Flaw ↠ John Murphy [1] O.H.

1. 00; family above all

00; FAMILY ABOVE ALL

Trigger Warning: Rape Mention

"Family above all Alexandria. You have to remember that."

Alexandria Park is four years old when she finds her mother in hysterics, sobbing violently and clinging to her father like a life line. She doesn't understand. Her father pulls her aside later, explaining that she is going to have a new sibling. She doesn't understand why her mother was so sad. She had seen couples aboard the Ark happy at the thought of a child.

She doesn't realise that a second child meant death.

(When she is older, she wonders how her parents could be so reckless. They knew the Ark's rules. Then she finds out that her sister was only her half-sister. The father? A guard that forced himself upon her mother.)

"Family above all."

Her father drills those words into her head. Family must come first. Her sister must be kept secret, or her parents will be floated and Alexandria and her new sibling will live out the end of their days in a jail cell.

Her sister is born in secret, a girl with big brown eyes that Alexandria loves immediately. They call her Minerva, and things go wrong in her first few moments. Congenital heart disease should be an easy thing to deal with because of the Ark's medical care, but no one can know about Minerva. So, Minerva grows up weak in the secret compartment of the Ark's walls.

The family ration their food and steal what they need to keep them alive, to keep Minerva alive.

It all goes to hell when Alexandria is fifteen years old.

"Family above all."

Her father shouts that at her as he is arrested. He had stumbled in one night, blood coating his hands and the words "I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what to do," coming from his lips. She doesn't know how, but a doctor had found out about Minerva and threatened to tell the council. All her father had in mind was protecting his family.

The guards come for him the next day.

He is floated a few days after fifteenth birthday.

Her mother seems to lose all her will to live after that. She gets up, goes to work, goes to bed, her words monosyllabic. Alexandria takes care of the family now.

Then the illness starts.

Pneumonia can be caused by bacteria and should be simple enough to cure, if you have the right medication. Minerva can't get that, so she remains hidden and grows far more ill. "Family above all," is the only thought in Alexandria's head as she borrows maps of the Ark from Raven, who watches her with pursed lips but doesn't ask questions.

Alexandria plans, plans, plans and builds up the courage to steal the medication. On her first run, her heart pounds so loud that she thinks it will alert the guards to her presence. It's all worth it to see her sister looking better for the first time in weeks.

Minerva asks her where she got the medicine. Alex just smiles in return and changes the subject. Minerva doesn't have to know and she doesn't have to worry. She just has to focus on getting better.

But one dose isn't enough to cure her, so Alex continues. Her mother doesn't ask questions, she doesn't seem to care. She just sits in her chair and stares at the wall. Sometimes fate doesn't deal you the right cards. Maybe this was just her way of dealing with cards fate had dealt her.

Minerva gets better and for the first time in a while, Alex feels like her life is going in the right direction.

She was wrong.

The guards come for her soon after Minerva makes a full recovery. They had caught her face on one of the security tapes, holding the medicine that had been stolen. There's still a few more weeks until her seventeenth birthday, so she's thrown in the Sky Box to wait out the end of her life. There's no chance of review before she's eighteen, she knows the punishment for misuse of resources. She asks Raven, one of the two people outside her family that know about Minerva, to look after her sister and waits for her death.

But as it turned out, fate, or rather the Council, had a different plan for her.

Hey! So I really shouldn't be starting a new story but I watched The 100 and realised that I am complete and utter John Murphy trash. I hope you enjoyed the prologue and the actual chapters will be far longer than this. Let me know what you think and I'll hopefully have the next chapter up soon!