The Commander of Death

Chapter Eight

Screams started to erupt around them, people running around, either trying to gather up their things, find their loved ones, or make a break for the gate. They wouldn't make it far enough in time.

"Clarke! Lexa!" Madi yelled, sprinting over to them with wide eyes. Clarke and Lexa quickly opened their arms and huddled together, the two women whispering reassuring words to her. 

They didn't try to run. They both knew there was not enough time to get as far as they needed to to survive.

Clarke turned her head to face Lexa, seeing her girlfriend gazing intently at her, full of sorrow, grief, love, and the knowledge that they'd never get to live the life she'd always wanted for them. "I love you, Clarke." Lexa whispered, raising a hand to her cheek as the missile got closer and closer.

"I love you too, Lexa." Clarke rushed out, her voice strained as she leaned in to catch her lips for a quick, tender kiss, Madi's shaking form burrowed into them both.

When Clarke pulled back from the kiss, it was as if a switch had been flipped, her previously panicked expression falling into stone-cold determination, a raging purpose and the urge to fulfill it taking her over. Her eyes turned black and wisps of darkness radiated off of her. 

She had love, and there was no way in hell she was going to roll over and let it be taken from her.

"No. This is not the end." She said, stepping out of their grasps and moving to the center of Arkadia.

"Clarke!" Madi and Lexa yelled, distraught because they were convinced that there was nothing to be done and they wanted to spend their last few seconds with her.

Clarke tuned them out to focus, looking up at the blazing missile, which was increasing in perspective size as it hurtled closer. She drew in a deep breath, closing her pitch-black eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she swiftly raised her hands to her sides and huge wisps of darkness spiraled straight towards the missile in the span of a second.

The darkness formed a huge sphere around it and people watched amidst their panic in shock. Clarke dug her feet into the ground and gritted her teeth as she felt the weight of it and its momentum pushing down on her, using all of her strength to push it back. She let out a strained groan through gritted teeth from the exertion of strength, slowing the missile down as it forced her to drop to one knee, and she refused to give up.

It slowed nearly to a halt several hundred feet above Akradia, and, for a few seconds everyone held their breath and watched. When the missile came to a complete stop, encased in the sphere of darkness, it suddenly exploded.

While the sound of it was clear as ever and deafening, the sphere contained the blast and the darkness exploded into wisps a second later. Clarke let out a cry of pain as she felt her bones fracturing from her fingers to her elbows. Tiny bits of harmless debri fell that looked like pure blash ash, and everyone went silent in awe, shock, and relief. 

Pain consumed Clarke's body and she swayed, dropping her hands limply to her sides as muffled shouts of her name started to drown out more and more before everything went black and she collapsed on the ground.

"Clarke!" Lexa screamed, sprinting to her side with Madi on her heels. People started to swarm around her, forming a crowd as shouts and murmurs blended together, everyone a mixture of amazed, confused, relieved, grateful, and concerned for the girl that had saved them.

Lexa picked Clarke up delicately in her arms, her eyes frantically scanning her as she placed her hands on her cheeks, calling out her name and desperately trying to get her to wake up.

"Out of my way!" Someone yelled, the crowd parting for Abby, Raven and Octavia on her heels. Abby dropped to the ground in front of her daughter. She, like the two girls behind her, had seen the missile coming. They'd tried to get to Clarke but had stopped when they'd seen her shoot wisps of darkness into the sky to stop the missile and contain the blast.