KING, the hundred

twenty-nine: alone

"Run boy run! This world is not made for you
Run boy run! They're trying to catch you"

run boy run by woodkid

On her first day alone, Avery didn't find water.

Her main goal was to run. To escape. So that was all she did.

Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot.

It was ridiculously repetitive, but as soon as she felt her vision blurring, she kept repeating it.

After the sun neared the bottom of the sky, sometime around late-afternoon, she finally came to a full stop on her feet. She looked around to find herself still surrounded by trees. She had no clue where the hell she was. Lost in the woods was still better than death-by-grounder, so she settled for the inside of a particularly large tree to spend the night in.

She curled her body into itself to fit in the small space, and the small sticks underneath her dug sharply into her sides. When she settled for a moment, she finally allowed herself to breath. As she did, she truly felt the stinging in her face and forearm for the first time.

She moved her arm over to examine the wound. It seemed like a larger cut than before, but the bleeding had stopped as soon as she wrapped a cloth around it. Now the cloth was red, but her wound was starting to scab over. She was just hoping it didn't get infected.

Her shoulder was also an issue. She'd re-opened nearly all of her stitches from her shoulder wound she'd received just a few days prior. She could practically hear Clarke scolding her. But there wasn't much she could do about that injury without supplies.

She moved her hands up to her face to feel the caked blood, particularly around her temple. She definitely had some kind of concussion as the whole world had been spinning aggressively for a significant period of time.

She took a deep breath as tears began to sting her eyes. There was a very good chance that everyone she knew was dead. There was a very good chance that Bellamy was dead.

Finn wasn't dead the last time she saw him. The two of them just managed to reach the foxhole as the fire consumed the camp. Finn ran, and Avery followed him. But, he went left and she went right. When she looked up again, she couldn't see him amongst the trees.

Then, she saw the grounders. There were about four of them, and her exhaustion was already making the corners of her eyes go dark. She could still feel the rocks underneath her feet as she ran. She'd narrowly escaped with her life.

So there she was, the mighty Avery King. Curled into the hollow trunk of a tree as tears began to leak out of the corners of her eyes. She did her best to wipe them away and grit her teeth. But there wasn't really a point to that anymore. After all, who would hear her?

For the first time since the battle, she remembered. She remembered every gun shot, every body of someone she knew on the ground. She remembered the blood coming out of Octavia's leg. She remembered Bellamy's bloody face as the grounder slammed him to the ground. Once, twice, three times. She remembered Clarke crying. She remembered the fire that consumed the only place she ever really called home.

And then her exhaustion consumed her and the world faded to black.

When she finally awoke, it was bright outside of the small tree. She squinted her eyes as they adjusted to the light, and she stretched her bloody arm out slightly. Her head was still pounding like a motherfucker. But, her arm didn't hurt nearly as much and she felt like she could stand without immediately keeling over.

But, she knew she needed to find water fast. The human body could only go so long without it. How long had it been? A day? Two?

So, much to her body's protest, Avery moved her legs outside of the tree and used the trunk to pull the rest of her body up into a standing position. She shook her arms out, which seemed to help the circulation in them. When she could fully move around, she finally got the chance to examine the forest around her.