Survivor ; 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘥

004. ꕥ Overdue Return

~two thousand two hundred days since praimfaya~

Ever since my day in the fighting pit, where I barely came out with my life four years ago, Callan has been teaching me how to defend myself better. Callan claimed that if I ever were to find myself in a situation like that again where I was faced with opponents much more skilled than I was, he would sleep a lot better knowing I could defend myself better than before. It wasn't that I was a bad fighter — on the contrary, Callan said I was decent for a Sky Person — but compared to Grounders who have been fighting their entire lives, I was terrible.

I was twenty-four years old, and now more than ever, I was the happiest I had been in a long, long time. Ethan and Callan were by my side, and we've created this makeshift family that works for us. Now, Ethan was twelve, and he was growing as smart as ever — he was thriving with Gaia's teachings. And as reluctant as I was on it, I allowed Ethan to be taught how to fight for the sole reason of self-defense, the same reason Callan taught me how to fight better. Like him, I slept a lot better knowing that Ethan could defend himself if anything ever came down to it, and it was thanks to Callan — he was the only person I would allow to teach Ethan because I trusted him.

Six years and eight days later, the three of us had grown closer than ever before. 

We had been down here for a tiresome six years. Over two thousand days ago, Praimfaya raged over Earth's surface, scorching anything in its path and wreaking havoc amongst the structures. It was because of that havoc that we were still under the ground when three hundred twenty-seven days ago, we could've left this place and returned to the surface. The tower was still on top of us — it hadn't moved in the six years it's been knocked down, and it had trapped us in the Second Dawn Bunker. Many people were beginning to lose hope that we would ever return to the ground, that we would ever breathe in fresh air and see rays of sunlight.

I was ashamed to say that I was one of these people. No matter how much I or anyone else wanted there to be, there was no solution on our end that would allow us to escape this hell. As far as any of us knew, we would be stuck down here for the rest of our lives until all eight hundred of us died— yes, we are now at the low total of eight hundred people.

That was another completely separate issue — the fighting pits have become something else, something more terrible than they already were. Fights were now daily, and Octavia chose if the winner was rewarded their freedom or not. If not, they would have to fight another day and win, which rarely happened.

My streak of keeping myself and Ethan away from the destructiveness was shattered the day I was thrown into the fighting pits. The first fight Ethan and me saw was the one I fought in. Again, I'm ashamed to say that it wasn't either of our lasts — sometimes, we were forced to watch.

Today was no different than any other day. I had started my day by waking Ethan in his bed; the boy was now old enough that he could have his own bed — but he did occasionally crawl into bed with either Callan or me in the middle of the night. And I got him ready to go to Gaia for the day, and because he had some skill already from Callan, I didn't require Gaia to bring him back if they were learning about fighting. Once that was done, Callan and I would always head to the training area and spar for a couple of hours.

The first hit I got on Callan was a punch to the face, my right arm swinging with all force until it connected with his jaw, and as soon as I struck him, I could feel my knuckles bruising. I followed the attack by swinging my body around, kicking Callan in the stomach with my left foot.

He stumbled back as he rubbed his jaw. "You haven't used that move in a while. It just caught me off guard."

I rolled my eyes at the excuse; both Callan and I knew I was more of a skilled fighter now, almost as good as him. "Whatever."