Wounds [Bellamy Blake]

Two Worlds [Chapter 37]

                With Dani guarding the door, I knew that there would be no hope in me sneaking out when those in the medical ward were sleeping. From the looks of it, Dani probably never slept. Who knew what the radiation did to those on the ground. They had survived the impossible, and they looked so much stronger than anyone I had ever seen. Even Anya, who had a tall and slender stature, had landed some harsh blows. I imagined her to be very sly, cunning and stealthy alongside leader material.

                With Anya gone, Felicity seemed to lighten up. After tending to wounded men and women alike, she dashed to my side and dabbed at my wounds. The tranquilizer dart had left a nasty bruise, but the tip hadn’t been poisoned like Jasper’s spear and Lincoln’s dagger. The young healer also checked my ankle and I wondered how she knew, but put the pieces together well enough.

                “You’ve seen me before.” I said inquisitively.

                Her blue eyes flickered upwards, and she brushed her reddish hair from her eyes. However, she said nothing.

                “If you’re going to hold me hostage, at least let me understand…” I began, “We don’t want to fight you; the Earth is big enough for all of us.”

                “Yes, I have seen you.” She said in a dull whisper, her eyes full of fear.

                “In the forest, when the wire did this to me.” I swung my leg slightly.

                “Yes, I was training.”

                “You did this to me?” I asked, wide eyed; her small stature could not have pulled me.

                “No, that was Nikolai.” She said, “But I was watching it, and watching his back.”

                I fell silent; this woman had nearly gotten me killed, or at least assisted in the attempt. Though, she could hardly be older than sixteen and I wondered how she could be such a savage when she looked so innocent. Then I recalled my own savagery; attempted murder of a man who had done harm to me, and realized that she may have been doing it in misguided self-defence.

                “I’ve been sent out to watch you…” She said lightly, “Well, your camp.”

                “And can’t you see we aren’t hostile?” I asked urgently, though wanting to add ‘like you’ to the end of it.

                “Me perhaps, but Anya and the rest… You’ve killed many of us.”

                “What?!” I blurted, “We released the one we caught…”

                “Lincoln, yes.” She said, aware. “Your flares burnt a village to the ground, killing off most of the youth, and many of those who tried to save them.”              

                “Those flares were to save the people where I am from.” I explained, “Not to harm anyone.”

                Personally, I had thought the flares made it out of the atmosphere and would be floating in space, not falling back down and killing people. No one had thought that was a possibility.

                “Did they?”

                I shook my head, “We were too late.”

                “Tell me about it… Where you came from.” She said, her voice dull but her eyes wide with wonder.

                I smiled, perhaps if I could give some insight on who we were, we could come together as a unity. They could teach us how to live off of the land, and how to survive the cold, all the things to keep us alive. And we could show them electricity, modern advances. It was a longshot, but I had to start somewhere, as I was not in the upper hand here.

                I glanced over at the other people in the ward, most of them seemed to be nodding off; I wondered what time it was.

                “Well, many citizens were sent to space when the nuclear war that happened over a hundred years ago. We’ve been living on this metal thing we call the Arc.” I had to explain it to her in simple terms; Lincoln had not understood electricity, so I doubted Felicity would either. “We thought the planet would be-“

                She cut me off, “Why is it called the Arc?”

                I smiled, “It’s sort of shaped like many Arcs put together.”

                “Oh.”

                “Anyways, we weren’t supposed to come down to Earth for another hundred years…”

                “Why?” She cut me off again.

                “We thought it would be too poisonous for us.”

                “We’ve been here for a very long time, we didn’t leave during the extermination.”

                I figured ‘extermination’ was their term for the Cataclysm. “You must have come from a very strong and tolerant blood line.”

                She smiled, “Maybe.”

                “Many people died, we thought everyone had died.” I admitted, “We thought the people on the Arc were the only ones to survive, that we were the last of the human race.”

                “But you’re not.” She finished for me.

                I went to reply, but Dani grabbed Felicity’s small shoulder and pulled her back, “Enough talk.”

                Felicity nodded, “Get some rest.” She told me, then dashed off to go assist a man wounded by an arrow.

                She pulled his shirt to the side and added a bluish liquid that almost seemed to glow to his wound; I wondered if it was derived from the fungi or the algae that glowed. Leaning back on my concrete bed, I rested my head on top of crossed hands and propped both knees up, tapping my foot gently. The fear I had been brought here with had died away since my recent chat with Felicity; there was something about her that made me see her as a little sister. Though I had never had a sibling, as most of us on the Arc, the feelings of worry and care came naturally to me.

                I had my hard outer shell, but on the inside, I cared about people more than I would ever admit. Life had shaped me to be bitter and harsh, though in reality I would do just about anything to open up and care for someone like Bellamy cared for Octavia. Perhaps it stemmed from my parents never really being aware of me, never caring for me like most parents did their only child. I craved to give the love that I never received.

                Rolling onto my side, I felt a few small tears slipped down my nose, dripping from the end as the reached it. Though I couldn’t pin point where the tears were coming from, I had a feeling that it was from the combination of missing my parents, worrying about Bellamy and the rest of the camp. Sleep evaded me that night, like it had many nights in the past.

I just realised that the title is also a song from Tarzan (Two Worlds, One Family. Phil Collins, you amazing human being, you.). Anyways, I really enjoyed bringing in more of my own characters, and I'm enjoying writing about the Grounders in more detail! Since they are still quite new, and we know little about them, I'm going off on my own right now. Message, vote, comment! xo