Survivor ; 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘥

005. ꕥ Pulled Into War

Holy shit, were the first words that came to mind as my eyes were locked on the Earth-colored ones I had not seen in a very long time.

My head was dizzy, and my body tensed, completely forgetting how it operated — I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move anything. All I kept doing was staring back at the foreign yet so familiar man in front of me.

It was impossible — it had to be because the person standing before me with black hair lining his upper lip and chin, broader shoulders, and longer hickory curls just could not be Bellamy Blake. Bellamy Blake had died six years ago in Praimfaya like everyone else I had cared about, so it was physically improbable that he could be here, right now, standing just mere feet from my body. No, this simply had to be a figment of my imagination because Bellamy Blake was not alive. To me, he died the moment he had locked me inside the bunker six years ago, leaving me alone with Alex; he had died when the one piece of him I had left perished inside my belly.

However, life never seemed to work in my favor because no matter how much I wanted this all to be in my mind, it wasn't. Bellamy Blake was here, alive and well. All this time, in the back of my mind, there was this small flicker of hope that maybe, just maybe, he and the others had made it, and now that it was a reality, I didn't want to believe it — I refused to believe it. The same Bellamy Blake who I shared my first kiss with, the same Bellamy Blake that was involved in all the memories wanting to break through the box I had put them in, the same Bellamy Blake that knew me better than anyone in this world wasn't in front of me, staring back at me with remedy. But he was. He was here.

If it weren't for Callan rushing into the rotunda and screeching to a halt next to me, I would've stayed there in a daze for I don't even know how long. But luckily, he did, grasping all the attention and pulling me from the stupefied state I was in as he looked between Bellamy and me, muttering a quiet, "Oh, no."

Swiftly I turned to him, lowly hissing, "Why didn't you tell me what was going on?"

"I was trying to." He told me in the same tone I spoke in. "You stopped listening to me and ran off."

A scoff left my mouth as I looked at him with wide eyes. "Well, when someone tells you the bunker you've been stuck in for six years was broken into, you tend to jump the gun."

"Well, you shouldn't have." Callan stated bluntly.

"Where's Ethan?" I wondered.

Callan's head went on a swivel as he scanned the crowd behind the fenced-in area covered in weapons for the twelve-year-old boy. Once his eyes landed on Ethan, he pointed in his direction, inducing my line of sight to follow where he indicated. "There."

And there Ethan was, standing next to Gaia as he looked down, watching what was happening out of curiosity, just as everyone else was doing. When he saw that Callan and I were looking at him, he gave us a small smile and a wave, and in return, he got a trying smile from me.