Pilot Part Two - Chapter Two
We took off away from camp. The six of us marching through the woods, marching together towards Mount Weather. Clarke and Octavia were at the back while Space Walker, Goggles and his friend walked beside me. I turned around to see that they were having a heated conversation, frowning I kept walking, not wanting to start a cat fight.
"So is it true?" Space Walker had begun walking beside me, his head was watching the ground to make sure he wasn't tripping on any roots.
"What do you mean Space Walker?" I asked him, using his nickname because I didn't know his real one.
"That you killed your own father?"
I stopped in my tracks then turned to him. Cocking my head to the side I gave him a frown, didn't he realize I was not in the mood to be punctured in the same pestering wound over and over again? "He wasn't my father."
"Why did you do it?" He looked up at me, his eyes shining against the sunlight that filtered through the thick canopy of trees.
I thought for a moment, "Listen, Space Walker, you don't know anything about me."
"Sheesh," He chuckled and raised his hands, but when he saw my reaction he dropped it. "I'm Finn."
With a roll of my eye's, I trudged away from him, muttering under my breath, "Bye Finn."
We have been walking for hours now, the sun was slowly setting, and Clarke was at the front. I was in the back with Jasper and Monty, we had been talking for a while now and they are actually pretty funny. Who would've guessed the most nerdiest guys in camp were actually silliest kind of people. My eyes scanned a grass wall that was formed up ahead, I watched Finn pick up one of the purple flowers and place it in Octavia's hair.
"That is how you get the girl." I whispered to both of them, they smiled smugly.
"Here." Jasper nudged my shoulder, in his hand was the purple flower that was scattered around us. I glanced at it closely; poison sumac.
Smiling I took it from him and threw it up in the air, watching it slowly fall back to the ground. "Thank you, but I'm not that kind of girl."
"Good, because that is poison sumac." Monty says, his voice loud enough to catch Octavia's attention.
"What?" She shrieks and rings her hands through her hair to pull the flower from her ear.
"The flowers aren't poisonous. They're medicinal, calming, actually." Monty adds as he shoves one in his mouth, I crinkle my nose in digust.
"His family grows all the farmisudicals on the Ark." Jasper explains to us.
There was a silence. I continued my walk passed OCtavia's discarded flower, crumpled into the soft moss on the ground. I breathed in the air; clear and fresh and cold. It woke me up, and a subtle smile made its way onto my face. Jasper chuckled at my happiness.
"Hey guys can you try to keep up?" Clarke calls out with annoyance.
"Come on Clarke, how do you block this all out?" Finn asks, mentioning to the purple flowers and the ferns around us.
"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." Clarke replies.
I swear I could hear everyone groan. I kept my thoughts to myself, agreeing with Clarke. She was right, they should've seen something by now. I thought wildly back to the classes she had before getting arrested. There was a plenty of animals that deemed to fit this territory surrounding them.
"Sure is pretty though," I say to everyone and go up to the front with my sister, she gives a small smile.
Clarke and I walked a faster pace than the others, so when we reached a clearing we stopped to look around. The others were farther behind, talking about the reasons why they were in the skybox. I put a hand against Clarke's stomach, stopping her from moving. In the field was a deer grazing on grass. Clarke smiled at the animal that oblivious to us, she mentioned with a waving hand for the others to join us.
"No animals, huh?" Finn commented cheekily, I smacked him in the shoulder.
He gave me a dirty look before moving closer, his foot snapped a stick causing the Deer head the snap up and looked around for the noise. I fell onto my butt surprised at the animals looks, it was defiantly different than a deer. On one side of the deers face another deer head was growing, muscle and puss with it. I put a hand over my mouth as I watched it prance away.
Gulping I stood up, waiting for the others to follow my actions. We walked across the open field and the deer was no longer to be seen. I looked both way before entering the woods again, the misty air hung around us. We ventured down a hill, I walked beside Clarke, who cautiously held onto her black knapsack.
"You what I'd like to know? Why send us down today after ninety seven years? What changed?" Finn yelled from the front, where he and Octavia walked.
"What changed is that you're giving me a headache!" I replied in a smart alic tone.
Finn turned around and gave me a look, I flashed him a cheeky smile. Octavia grabbed one of the trees and spun around it, trying to catch Finn off guard but it didn't work. I pulled my ponytail tighter, the throbbing pain ebbed through my skull. It could actually be Finn, giving me the head ache or it could've been from this morning when I smashed my head on the metal chair. Sighing I listened up to what Monty was saying, something about a satellite and the reason why we're down here.
"It wasn't a satellite. The Ark is dying," Clarke said in a dead tone. Everyone turned to her, including me. "At current population level, there's only roughly three months left of life support, maybe four now that we're gone."
"So that was the secret they locked you up to keep?" Finn said, falling beside her. "Why they kept you in solitary. Floated your old man."
"What?" I said, everyone stopped and turned to me. "He's dead?"
Clarke pressed her lips in a firm line, she nodded her head and kept walking. I put a hand over my mouth hiding the terror on my face. I'll never meet my real father. The group started walking again, Finn kept glancing back at me. I pulled my hand way from my mouth and wiped the single tear that fell down onto my cheek.
I caught up with the group with a sniffle. Clarke was in mid sentence, "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 we bought them more time."
"They're gonna kill more people, aren't they?" Monty suspected.
"Good! After what they did to me, I say float them all." Octavia snapped and waved through the group so she could get to the front.
"You don't mean that!" Jasper called after her, following her deeper into the woods like a lost puppy.
"We have to warn them," I spoke, my voice wavering.
"That's what dad said." She gave me a smile that didn't reach her eyes, then she took off in the direction that Jasper went.
I followed after her, trudging though the leaves. I ran into her back, not expecting her to stop. Frowning I moved to the side to see what the hold up was. Octavia was undressing, she pulled off her jump suit revealing her burgundy crop top and her black underwear. Jasper was smirking, saying something about how he loved earth.
"Octavia, what the hell are you doing?" Clarke said as Octavia went towards the river.
I didn't wait for her to respond, she was going to get herself killed, no one could swim, I thought she was smarter than that. I ran towards her but I was too late, she jumped off the rock and into the water. I stood at the egde, I could see her hair floating in the water. But either than that the river was dark and murky, I gasped thinking of the deer from before.
I turned to everyone, my ponytail whipping me in the face. "Guys, this rivers not supposed to be here. Remember the deer? What if they're some mutant fish in the water or something?" I said quickly.
"I can stand." I heard her voice.
I ran over back to the rocks, Octavia was standing in the water splashing it around with her fingers. I furrowed my eyebrows together and scanned the valley.
"No, Blithe you're right." Jasper said under his breath.
"What?" I said and looked to where he was looking.
Ripples of water started to occur farther down stream, a slick black thing rose out of the water and went back down under. I gulped and looked at Octavia then back to the ripples. What ever it was, it was moving fast, almost half way towards Octavia's swimming spot.
"Octavia, get out of the water," I said, she looked at me confused.
"Get out of the water now!" Jasper yelled at her.
Octavia turned around to see the ripples heading her way, what ever it was it was slick and fast. Octavia screamed and began swimming back towards us, she disappeared under the water. I held my breath and looked carefully for the mutant fish, trying to catch a glimpse of something.
Suddenly she popped out of the water, arms flailing everywhere. I gasped at the sound of her terrified screams, I wanted to slither out of my own skin. The group quickly moved to the other side of the rocks, following Octavia's arm spamsims.
"What the hell is that?" Monty asked.
"We have to save her," Finn stated, moving towards the water.
"What are you going to do?" Jasper asked, looking concerned.
"Try not to get eaten," Finn replied truthfully, starting to pull of his vest.
"No wait!" Clarke pushed him back away from the water. "If we distract it, it might let her go."
I nodded and quickly moved to the loose rocks near the end. I pushed them off and they plopped into the water. Clarke did too, helping me, helping Octavia. She stopped screaming, which meant the plan worked. But know we needed to figure out a way to get Octavia back onto land, because she was going to drown soon enough.
Jasper moved quickly and jumped into the deep end beside Octavia, he used all his strength and helped her towards the shore. Jasper was struggling to keep himself afloat, but he could make it, I knew he could.
"It's coming back!" Finn yelled, alarming the two in the water.
I quickly scrambled down onto the shore, helping them out of the water. Octavia gasped for air, like a greedy child. A large gash was on her right upper thigh, Bellamy is going to kill us. Jasper protectively grabbed at her waist and arm as if that would keep them of the water.
Clarke quickly ripped a long piece of Jasper's shirt and tied it above Octavia's wound. Octavia mumbled a thank you and hugged Jasper as if he was her life supply. I looked up to Monty, who was smiling innocently.
"Note to self, next time save the girl." Monty laughed and patted Jaspers shoudler, I shook my head at them.
After getting Octavia back into her jumpsuit we left the river, it was almost pitch dark out. I was shivering, my clothes were wet from earlier and the air had becomes cooler. I wrapped my arms around myself and jumped up and down, trying to get my blood flowing.
Finn gave me a confused look as we scaled the hill we descended from earlier in the day. I shrugged it off and followed them up the hill, trying not the stumble on the roots that I couldn't see because it was so dark out. Clarke stopped and sat down at a large stump of trees, she leaned back and zipped up her jacket to keep her warmer. I laid down beside her, instantly dozing off, knowing that in the morning my feet would be killing me.
I woke up to Finns face three inches away from mine, snoring his face off. I inched my self away with disgust and slowly got up, noticing that the sun was up. Its sunlight was scattered throughout the trees, shining on things, making them look ten times more beautiful. I smiled waiting for every one to wake up. Today is the day that we get back to camp with the food.
We made out way down to the river again, it looked the exact same from yesterday. The only thing different was that no one was going for a swim, we were going to make a rope to get across. For the next there hours we pent the time building a long strong rope out of vines around the woods. We made sure that the rope was ready to hold us by having a tug-of-war. It was fun and I was pretty sure I had mud all over my face.
Finn climbed the tree closest to the water and tied the rope around a large thick branch, he slid down the rope like a monkey with a large playful smile on his face. We stood around the vine rope, deciding who to go first. It was either Finn or Jasper that was going. I stood by Clarke and Octavia, watching the boys talk one on one to eachother, Jasper grabbed the rope and Finn stopped away. He glanced down at Octavia, who was staring up at him with the cheesiest grin on her face.
"It's okay to be afraid Jasper, the trick is not fighting it." Finn gave him hope.
Jasper nodded excitedly and gripped onto the rope. "See yah on the other side."
Jasper pulled back on the vine rope and and jumped off of the rock, flying past over the river. He let out a strangled battle cry, I laughed as he let go of the rope and fell into a bundle of logs near the shore on the other side. Finn quickly caught the rope and the group gathered together, Jasper smirked in disbelief of what he just did.
"We are Apogee!" He screamed holding his fists into the air.
We copied him, screaming and waving our fists in the air. It felt great to yell, it wasn't something you did in the Ark. We yelled encouraging words at him as he did a happy dance, jumping up in the air and kicking his feet together. We laughed at his silliness. Finn pulled back the rope and handed it to me.
"Come on, Blithe! You got this!" Jasper yelled from across the river, putting a smile on my face.
I glanced over at everyone else, who was looking over to Jasper as he picked something up from the ground. He held a metal sign above his head and smiled. My heart hammered in my chest at the thought of swinging over a deadly animals habitat. Bait on a line.
"We did it! Mount Weather!" He screamed and hollered again and again.
"Yes!" I said with a huge smile across my face.
Just as I was about to pull back on the vine a spear lodged into Jaspers chest, knocking him into the tree behind him. Clarke called out for him, her voice wavering with pain and concern. Finn head was on a swivel, looking back up into the trees, I gulped nervously and dropped the rope.
Finn was the first to action, grabbing my waist and moving me down to where the other's are. My eyes still locked on Jaspers body. He was shocked, looking straight at the spear in his chest. That could've been me. Finn was yelling for me to get down, but I was shocked, I couldn't move, he yanked me down beside him and I looked up towards the blue sky.
"We're not alone." Clarke confirmed with a wavering voice.
With a strangled gasp I reached out for my sisters hand.
What do you all think if Blithe?
~Ava ✌️