I feel the sun on my face. I see trees all around me, the scent of wildflowers on a breeze. It's so beautiful. In this moment, I'm not stranded in space. It's been ninety seven years since a nuclear apocalypse killed everyone on Earth, leaving the planet simmering in radiation. Fortunately, there were survivors. Twelve nations had operational space stations at the time of the bombs. There is now only the Ark, one station forged from the many. We're told the Earth needs another hundred years to become survivable again. Four more space locked generations, and man can go home, back to the ground.
The ground, that's the dream, where I can finally run free and reach my full potential but sadly
This is reality.
Tomorrow is my birthday, down here in the sky box birthdays aren't celebrated, its marked as one year closer to death.
I share a cell with a girl called Octavia, we are practically sisters in every sense but blood, she and I are currently lying down on our beds reading our books that Dr Griffin gave us.
I look up as I sense a lot of movement from outside. "O what is that?" I ask
She looks at me confused and says "Bella wha..." The door suddenly swings open revealing two guards so like the good prisoners we are we follow our normal routine.
"prisoner 157 and 123 face the wall" the one I recognize as David Miller says.
As they approach us with a box containing silver bracelets I quickly panic "what is going on?!it's not my birthday till tomorrow!" I say. I honestly just wanted one more day with my sister, I won't even get to say goodbye to my father and Abby.
I sense Octavia panic along with loads of other kids, you see I am not considered a normal child for a few reasons but more on that later.
I reach out and hold Octavia's hand and that instantly calm her down a tad, "hold out your right arm" Mr Miller tells us
"what's going on?" "Where are we going?" me and Octavia ask at the same time but as always we are ignored, the guards attach the bracelets leaving the two girls to wince as the needle break skin, this leads Bella to believe that these are monitoring their vitals as this isn't the first time the blonde has seen a monitoring cuff.
We are forcefully lead out of our cell where we see all of the delinquents wearing a wirst band and being lead by guards.
The blonde is calm on the outside but panicking on the inside whereas Octavia is the opposite and is thrashing around demanding where we are going. "O, O calm down" I say and she slowly calms down.
I can tell by my nose that we are being lead towards a long line of prisoners and let me tell you that they stink. I can see Octavia smirking at me in the corner of my eye as I scrunch up my nose at the smell of smelly teenagers, so I give her a look and for about 5 seconds I'm able to keep up my unamused face before we are both grinning at each other, you see this is a relationship that is truly special, we are just communicate off face expressions to know what the other is thinking.
We are now by the teenagers but I am quick to see my father and the guard takes me to him as Octavia waits at the side to enter what looks like a big Dropship.
"Dad!" I say as he gives me a big bear hug.
"look your under your seat when you get down to earth" he whispers in my ear, I am very confused but for some reason as we pull away from each other I know the ground is survival, don't ask me how I know this but I can sense it so I place a kiss on his cheek as I leave the enter the Dropship with the famous
"May we meet again"
I'm quickly lead into a seat by a dark haired boy with freckles who is dressed like a guard, I can sense he is nervous as he is sweaty and his heart is racing but I brush off my concern as we begin our decent towards earth where our lives will change, some of us will be pushed to our limits, but what we don't know is that our lives will never be the same again.
I can hear conversations all around me but I try to block them out as being in a tin can where people are yelling and everyone is talking is giving me a slight headache, I'm honestly not used to this many people, it's normally just a group of max 15 people at most I'm around but I can sense 101 heartbeats weird number I think but the council always do strange things so I don't think about it too much.
I suddenly hear a Bang that makes the teenagers scream.
"What was that?" I hear the guard ask next to me.
"That was the atmosphere." I respond, he looks toward me and I can see all of his freckles and suddenly he looks very familiar
"I'm Bella" so I introduce myself as he seems friendly enough .
"I'm Bellamy" he says
It clicks into my brain as to why he seems so familiar so I grin and say "we've met before kinda" because that's not creepy at all bella! I scold myself
He furrows his eyebrows in confusion and with a small smirk he says "yeah because that's not creepy at all..."
I giggle and say "I heard stories from Octavia"
He opens his mouth to speak but Jaha appears in screen delivering his message.
"Prisoners of The Ark, hear me now. You've been given a second chance, and as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this as not just a chance for you, but a chance for all of us, indeed for mankind itself. We have no idea what is waiting for you down there. If the odds of survival were better, we would've sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable."
"Your dad is a dick, Wells." Someone yells. I don't think that's fair as he isn't his father but I get hes still Jaha's son so next best thing I guess.
Jaha continues his message "Those crimes will be forgiven, your records wiped clean." I snort at that and Bellamy looks over at me and smirks, defiantly a Blake thing.
"Not a fan?" He ask
"Not really" I respond , I don't fully trust him yet so I just leave it at that for now.
I block out all the other noise as Jaha talks about finding mount weather.
Suddenly there's a few bangs along with screams
We hit down onto the ground.
"Listen. No machine hum." A familiar voice says
"Whoa. That's a first." Now I recognize that voice as no other than Jasper Jordan
we all hear the Buckles clicking and remove our belts
"Finn, is he breathing?" I hear from somewhere upstairs and I'm immediately dad as we are down to 99 kids
"The outer door is on the lower level. Let's go."
I'm excited for the outside world now and I m looking for Octavia but I can't see her but I know she's somewhere here.
I stand near the door next to Bellamy, everyone is eager to escape and so am i.
"Hey, just back it up, guys." Bellamy says trying to stop people pushing
"Stop. The air could be toxic." The blonde who I now recognize as Clarke, Abby's daughter says
"If the air is toxic, we're all dead, anyway." I do agree but I wish he would hurry up, I'm itching to get out of here and run.
"Bellamy?" I turn to see my best friend, my sister coming toward us with a confused but happy face
"My God, look how big you are." Bellamy says smiling and she see me over his shoulder and grins but then looks back at her brother with a confused face again
"What the hell are you wearing, a guard's uniform?" She asks
I though he was a guard. I think now I'm confused
"I borrowed it to get on the drop ship. Someone has got to keep an eye on you."
"Where's your wristband?" Clarke says to Bellamy , Bella also noticed he hasn't got one, this is making Bella think about what he did to come on board the ship
"Do you mind? I haven't seen my brother in a year." Octavia yells
"No one has a brother."Someone yells
"That's Octavia Blake, the girl they found hidden in the floor." A girl says causing Bella to dust her hands and Octavia to lunge
"Octavia, Octavia, no. Let's give them something else to remember you by." Bellamy says while holding her back
"Yeah? Like what?" Octavia says holding onto my hand
Me and Bellamy grin at each other "Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years." I say apparently thinking the same thing as Bellamy.
Bellamy pulls down the lever opening the ramp and with a hiss and a big gush of air we can see earth for the first time and it is truly beautiful
me and Octavia slowly walk down the ramp breathing in the fresh air, looking at all the trees and the greenery, we are feeling the sun on our faces for the first time, I can't wait to be able to run free but I have to be careful because I'm afraid of what everyone might think of me in my true form.
We get to the end of the ramp and jump off feeling the crunch of the leaves below our feet,everyone is still in the workshop watching and waiting and a certain someone is watching the two girls in awe in particular a curtain blonde but the girls don't notice as they pick hands and fist pump the sky as they scream...
"WE'RE BACK BITCHES!"
And just like that everyone runs around screaming happily,excited to be here.
But all good things come to an end eventually.
As I look around I can feel someone watching me but that's always been my life so I shrug the feeling off and spin around smelling everything, all the scents, and it doesn't go unnoticed that I can sense someone in the trees but I figured if he wants to attack he would've done it by now so I guess he is observing the new people in his planet
I walk away from Octavia as Bellamy joins her as I sense he wants to talk to her so I scan the area and I quickly find my football's of friends and tackle them into a hug
"My boys!" Jasper and Monty start laughing and playfully punch on shoulder
"Beautiful isn't it?" Asks Monty, although it sounds like a question that doesn't need an answer.
Jasper looks around and sees clarke and wells looking at a map so obviously Jasper joins them and makes himself known and me being a lost puppy as I can't see Octavia,I pull Monty along as I follow Jasper
I can here the ending of their conversation as we walk up to them "Where'd you learn to do that?" Wells asks clarke and you can tell by Clarke's face its a sore subject"Your father." Wells signs
And Jasper is now trying to flirt with clarke "Ah, cool, a map. They got a bar in this town? I'll buy you a beer." I giggle
" I'd take a beer Jas " I mumble, I've never had alcohol in my life but new change right?
Wells shoved Jasper into me causing Monty to fall "You mind?" Wells says honestly it's obvious he's in love with clarke but I don't think she feels that way to him
"Whoa." Me and Jasper say in unison as I help Monty up and straighten my hair, because seriously I don't like my hair getting dirty
Here comes Murphy "Hey, hey, hey, hands off of him. He's with us." He says
"Relax. We're just trying to figure out where we are." Wells says.
Me being me rolls my eyes using sarcasm to try and ease the tension "earth" I say with a shrug and I hear Octavia giggle behind me so I walk up next to her locking our arms.
Bellamy comes up to us hearing wells speak so he says "We're on the ground. That not good enough for you?"
I grin and say to Octavia "basically what I just said" rolling my eyes and we giggle together
"We need to find Mount Weather. You heard my father's message. That has to be our first priority." Wells says and I get it so I shrug
But Octavia either doesn't get it or she doesn't care but I know she wants to leave camp for an adventure already "Screw your father. What, you think you're in charge here, you and your little Princess?" She sneers at Clarke
"Do you think we care who's in charge? We need to get to Mount Weather not because the Chancellor said so, but because the longer we wait, the hungrier we'll get and the harder this'll be. How long do you think we'll last without those supplies? We're looking at a twenty mile trek, okay? So if we want to get there before dark, we need to leave now." Clarke says and it's true we will starve
"I got a better idea. You two go, find it for us. Let the privileged do the hard work for a change." Bellamy says causing loads of people to agree
"You're not listening. We all need to go." Wells says
Murphy says "Look at this, everybody... The Chancellor of Earth."
"Think that's funny?" Wells asks Murphy
Murphy pushes wells and as wells lands he awkwardly falls twisting his ankle making him moan in pain
Clark runs to him to help but Murphy's gang hold her back "Wells!"
"Yeah, Come on. Get him!" One boy says to Murphy
"No, but that was. All right." Murphy say
A boy from near Murphy says "What you gonna do now, Wells?"
Murphy says "Come on. Come on." Wanting to fight
Murphy's gang cheer him on but suddenly
Finn jumps from the roof of the ship and the kids all moaning as they want to see a fight
"kid's got one leg. How about you wait until it's a fair fight?" Finn says to Murphy
Octavia walks up to Finn and says "Hey, Spacewalker, rescue me next." Successfully easing the tension and making everyone laugh " What? He's cute." Octavia says to Bellamy as he follows her wearing a unamused look
"He's a criminal." Bellamy says
"They're all criminals." I cut in walking with O
"Look, O. I came down here to protect you." Bellamy says to Octavia as he drags he away from me but I can still hear them
"I don't need protecting. I have been locked up one way or another all my life. I am done following orders. I need to have fun, Bell. I need to just do something crazy just because I can, and no one, including you, is gonna stop me." She replys
"I can't stay with them, O" but I walk away out of hearing range for anyone else but I can hear their conversation
I see clarke tending to Wells and I wish I could help him but I don't know them enough to help ease his pain, it's probably selfish of me but I'm afraid they'll look at me and kick me out for being different, I will tell them just not yet, one day
Finn walks up to them "Uh! So Mount Weather. When do we leave?" He asks as I come up
"Right now. We'll be back tomorrow with food." Clarke replies
Wells says "How are the two of you gonna carry enough food for a hundred?" He asks
Finn Grabs Monty and Jasper "Four of us. Can we go now?" As they spin around
Octavia comes up skipping to me and says "Sounds like a party. Make it six"
Bellamy comes up grabbing O's arm "Hey, what the hell are you doing?" Big brother mode alert
"Going for a walk." Octavia says as me and her link arms again
"Hey, were you trying to take this off?" Clarke asks Finn reaching for the wristband
"Yeah. So?" Finn asks
"So this wristband transmits your vital signs to The Ark. Take it off, and they'll think you're dead." Huh I wonder what's going on up there I wonder
"Should I care?" I give Finn a look, did he really say that, what about raven? I've never met her but I've heard about her from Finn
"Well, I don't know. Do you want the people you love to think you're dead? Do you want them to follow you down here in two months? Because they won't if they think we're dying." And just like that Finn gives into clarke
Finn signs "Okay." He says
"Now let's go." clarke says and walks off towards mount weather
Bellamy looks at me and Octavia and she gives him her puppy dogs eyes and he says "go on." With an eyeroll
Octavia grinS and kisses his cheek with a "Mwah"
"Be carefull!" He tells us as we walk off to the rest of the group
"Before you get any ideas, Finn is mine." Octavia says to clarke and me
Clarke rolls her eyes and says "Before you get any ideas, I don't care."she stomps off
"You know i don't want anything like that O" i say to her
she looks at me and sighs "I know Bella but someday you'll want someone"
"lets have an adventure!" I say to her while grinning changing the subject and so we both link arms and skip off towards mount weather.
We are a few hours into our journey to Mount weather, me and O with linked arms just in front of jasper and monty.
Finn comes up to us both and puts a purple flower behind both of our ears making us smile at him, it looks pretty and smells lovely too.
"Now, that, my friend, is game." jasper says behind us
And monty says back to him "That, my friend, is poison sumac."
Octavia panics and pulls it from her hair "What? It is?" she asks as I giggle at her
"I'm pretty sure they aren't poisonous" I say to the 2 boys and O
"The flowers aren't poisonous. They're medicinal, calming, actually." monty says as he eats one but raising an eyebrow at me.
Jasper seeing Octavia face explains " His family grows all the pharmaceuticals on The Ark."
Clarke suddenly turns around and looks annoyed at us and says "Hey, guys, would you try to keep up?"
Finn Walks beside her and asks "Come on, Clarke. How do you block all this out?"
Clarke says right away while facing foward "Well, it's simple. I wonder, 'why haven't we seen any animals?' Maybe it's because there are none. Maybe we've already been exposed to enough radiation to kill us. Sure is pretty, though. Come on."
Octavia looks at me and says "Someone should slip her some poison sumac." the four of us start giggling and snorting at that.
We are walking a bit longer and Finn turns toward us and asks "I got to know what you two did to get busted." towards Jasper and monty
Monty says " Sumac is not the only herb in the garden, if you know what I mean." raising his brows up and down
"Someone forget to replace what we took."
"Someone has apologized, like, a thousand times." monty replies playfully hitting jasper and he does the same.
Jasper looks at me and Octavia, luckily I've already though about this and knew the question was coming, obviously I can't say the real reason yet as I don't fully trust them not to freak out
"How about you, Octavia? Bella? What'd they get you two for?" he asks
"hitting a guard" I lie with a shrug
"Being born." Octavia replies quietly before running in front of the group with me
"That is so not game." I hear monty say
We see a deer so we all crouch down looking towards it. "No animals, huh?" Finn says to clarke with a brow raised
The deer must sense me as he looks our way and all of us let out a gasp at the sight, the deer has another head!
"Hey, you know what I'd like to know? Why send us down today after ninety seven years? What changed?" Finn asks after we see the deer
Octavia spins around a tree looking toward Finn but he doesnt look back and her face falls "Who cares? I'm just glad they did. I woke up rotting in a cell, and now I'm spinning in a forest."
I laugh and say "best present ever" while spinning Octavia round and she climbs on my back for a piggyback ride
"oh yeah i forgot.." monty says and he nudges Jasper
"Happy birthday!!" the boys behind me yell and Octavia kisses my cheek
Monty replies to Finns question after they wish me a happy birthday "Maybe they found something on a satellite, you know, like an old weather satellite or it wasn't a satellite." he suggests.
Clarke says as she walks foward "The Ark is dying. At the current population level, there's roughly three months left of life support, maybe four now that we're gone." huh makes sense why we have wristbands on.
Finn looks at her and says "So that was the secret they locked you up to keep, why they kept you in solitary, floated your old man?"
Clarke says "My father was the engineer who discovered the flaw. He thought the people had a right to know. The Council disagreed. My mother disagreed. They were afraid it would cause a panic. We were gonna go public, anyway, when Wells..." so that's why she doesnt like wells..
"What, turned in your dad?" Monty asks
im guessing that's a yes as she ignores him
"Anyway, the guard showed up before we could. That's why today. That's why it was worth the risk. Even if we all die, at least they bought themselves more time."Clarke says
Monty asks the question i know that the answer is yes to, i know my father and other council members talk about 'the culling' basically sacrificing people. "They're gonna kill more people, aren't they?"
Octavia says "Good. After what they did to me, I say, float them all." i know she doesnt mean it and she's angry at the ark, she did have to hid for 16 years after all and i was never left along after the age of 10 because of Jaha saying that i was a 'risk'
Jasper says "You don't mean that."
I smell a river so i grab O's arm a drag her towards it
when we stand on the rock overlooking the water, we look at each other and smirk, then we stark undressing
when we take our jeans off i hear Jasper behind me "Oh, damn, I love Earth."
we look back at them and they are all looking at us with their mouths wide
"see something you like?" I say with a wink, I cant help but tease them.
me and O jump into the water and play a trick on them to make them think its very deep, we crouch down so only our faces are showing
Monty yells at us "guys! We can't swim"
Octavia smirks and stands "I know, but we can stand"
I dip on head under the water and i sense something something coming towards us but before i can react a giant snake bites Octavia's leg and pulls her
I quickly shift hand into a paw and with on swipe i manage to injure it and it lets go to run away but not before grabbing my arm causing me to gasp
I grab Octavia and swim with her back to shore towards everyone.
Jasper jumps in to help us saying "I got you." bringing Octavia up out of the water
Finn yells "It's coming back."
Clarke says "It's headed right for you Bella" but i quickly jump out of the water as well and while they look at Octavia's leg i quickly wrap a piece of cloth around my arm
Octavia hugs me and jasper "Thank you. Thank you."
"anytime" i say with a chuckle
Clarke looks at my arm and he eyes widen at my blood around the cloth "You'll be okay but why is your blood black?" she questions
"no idea" i lie, thankfully she doesnt say anything else
Monty says "Note to self, next time, save the girl." we all laugh
The next morning we wake up, i check the bite mark on my arm and its gone.
We walk towards the the river towards mount weather and we find vines and make a rope so we can jump across.
clarke yells to Finn "You wanted to go first. Now quit stalling."
Octavia is sitting by me and says "Mount Weather await"
they all talk for a moment but i block them out as i get an uneasy feeling in my stomach
Jasper say "Wait." and looks towards us
Finn asks "What?"
"Let me. I can do it."
Finn says "Knew there was a badass in there somewhere." while Laughing
Jasper hesitates though
"Hey, it's okay to be afraid, Jasper. The trick is not fighting it." Finn helps Jasper
Jasper yells to everyone "See you on the other side. Ha ha! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Yeah!" he swings and lands on the other side
"We are apogee! Yeah!" we all laugh and yell happily
"yeah!"
"yes! Whoo!"
"Yeah! Whoo!"
Clarke says "You did it, Jasper!"
"Whoo! Yeah! Ha ha ha!"
Finn looks at clarke "Let's go, Princess. You're up."
Jasper encourages her "Come on, Clarke! You got this! Whoo! Apogee!" he finds a sign "We did it! Mount Weather! Whoo! Whoo!"
everyone yells again but I stand and grab Octavia's arm fearfully as i sense people other then the 6 teenagers.
I go to yell but its too late and i hear the spear before i see it, its too fast for me to grab and it impales Jasper to the tree.
we all gasp and yell his name "Jasper!"
"Jasper! No. Come on."
Me and Finn grab everyone as we hide behind a large rock "Get down. Get down."
"Come on."
I can still hear about 3 other people surrounding use that arent apart of our group.
Clarke says what we are all thinking "We're not alone." we are all left in shock and we all fear what is to come our way.
A/N
Hey, so i haven't written or even started anything like this before so all comments (good and bad) are welcome, im sorry if the writing is a mess, i suck at spelling etc... anyway i had this idea for a book and so i decided to try writing a story. I have ideas already but i would love opinions aswell as this is all new to me :) enjoy.
Oh and ill just upload the pilot episode so i can see if this is what people are wanting etc.
Oh also my laptop is getting fixed (bad timing right) so im currently writing this on a tablet so its slow writing but i am already starting episode 2 but i will wait till i see what everyone thinks of episode 1 so far, again sorry for spelling and publication, writing on a tablet isn't easy.
One more thing, let me know if 2 parts to each episode is easier or if you'd want to stay with the 1 episode per chapter thing (hope that makes sense)
Anyone guess what Bella is?
Enjoy :) I'll see you all next time!
Mwah!