Clarke woke to the soft pitter patter of something in the distance. Her mind drifted on the sound for a moment or two before it fully woke. With the sound upon her ears and the gentle chill of an early morning she opened her eyes. Clarke found herself on her side, the rough blanket ever wrapped around her shoulders and her vision sleep hazed. She blinked twice before she slowly pushed herself up into a seated position.

Clarke found herself looking over her supplies and her backpack to find they remained just where she had left them the previous night. She then peered out Mount Weather's entrance to find the source of that pitter patter.

Rain, or what she assumed it to be, fell through the air in soft waves. She stared and she marvelled, she felt a smile pull at her lips and she let herself take in the sight she saw.

Just like every other thing she had experienced on the ground rain was just as new, just as unfamiliar, once an unimaginable thing that she now gazed upon.

From where Clarke sat on the moss covered ground she watched as puddles in the clearing danced with the raindrops. She watched as branches and small bushes and plants and leaves swayed with the rain as it continued to fall from the sky.

It was calming. Perhaps a little charming and good for the soul. But eventually she started to think a little bit more about what she needed to do. Clarke would still need to make contact wth her people. She'd need to finish gathering her supplies from the drop pod and she'd need to make some kind of plan to keep her mind occupied while she waited for everyone else to come crashing down to Earth.

But she looked back out the entrance and eyed the rain. Though it wasn't heavy she could tell the ground to be muddy, dangerous. Or more dangerous to her than to someone who had lived a life on the ground. Clarke didn't think twisting her ankle in the mud would do anyone any good.

She looked down the tunnel and towards the depths of Mount Weather. It was just as it had been the day before but perhaps she could explore it some. Perhaps she could begin trying to uncover what had gone wrong. She knew people might have survived the first few years inside Mount Weather after the bombs fell but where they were now, what happened to them was a mystery. Something she wasn't sure she wanted to uncover.

But she would need to.

Her people would need to.

And so Clarke just nodded her head and made up her mind.

It only took Clarke a little longer to get ready for the day. Checking her feet was practiced, just as it was reapplying the bandages. Satisfied Clarke stood. She still had her backpack slung over her shoulders but it was lighter, just a few nutrient bars, her water bottle and a few extra magazines tucked away. Just in case—

Clarke almost started walking when she stopped and turned back to the entrance before she quickly reached for her netted supplies. It hadn't crossed her mind the entire morning since waking but she was thankful whatever prompted her had. Clarke found what she was looking for and she spent just a second or two shuffling towards the entrance before she put down an empty case, its content currently emptied haphazardly on the moss covered ground where she had set up her small camp.

Clarke watched as the raindrops slowly started gathering inside the case with a charming clink, the rhythm of the raindrops almost comforting. She smiled as she watched the water gather and she smiled as she nodded to herself as she turned back towards Mount Weather's depths.

"Good job, Clarke," she said quietly. "No river monsters out here."

And with that Clarke squared her shoulders and entered the dark.

Clarke had never been one to feel spooked or afraid of the dark. There were countless times on the Ark when the power would need to be rationed and lives lived in the dark for days before being restored. But she had always been with other people and around familiarity.

But now, in the long shadows and the chill of an old relic of the past Clarke felt just slightly uneasy. She had only made it as far as the end of whatever main entrance had once existed. There were less plants and moss this far. Even the light from outside did little to illuminate the space she stood in. Her lamp thankfully was strong enough to give light to much of the space. But still, long shadows were cast and her footsteps echoed just a little too eerily for comfort.

Clarke stood at the mouth at the end of the tunnel. Behind her was the small light from outside, before her something that had once been grand and large. Perhaps it was a staging ground, an assembly point for newcomers in times of old.

Clarke could see faded, old, abandoned signage on one of the closest walls. She could hardly make out the letters but it told her enough to know she was where she was supposed to be. But Mount Weather was no more.

She turned around slowly as she took in the space. Stone underfoot was weathered from years of abandon. Dust covered the ground and at times her feet kicked up motes of dust that floated trapped within the lamp light.

On the far side of the space were large blast doors that themselves remained opened. She knew they would lead further underground and into the darker depths of Mount Weather.

She'd need to explore that in time but she thought it best to wait for everyone else lest something happen that she couldn't fix by herself. Plus she didn't quite like the idea of delving deeper into the unknown so alone.

But as Clarke continued to take in the space her gaze fell onto a winding mess of something attached the a wall. It took her just a second to recognise that what she saw was a map of Mount Weather.

Clarke didn't know why she thought it useful but she walked forwards, she held her lamp up as she approached the map still hanging upon the wall and she stared at it.

On the left side was a large blueprint of Mount Weather's interior. She could read levels, areas that she knew could be fruitful with further exploration. But what really drew her attention was the larger map to the right. It showed a birds-eye view of what she assumed to be the surrounding forests. In the centre of Mount Weather, she could see where the main entrance was located, perhaps even the river not far away that she had seen the deer like creature and the river beast. But what really made Clarke pause was the fact that she could see a red line drawn from Mount Weather. It snaked away from the base, through what she thought was part of the mountain and then to another structure simply labeled dam.

She looked a bit closer, she started reading more. She started realising.

Hydropower.

Powerplant.

Energy generator.

Each word she read was highlighted with an arrow pointing to part of the dam and Clarke knew that Mount Weather must have used this for power once upon a time.

Clarke looked around her again. She held the lamp up as high as she could as she peered up into the ceiling overhead, as she peered out to the furthest walls. Perhaps she was trying to see signs of destruction, things broken, destroyed, damaged in the explosions.

But she saw none of that.

In fact the only thing she saw was dust. Perhaps a small plant or two that had made its way this far into Mount Weather.

And Clarke knew, or perhaps it was more hoped, that the dam still worked, that she and her people could turn it back on and power Mount Weather once more.

It didn't explain what happened to the people that had previously been inside Mount Weather when the bombs fell. But still, it was a chance. Something Clarke wouldn't let slip through her fingers before she even tried.

Clarke nodded to herself again as she reached out with a finger and circled the dam on the map. Her finger left behind a clean circle in the dust that had settled upon the map's surface and she tried not to cough too loudly lest she disturb the dark and the quiet cold of Mount Weather.

But Clarke sighed, too. She sighed for she didn't want to venture deeper into Mount Weather but as she peered back the way she had come she could still see that it rained and that any attempt to climb the mountain or travel back to the drop pod would be arduous and more dangerous than she wanted.

She turned back to the nearest path within Mount Weather and peered down into the dark. Shadows danced around her and despite the fact Clarke knew she was alone she couldn't help but to feel like something watched her quietly, cautiously, as if it was tempting her to delve into the abyss without a single understanding of what lay in wait.

A cold shiver ran down her spine and Clarke cursed herself for being afraid of the dark but perhaps she could at least push just a little further than she had.

Clarke thumbed the safety on her rifle, perhaps to reassure herself that she had a weapon to use if something jumped out at her. She chewed her lip only to spot as the split opened without a care in the world for her comfort.

"Screw it," Clarke whispered.

And so Clarke squared her shoulders, strapped the lamp to the shoulder strap of her backpack and levelled her rifle as she stepped forward.

The passageway Clarke walked down was much the same as the main entrance of Mount Weather. At least in construction. gone was any sign of vegetation or green. Not even puddles of water had managed to make it this far down. Perhaps that was a good sign. Perhaps that told Clarke that Mount Weather was still structurally sound and could support her people's existence if they could get the power working again.

The air was stale, though. There was a heaviness to it that sat upon her tongue as if it was trying to tell her something. Whether it was a warning or a question or a riddle to be solved she couldn't tell.

Each step Clarke took was met with a small cloud of dust kicked up into the air. At times it tickled her nose and made her want to sneeze, and at other times it seemed oddly charming in the light of her lamp.

The passageway itself was lined by doors on either side. Some were cracked open, others wide. Some were still closed and Clarke found herself peering into one room that she thought must have once been an office. There was a desk in the centre, a chair behind it and even what she assumed to be a trinket of sorts that she didn't quite recognise.

She looked back behind her as if to check that the passageway she had been walking down still remained open the way she had come. Part of her worried that the large blast doors would close somehow or the roof would cave in behind her but as she aimed her rifle down the passageway and shone the light from her torch all she saw was an open exit, blast doors exactly where they had been and no sign of life.

And yet Clarke couldn't quite shake the feeling that she was being watched. It was as if the shadows had eyes, that they found her curious, perhaps a threat or a newcomer to lands unknown.

Clarke sighed and shook those thoughts free though.

They would do her no good.

But perhaps talking would ease her mind. Perhaps saying anything would help her relax just a little bit and dull the anxiety.

"I'm not a threat," Clarke hoped she didn't sound as stupid as it felt speaking aloud. "I promise," she didn't know why she spoke to the empty chair behind the lonely desk but she did.

Perhaps it helped that she imagined an old man sitting behind it looking back at her with thick glasses and a bushy moustache.

"I—-" She was what? "I'm just lonely," Clarke said quietly.

She continued to look at the chair, she continued to plead with it to say something back.

"I'm sorry," Clarke added. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

And with that Clarke simply nodded her head and stepped back, her head hung just a little lower as she started walking away.

Clarke didn't venture too far, she didn't wish to get lost in the dark and so she found herself back at the map hung on the wall. She had marked off where she had walked with a finger through the dusty surface and as she looked over more of what was indicated she started trying to see anything that could help her figure out what had happened.

But perhaps as she continued to look she found herself simply coming to the conclusion that whoever had survived the initial bombs may have simply run out of supplies and ventured outside.

And yet that brought with it more questions than answers.

Why abandon Mount Weather?

Was the dam broken?

Did it no longer have the ability to power Mount Weather?

Clarke forced herself to stop thinking lest she spiral further and further into the unknowns. She turned from the map and started walking back towards Mount Weather's entrance. She wanted to check on her new water supply and perhaps let her lamp charge a little more if the sun had decided to come out.

She was tired, too. She didn't entirely know why. Perhaps it was because her mind had been thinking over so many possibilities the last few hours that despite her body having rested her mind was fatigued. Or it was simply because she wasn't used to doing everything that she was doing.

It was with that thought that Clarke came to Mount Weather's entrance to find that it had stopped raining. Puddled still littered the forest floor but the rain had stopped for the most part. Her case she had laid out to collect water remained just where she had left it and she smiled as she saw it was almost completely full.

Clarke pat herself on the back with a small mental nod as she made her hands free and picked up the case of water carefully. Before too long she placed it back down out of the way and propped it up with her equipment to keep it a little more secure. She took a moment to refill her water bottle from it too and then she donned her equipment again.

Clarke would wait until the ground was firmer, she hoped it would be the next day but for now she decided she would try to bring as much back from the drop pod as she could. She thought that she could manage, even in the wet and damp. She'd made the trek a few times and she hoped that would be enough to give her a little more confidence in her step.

Walking through the forest after it had just rained was an almost otherworldly experience. Clarke didn't think she had the words to describe what it was like. The forest smelled different, more raw, more intense. Scents she hadn't noticed before lingered in the air and filled her lungs and made her feel lighter than she had days earlier.

Even the moss sparkled in the early morning sun. Droplets of water that still clung to the moss, that dripped from branches over head all glittered in what rays of light managed to break through the mighty canopy of leaves and branches above her.

Clarke was currently looking up above her as she stared at the way the sun dappled through the leaves. She was staring at the way they were swaying in the gentle breeze. Perhaps she shivered once or twice as a particular gust of wind picked up but she pushed that aside with a simple tug of her jacket closer against her body.

A drop of water splashed down onto her forehead, it made her scrunch her face up in surprise before she laughed quietly. Once that single feeling of water dripping on her forehead unexpectedly would mean catastrophe on the Ark. But here, on the ground surrounded by forest all it meant was that she was surrounded by nature.

And perhaps Clarke would one day grow used to that feeling and yet she hoped never to grow used to it. How could she when it was everything so many people on the Ark had ever wanted.

Clarke's smiled turned a little sadder at that thought. Her mind turned to her father once more and she found her heart beat a little more hollow in her chest as she imagined what he'd say, what he'd do if he were with her in that moment.

She knew he would have loved it. She knew he would have been so very awed by the things Clarke was now seeing.

But he was dead.

And Clarke was alone.

Clarke let out a deep sigh as emotion threatened to take hold. She remained quiet and still for a time as she let those feeling wash over her but eventually she felt sure, steady in her place on the Earth.

Perhaps she had become accustomed to shaking off emotion, pushing aside old hurts and worries and setting her mind onto whatever task she needed to accomplish.

She had learned to focus on anything other than what she wished when she had spent the year in isolation. She had learned to focus on anything other than what she couldn't change when she had been able to do nothing but count the hours and days and weeks, and months.

So perhaps that was what Clarke needed to do. Perhaps that was the only thing she could do lest she once more lose herself to unknowns and pasts she could no more change the the seasons themsel—

Clarke sensed more than heard or saw or felt anything in particular. Something made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, it made her senses freeze and she didn't know why, she didn't know what it was but there was something out in the forests.

She didn't realise she had lowered herself down amongst a small group of bushes until she felt one knee knelt on the damp forest floor, the other supporting her elbow as she levelled her rifle out into the distance.

Clarke's eyes started straining to see whatever had tingled that little part in the back of her mind. Her ears strained to hear anything that was out there.

Her thumb slowly pressed against the safety of her rifle. She wasn't the best shot. In fact she had had hardly any training at all. But she knew the basics. She knew enough.

Clarke's breathing slowed as if some innate part of her understood she needed to calm herself despite the raging of her heart. But then she started to hear whatever it was.

There was subtle, quiet, purposeful crunching of bush and branch, stick and leaf somewhere out in the distance. Whatever was causing the noise, whatever was slowly moving through the forest was large, heavy, her senses told her it was dangerous, a predator, something that she'd need to fight if it came upon her.

Clarke started chewing her lip, she tasted blood but dared not curse herself as she realised whatever the animal was must have been what she heard roaring the previous day.

It shouldn't have surprised her that it had ventured closer. Her arrival on the ground must have been violent, loud, explosive enough to drawn attention to anything brave or hungry enough to come looking for something new.

And then Clarke saw it.

It was a shadow at first. Large, lumbering, bestial. Matted, short, rough fur broke through the greens of the mosses and leaves and bushes. Muscles rippled across a large torso that dwarfed her with each lumbering stride it took. Clarke couldn't yet see what it was but every instinct in her was screaming to either run or remain as still as possible.

Even her breathing seemed to freeze in her lungs. Blood was rushing and screaming in her ears and Clarke's vision seemed to hone in every single thing that moved in front of her lest more danger somehow appeared.

Clarke could taste blood on her tongue from her split lip, she ignored the stinging in her lip and she dared not make a single move as the create came into full view.

Not a stone's throw away stood a large, great, ferocious ape of size she couldn't quite comprehend. She thought it a gorilla, or whatever had once been a gorilla a century ago. But this one was large. Larger than she would have ever expected.

Eyes darted back and forth as if it looked, searched, hunted.

She watched it slowly turn its head back and forth, she watched it paw at the soft mossy forest floor and Clarke started to shrink just a little more behind the bushes.

But then time seemed to freeze at the same time her blood did.

The beast started to sniff at the air. It began to turn its head more slowly and Clarke realised it was tracking something in the air. She realised it was picking up something that she couldn't smell.

But most of all. She realised it was tracking her.

Clarke's grip on her rifle tightened. She felt the plastic grip dig into her palm. She felt her bruised knuckles protest how tightly she was holding onto the only thing that would keep her aliv—

The beast froze as it looked in her direction.

And Clarke knew.

She knew it knew.

She'd have one chance. One chance to get away before it was on her. She'd have one chance to fight it with every single fibre of her being.

Clarke's heart was racing, pounding, roaring in her chest. Adrenaline was surging, screaming through her veins. Clarke's eyes locked onto the beast's eyes at exactly the same time as it registered where she was.

And then Clarke fired.

Her thumb clicked off the safety at the same moment the beast started lunging for her. Recoil hit her shoulder without care for her battered body. Fire and flame and metal and sound screamed out from the rifle. Flashes blinded her, fingers dug into the plastic hand guard as she fought for control over the weapon. She stared, screamed, started to run, started to flee.

The beast lunged, it soared through the air after her.

Clarke didn't know if she hit it. She didn't know if she wounded it. She didn't know anything in that moment but fear, fear, panic and desperation.

Clarke ran.

She ran hard, faster, faster than ever before.

She tripped, stumbled, righted herself in the mud and still she ran.

She could hear crashing, roaring, screaming behind her. She could hear the beast giving chase, she could hear it getting closer and closer and closer and louder.

Clarke could feel it in her soul as she ran. She could feel its terror behind her as every sense she had fought for some kind of release.

And yet Clarke dared not look back, dared not chance a glimpse as she continued to dive head first through the forest.

She needed to find something.

She needed to find anything.

She needed to fin—

Something flashed past her.

Something screamed past her.

Something she couldn't explain, couldn't describe, couldn't fathom.

Clarke's head followed the flash of flame and fire that whizzed past her head, she followed as something flew past her towards the beast that gave chase. Clarke's eyes registered a stick, a piece of wood, something thrown, something set alight fly through the air and, and, an—

And she tripped.

Clarke's foot caught something on the ground that made her face slam into the moss and mud.

The wind was knocked out of her lungs and Clarke scrambled, slid, tumbled in her pathetic haste.

Clarke barely had time to register, barely had time to think, to realise what was happening before she felt strong hands grip her shoulder, before she felt strong hands lift her onto her feet and then Clarke was ran, she was pushed, shoved, moved forward.

Something. Someone moved with her, pulled her left and right, back and forth and through the forest as the beast continued to give chase, as it continued to roar and scream and fear through the forest.

Before Clarke could get her bearings, before her mind could make sense of what was happening the person gripped her by the back of her neck, pulled her to a harsh stop. Clarke had just enough time to see them wrench a metal door up from the forest floor. Clarke had just enough time to realise what she stared into was some kind of underground bunker and then she was shoved inside without a single worry for her person.

Clarke hit the ground hard.

The wind was knocked out of her for the second time that day and then whoever it was slammed down behind her.

Clarke, dazed, confused, full of fear struggled to turn, to face the door overhead only to find the person already slamming it shut, already locking it behind them with a heavy bolt, leather wrapped and weathered to the years.

Clarke's chest was rising heavily. Her lungs were screaming for reprieve. Her legs were aching and she was still struggling to catch her breath as this person slowly turned from the door overhead and stood before her.

Clarke still held onto her rifle, her backpack was still slung over her shoulders and everything she held to her acted as an anchor that melted her to the bunker floor she lay on.

The person, whoever it was, stood in front of her. A thick leather jacket was wrapped around their torso. Metal plating was stitched into it with equal parts elegance and practical ruggedness. What could only be described as armour of sorts adorned their arms, their legs, and upon their face, upon her face was black. Black that dripped down her cheeks. Black that etched itself into her skin as if her eyes bled that very same blackness.

And so Clarke Griffin didn't know what to think. She didn't know what to say, what to do as her mind finally, finally caught up with what she was seeing.