had paid for it.
She'd let Clarke think that Dante's wife and Dante's daughter had died of exposure in the outside world. It was better than the truth of what had happened to them.
Something that struck Maya, though, was Clarke's reactions to the various small paintings that Dante had made of the beings which his father had worshipped before his death.
When Clarke saw drawings of the beings that Maya knew were called "Deep Ones," Clarke would stare at the pictures oddly and Maya got the impression that Clarke recognized the Deep Ones from somewhere.
Dante had made a painting of Yog-Sothoth a week ago, and Maya had felt her blood run cold, when she had seen how Clarke looked at that painting. She had seen not just recognition in Clarke's eyes, but…hunger.
Maya tried not to think too hard about what that meant.
But she also had seen how Dante would watch Clarke. How he'd be cautious in handling her.
As if she was…as if Clarke was some sort of possible dangerous animal that he would need to handle carefully, unless he wanted to get bitten or scratched up. Like everything else? Maya tried not to think about what that meant.
When the game of what Maya couldn't help but assume was just "try to keep the soccer ball from each other," ended, Maya watched as the kids sat down alongside the tables and talked quietly.
So far? Dante, Cage, Dr. Tsing and none of the other guards or staff, had taken an interest in Clarke's blood.
And Maya supposed that that should be good enough reassurance for her.
Maya looked over at the clock high up on the wall, seeing the time.
She sighed, getting up off of the bench and walking from the group of children, including Clarke. She went to the kitchen area and gathered up a good deal of food and fresh water, making sure that none of the guards saw her, and that she was out of the view of the cameras.
She gathered everything together in a large satchel and quickly left that hall, and then went to the stairwell, leading down further into the mountain.
The stairwell, connected to the wall of the mountain, just within the mountain, not reaching the outside world-good thing too, otherwise Maya would have sores all over her body by now, would lead her all the way down to the lowest level of the mountain. There, she'd get to the secure room at the bottom of the mountain.
Thankfully, because of who her maternal great-grandmother was? She had clearance to enter that area. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the keycard which she'd been given, being trusted with the secrets that her family had always been trusted with.
She got to the bottom of the mountain, reached the titanium door, unlocked it and went inside, making sure that the door closed when she went inside.
The room before her, was what could only be described as a nightmare.
The lighting was dim and cold. It made the room appear a pale and eerie blue. There were far too small, square-shaped, metal cages all around the room, stacked up on top of each other. There were people inside these cages. Not animals. People.
Maya sucked in a breath, trying not to feel horror as she often did when she was in this room. Every time she stepped into this room? She felt chilled. She felt like her stomach was going to turn with sickening sensations, for hours.
Her people, the Mountain Men, people who she had grown up with and had lived with for years, treated other human beings like animals. Put them in cages and drained them of blood or experimented on them and made them into vicious attack dogs by making them blood thirsty and cannibalistic.
It was enough to make Maya think that maybe her people didn't deserve to survive.
She listened to the rattling of the cages all around her, knowing that the Outsiders in those cages were grabbing the thin bars and jangling the metal of the doors of their cages.
She wished she could get them out. But then what? Her people would just go out and capture more Outsiders. And they'd kill her. She knew that. And what would she end up accomplishing?
All she would end up accomplishing, would be getting herself killed and only delaying what the Mountain Men were doing.
Maya didn't hate her people. Just pitied them. But she hated what they did to the Outsiders.
She placed the satchel down on the floor, opened it up and pulled some of the food and containers of water out. She went closer to the cages and carefully slipped some of the food through and opened up the small containers of water, pushing the water and food into the cages with each Outsider.
She saw how the Outsiders watched her, growled at her, glared at her.
She knew if there was more room, they'd grab her, but she was out of range for them to reach for her.
She saw how many of the Outsiders watched her, certain that if they could, they'd cut her throat.
She couldn't blame them. She might be helping them, but she couldn't blame them. She was part of the people who had put them here and who had terrorized their tribes for decades now.
Maya had heard from older people in the mountain, that they thought that the Outsiders deserved everything that was done to them, because they were the ones that put the Mountain Men here in Mount Weather themselves, for those many decades.
But that thought always made Maya angry. You couldn't blame the next generation for what the previous generation did. Where was the sense in that?
She ignored the hateful glares she got from the Outsiders and put the water and food in their cages.
She knew that they'd need a lot more than water and food to feel better. But this was all she could manage for now.
"What's the point?" A cruel thought in the back of her mind asked, "They're just going to end up being killed and drained of their blood, anyway. What's the point?"
Still, Maya said softly into the room, "When you're finished drinking the water, leave the cups for me to take. If I don't take the cups away, people are going to know I was here and I won't be able to bring you food and water anymore."
She stepped back.
So far, everyone would do as she instructed, even if the Outsiders wanted her dead.
She tried to ignore the sickening guilt she felt as the Outsiders weakly reached out and picked up the cups and drank from them and ate their food.
She didn't know how much longer this could all last.
In the above levels of the mountain, Dante was speaking with his son, Cage Wallace and Dr. Tsing remained silent, though she had long ago decided that she would agree with whatever Dante Wallace decided.
The doors to the room were closed and the three of them were the only people present. They wouldn't have to worry about anyone else hearing them.
"Father, are you serious?" Cage snorted, staring at Dante as if he believed his father had finally become senile after all these years, "The girl? You think she's a child or descendant of Yog-Sothoth?"
"Perhaps," Dante said, having at last explained to his son why they hadn't yet drained Clarke Griffin of her blood or bone marrow, "Or perhaps she's related to one of the other Old Ones."
He took another breath as he nodded to Tsing, "Dr. Tsing, please show my son what you found in Clarke's DNA."
Dr. Tsing nodded to him, and turned to her computer, switching it on and gestured for Cage to come over and look at what she had found.
Cage shook his head, appearing mildly disgusted, and went over. He leaned down and looked at the files which Tsing had brought up and looked at the results of Clarke's DNA.
Tsing explained what she had found. That what human blood Clarke did have? Was A Positive. And the rest of her blood? Couldn't even come close to being called human.
Cage's eyes widened and he stepped back from the computer.
He said quietly, not turning to his father, "If she's one of them, she's a very human looking one."
"Yes," Dante agreed, nodding, "I must say, she's a rare find." And it was the truth. It would be difficult to find those who were children or descendants of Yog-Sothoth or beings like him, and not see things like claws, fangs, tails or extra appendages. For Clarke to look like a completely normal human, even if her DNA screamed, "not human?" Was impressive. But it made Dante wonder what Clarke would look like as she got older.
Those who were children or descendants of beings like Yog-Sothoth? Tended to show features that made it clearer what they were related to, as they got older.
That was how the Deep Ones' appearances developed. Because even if they appeared normal at the beginning of their lives, they soon, as they got older, developed fish traits. Webbed hands, bulgy eyes, they'd lose their hair and gain sharp teeth. And if you were a deep one, you would be one of the few if you only got those specific features.
Clarke? She looked like a normal human girl now. But what about later? What about years from now? Would she still look like a human?
Maybe. Or perhaps not. Dante couldn't predict these things.
He watched Cage's frightened eyes stay on the screen of Tsing's computer. Dante was relieved in that he could see now that Cage wasn't going to try to hurt Clarke in any way now.
Cage feared the Old Ones far too much to ever so much as threaten one of their children or descendants.
Dante wasn't like Cage. He feared the Old Ones, yes, but he also revered them. Cage? Whatever wasn't capable of killing him in seconds, he treated like garbage and would abuse happily. He wouldn't understand anything about respect, if it was opened up for him and explained to him slowly and in great detail.
Cage asked, his voice somewhat shaky, "So, what do we do knowing this, now?"
"I think we can answer that without investigating further," Dante said, trying not to chuckle at his son's stupidity, "We don't do anything to endanger this clearly unique hybrid child, we watch as she grows and see if she will help us. And she doesn't need to know what we do to the Ark people, when they come down. We can drain the Ark people of their blood or bone marrow and make it look like they were killed by the Outsiders. Which will make her even more sympathetic to us."
Cage nodded and Dante smiled in near pity at his son. Cage would be keeping clear of Clarke from now on, most likely.
Dante loved his son. But loved his son in a way in which he knew that he didn't like the younger man and regarded Cage almost the way he would an obligation.
He knew he would have to pass on his leadership to Cage after he died, but that was because Cage was the only option.
There was no other option.
And if Dante made it so that people voted to put a different leader in power? There was too much of a chance that it would be someone who wouldn't be able to look out for their people in the way that Dante and his family always had.
Cage unfortunately, was the only option there was, much as Dante disliked that.
Cage nodded at his father's instructions as he said, "Alright. If she appears to become dangerous at all to our people, you will tell me, right?"
"You know I will," Dante said, feeling a small laugh at last come out of him, "If anything threatens our people in any way? I will have to tell you, without fail."
Cage nodded, then backed away, staring still at the screen of the computer, as if not wanting to be in the room with those findings from Tsing, any longer.
When Cage went out the door, Dante shook his head. His son might have been devoted to their people, to his credit. But he was a coward. And that was one of his better, least likable qualities.
Dante turned to Tsing as he said, "I was serious about keeping Clarke unaware of what we do to her people when they come down. If she's as powerful as I think she is? We'll need her on our side when we get what we need to go above ground. If the people from the Ark, have blood and bone marrow that can help us get to the ground and survive, then we will need a way of surviving the Outsider tribes. We have missiles, yes. But we won't be able to kill all of the people of the tribes that way. Clarke could help us, as long as she is sympathetic to us and sees the Outsiders as the enemy."
Tsing considered this. She nodded. She said, "If anything happens to those closest to her, from the Ark? This could turn either in our favor or in favor of the Outsiders."
"I agree," Dante confessed, "But if we keep them safe? She might see us as her saviors. Or if we make it look like they were killed by the Outsiders? She could ally with us even more."
Tsing and Dante sat together, considering these possibilities.
"There is one thing that I have to wonder," Dante confessed.
Tsing looked at him, waiting. Dante elaborated, "Clarke is a hybrid, yes? But does this mean that one of the Old Ones reproduced with a human on this Ark that Clarke told us about? I feel like everyone aboard would know about it. And so would Clarke."
"That's a good point," Tsing confessed, "An Ark like that? It has a limited population. Word would get around fast."
"Which brings me to a question," Dante said, "Where did Clarke come from? Because I don't think she came from the Ark."
Tsing cocked her head, appearing surprised. "You think Clarke was born on the ground?" She asked.
Dante nodded. "I do," He said.
Tsing was left with this, intrigued.
In the middle levels of the mountain, Clarke sat down on the floor, tired after chasing after some of the younger kids, laughing quietly as she seated herself down, leaning against the wall, right near a vent, smiling as she watched the other kids running around and giggling. Clarke yawned, tired.
She'd just rest here for a few seconds. She wouldn't go to sleep.
Or she thought she wouldn't, but she felt the exhaustion drag her, and soon her eyes close and she felt herself lose consciousness.
Clarke's rest was uninterrupted for several minutes, then she heard a loud scream, echoing throughout the walls.
Clarke cried out, eyes opening up, and jumping up from the wall.
Clarke looked around the hall.
What the hell? Had she imagined that? That scream?
She then heard it again, and she whirled around, hearing the sound of the echo going through a metal shaft.
She looked at the vent, hearing the scream come from there.
She stepped back.
Why was there screaming coming from the vent? Was there someone in there?
The scream came again and it sounded anguished, causing Clarke to shudder at the sound, and then heard the scream die down.
What happened?
She stepped closer to the vent and turned her head, ear listening closely.
She felt her heart drop. She heard quiet groaning coming from the vent.
What was going on down there?
Clarke backed away from the vent and looked back at the younger children. She didn't want to scare anyone.
She decided to wait till Maya came back.
Still, Clarke waited, feeling coldness in her stomach the whole time. And when Maya arrived, coming into a room and putting a satchel she had been carrying away, Clarke ran over to her, frightened.
"Clarke?" Maya asked, looking at Clarke, instantly concerned, seeing the look on Clarke's face.
"Maya," Clarke began weakly, "I heard something. In the vents. It sounded like screaming." Okay, it didn't just sound like screaming. She was positive that it had actually been screaming.
Clarke looked at Maya and her mouth dropped when she saw how Maya reacted.
Maya's eyes widened and her the blood seemed to leave the older girl's face.
Clarke had heard that expression before, "the blood drained from my face." But she had never witnessed it happen before.
And Clarke, she didn't want to be suspicious of anyone. But as soon as she saw Maya's reaction? She knew that Maya knew what was going on.
Clarke always backed away from Maya, realizing that. Maya knew about someone who was in distress in the mountain and she wasn't telling people about it?
Clarke then tried to think of an explanation. Maybe it had been in one of the hospital wards. Someone had needed surgery immediately, and the surgery had been so painful that it had overrode any painkillers.
That made perfect sense to Clarke. Still, why would Maya look so troubled? Maybe because she'd been worried about the younger kids hearing or seeing something so distressing?
Again, that sounded like a likely reason.
But still, why did Clarke get a bad feeling about all of this?
She tried not to think that Maya would keep something dangerous from her. She nodded to Maya, wanting to be reassured by her own explanation of what was happening in this mountain.
"It's okay, Maya," she said, "If someone needed surgery and it hurt them, I get that that can happen sometimes."
Maya paused, then smiled and something about that smile sat wrong with Clarke too.
"Yes," Maya said, way too quickly, Clarke noticed, "Someone came in and needed surgery. I'm afraid it was a bad one."
Clarke nodded, feeling very unsettled by this.
Something wasn't right here and Maya knew it and Clarke had a feeling that she knew it too.
The only question was, how was she to find out what was happening here and why there had been screaming in that vent, without people stopping her?
Clarke thought about that and instantly felt guilty, and she kept that from Maya, by nodding to Maya, thanking her, then turning and walking back to the rest of the children.
How could she be so distrusting of these people, after all they had done for her?
Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
Especially after the reaction she'd gotten from Maya.
Those thoughts were left in the back of Clarke's brain for a while. She watched Maya for a few hours after that. When she would be playing with the other children and when dinner time arrived, she would watch Maya.
Maya was tense and was throwing strange glances her way, then Dante and Cage Wallace's way.
Why? What was it that Maya was worried about?
It would be another two days, till Clarke found out.
Two days went by, and Clarke had almost put the incident out of her mind, when some of the guards came in down the hall, carrying a stretcher with one of the guards on it, Lancaster, from what Clarke caught, and were carrying Lancaster to one of the medical wards.
Clarke watched this and a thought went through her mind. If there had been someone in one of the medical wards who had needed severe surgery? Maybe if she went there, she might see signs of what had happened and it would ease her mind.
Clarke knew that what she was thinking of doing probably broke several of Dante Wallace's rules, as well as broke his and the rest of the Mountain Men's trust, but she just couldn't let that incident with the screaming in the vents go.
Which was why, soon after Lancaster had been brought to the infirmary, Clarke faked falling down onto the floor and pretended that she had sprained her wrist.
It was a dumb and crappy thing to do, she knew. It wasn't a good thing to fake an injury or illness, but something had just felt wrong, since Clarke had heard that scream in the vent.
The guards and staff had appeared surprised by what happened to Clarke, but hadn't questioned it, so she had been brought to the infirmary with Lancaster and placed in a bed across from him.
As soon as the staff and guards all left? Clarke got up out of the cot and ran over to where Lancaster lay.
She saw no sign of any horrible surgery being needed. He had cuts on him and he was very pale, most likely indicating severe blood loss, but he was breathing and there were tubes coming out of the wall, connecting to him, where blood was coming out of and being pushed into him.
This caused Clarke to narrow her eyes.
Where was the blood coming from?
Was it possible that there were some blood bags connected to the other side of the wall and the tubes were connected to them? Sure. But why not have the blood bags in the same room as the tubes and Lancaster?
Clarke looked around the room. Spotting no indications of what she might be looking for, whatever that was, she ran to the doors that led into this room and tried to open them. Even as she got to them, she had doubted that she would be able to open them. She had seen the keycards used to get the doors open.
She grunted in irritation, slapping her hands down on the stupid hospital gown she'd been put in.
She turned around, not sure what to do now. She raised her head to look some more, then smiled when she noticed the large vent opening attached to the wall.
But how did she get the vent open?
She began searching the room for something else. Something that was slim and metal and could unscrew the screws in the face of the vent.
Soon she found one. Not the best idea to grab a scalpel out of one of the cabinets, she knew that. But it was better than nothing. She then climbed up on top of the shelves, reached out and pushed the blade of the scalpel into the opening of the closest screw and began to turn the scalpel.
It was difficult to do, but after several seconds, she got the screw out and put it down onto the shelf top. She then began to undo the next screw.
After she had gotten that screw out and placed it down onto the top of the shelf next to the other screw, she climbed up higher, to get the screws out of the top of the vent face.
Putting herself at a very awkward angle, Clarke began to unscrew one of the two top screws.
After getting one screw after the other out, she kept her right hand, holding the scalpel on the vent, keeping the vent face from falling off and banging into her and grabbed the slats of the vent face with both hands and pulled it off of the wall, slowly lowering it down onto a larger shelf, and turned back to the vent, sucking in a breath and beginning to climb up into the vent.
She knew that what she was doing had to be an indication that she was out of her mind, but she climbed up into the vent and started crawling through the vent, wincing at the feeling of the hard metal against her elbows and knees.
This place was too much like the Ark. All hard edges and cold.
She crawled until she reached the opposite end of the vent. She got to the opposite vent face and peaked through the slats of the vent face.
The next room was a cold and unsettling blue shade. And Clarke heard what sounded like uncomfortable groans in the next room.
She squinted. She couldn't see anything specific. She could make out metal containers and movement, but it was too far away and at a bad angle for her to see.
Clarke grabbed the slats of the vent and turned them so that there was an opening for her arm to slip between them.
She pushed her arm holding the scalpel between two of the slats and reached her arm close to where one of the screws would be.
She began working the blade of the scalpel and unscrewed the screw. She then moved to the other side of the vent face and unscrewed that screw. She then reached between higher slats and undid one of the higher screws. Then she moved to the last screw, unscrewing the last of the screws.
The vent face slammed down off of the vent hard and it released a loud and painful banging sound on impact with the floor, making Clarke wince and cringe.
Aw, crap. So much for subtle.
Clarke scrambled out of the vent, fast, hoping that there were no guards in the next room.
She got out onto her hands first, then she pulled her legs out and she stood up, wincing at the feeling of getting up after having been on her stomach in the vents for that long.
She then turned to look at the shapes she had seen through the slats of the vent face a few minutes ago and as soon as she did, everything changed.
Clarke had heard of people claiming that they couldn't comprehend some sights that they saw.
And Clarke had never understood that. How could you not comprehend what you saw? Were you going to debate if you actually saw something or not?
But Clarke suddenly understood that expression now.
Some sights were too horrible to want to comprehend.
Cages. Cages all over the room, stacked up on top of each other, made of metal. All of these metal cages had two things in common. Each of these cages were not empty. And each of these cages that had something in it, had what looked very much not like anything like a dog, a mountain lion, a bear or anything like that, in it.
Clarke? She knew that there were a lot of animals that were put in cages. And she would never agree with that. There were animals that needed way bigger space than that. To put them in cages as small as these ones, was just cruel.
But this? This was even more cruel.
Each cage held one creature in it. A human being.
People. People grabbing at the bars of the cage and shaking the doors of the cages they were in.
Clarke stepped back, shaking her head, feeling the blood leave her.
She then noticed something hanging to the right of her and she turned to look at it, heart racing in terror.
There was a man there. Who was hanging upside down by chains, tubes coming out of him that were going into the wall behind him and Clarke, and those tubes? Had blood flowing through them.
Horror and understanding hit Clarke then.
That was where the blood was coming from. That was where Lancaster was getting the blood!
But why? Who were all these people in these cages?
Clarke, panting now in panic, went over to the man hanging upside down and looked down at him, trying to find some sort of ID on him.
Was it possible that the Mountain Men did this to their prisoners? Like how the Ark people executed every prisoner, no matter what the crime?
Maybe this was how the Mountain Men punished their criminals.
But then Clarke saw a mark on the hanging man's lower abdomen. It was a tattoo. Black. It was in the shape of a sun with multiple shapes in it.
Clarke's eyes widened. It was an Outsider. Maya and Dante had told Clarke about the different tribal markings that the tribes had. There were twelve tribes in all. And the tribe that had the large sun symbol, was called the San tribe. The "Sankru."
Clarke looked up and down along the man's body. But why would a member of the San tribe be here? Being drained of his blood? She didn't understand.
A thought then hit her. The Mountain Men couldn't survive in the outside world without a hazmat suit. They'd die if they went out without a hazmat suit.
But the Outsiders? They didn't need hazmat suits to survive in the outside world. Was that why their blood was being taken? To heal the Mountain Men that got injured because they could handle the air from the outside?
Clarke gasped, backing away from the chained man. She didn't want to think of that as a possibility. Her heart stopped. She felt cold.
The people that she had lived with for months now, were capable of doing this?
She tried to come up with an explanation. That the Mountain Men were just trying to survive in a world where the tribes treated them like they didn't belong. But even then, Clarke wasn't sure she could just stay here, knowing what these people were doing to other human beings.
Clarke had backed up too much, because she felt a hand grabbing for the back of her gown.
She gasped, turning, gripping onto the scalpel and swinging as she turned.
The small, but sharp blade of the scalpel succeeded in slashing the hand that gripped at her, she slashed at the arm, and the man that had been grabbing for her, roared a painful sound as he released her, snaking his arm back into his cage, staring at her angrily.
Clarke felt mildly sick, seeing the blood along the man's arm.
Clarke backed away from the cages, still somehow not able to comprehend as she went around the different stacks of cages, taking in what she saw. Men and women all in cages. She saw different tribal tattoos, and knew what each one of them meant, because Dante and Maya had told her.
But she still somehow couldn't wrap her mind around what the Mountain Men were doing. Even if this was for survival? How could they put human beings in cages like this? Even if these people were enemies and treated as prisoners? How could they put human beings in what were just crates with no room to move around?
Clarke got close to one cage that was stacked on another and she almost jumped when she heard a boy's voice speak to her.
"You don't look like you expected this. You are not of the mountain?" The boy's voice said.
Clarke cried out and turned to where she heard the boy's voice.
There was a teenage boy in a cage, facing her. The teenager was black, with short, thick hair, and light brown eyes. He looked like he was probably at the oldest, seventeen or eighteen. Clarke noticed that he had a biohazard tattoo on his left bare shoulder, showing that he was of the Trikru.
She stared at the teenager. Dante and Maya had never mentioned that the Outsiders knew English.
"To keep you from communicating with them," a thought in the back of Clarke's mind said.
"You speak English?" Clarke asked, staring at the teenager.
The teenager's stare never wavered. He said, "You're not of the mountain, are you? You are not of the Mountain Men, are you?"
"I…," Clarke shook her head, "No. I'm not."
The teenager nodded. "Who are you?" He asked quietly.
Clarke considered not telling him. But he was in a cage and if he and the other Outsiders were in danger of the Mountain Men? What were the chances that her people wouldn't be in danger from the Mountain Men too?
"Clarke," Clarke said, "My name is Clarke. And no, I'm not from the mountain."
The teenager said, "My name is Linkin kom Trikru. You shouldn't be here. If you are not in a cage and are not from the mountain? Then you need to run. Or it won't be long before you're in a cage too."
Clarke felt weak. She had known that there was probably no chance that she and her people wouldn't be in the same situation as this, if the Mountain Men treated other human beings like this, but it was still mortifying to hear it confirmed.
"Lincoln," Clarke said, "If I get you and the others out of your cages, will you be able to get out of the mountain?"
Lincoln sighed, shaking his head. "Unlikely," he informed her, "We're weak and need medicine. And even if we get close to the openings to the mountain? There are armed guards all around. We'll likely be recaptured and put in cages again soon after leaving these cages."
Clarke felt a burning disgust in her throat.
How could anyone treat people like this?
Then again, hadn't her people put other human beings in skyboxes for infractions like theft? Some children were put in skyboxes as young as eight, and were kept there till they were eighteen, then floated.
A thought entered Clarke's mind and it was a disturbing one. The thought said, "is this all human beings are? Is this what we are?"
Feeling like she might just retch, Clarke was pulled out of her thoughts when she heard a familiar voice cry out her name in surprise.
Clarke turned around, looking at the doors where people were supposed to come in, and saw Maya there, staring at Clarke, shocked.
Clarke stared back, feeling that chunk of disgust in her throat still.
"Maya," Clarke whispered, and as she looked all around her at the many cages, where people were being kept, she looked at Maya and said louder now, "How could you?"