september 13 2149
THE APOCALYPSE CAME, 97 years ago the Earth was bombarded with nuclear missiles, flooding the Earth with simmering radiation - killing all life.
The only survivors, the remainder's of humankind, were aboard 12 space stations. They came together to form the Ark, where mankind must endure until the Earth is survivable once again.
Apparently today, was that day.
Aria panicked silently as she was forced into a single file line along one of cold grey corridors of the Ark. Her wrist still stung from the wristband a guard had secured to her when she was dragged from her cell. It reminded her of a handcuff, the fearful irrational animal in her head wanted it off. The rational part shut those thoughts down. She'd seen the glowing LEDs in its interior, it's biometric, measuring her vitals. Harmless.
"Come on, let's go." A different guard grabbed her by the arm, forcing her towards the ladder up ahead.
She wrenched her arm from him, "I can walk myself." She climbed the rungs, she didn't stop until she reach the top level. Rows of seats surrounded her, she picked one opposite a small screen, and fastened the bright red harness.
She tried to calm her breathing, as the other delinquents from the Skybox filled in. But that was easier said than done. As far as anyone knew there was still too much radiation on the blue planet, and as soon as they landed they would be exposed and their bodies would break down, their cells would ionise and their DNA would mutate, leading to painful slow deaths.
"I'll figure it out!" The last words her father had spoken to her ring in her head, "I'll get you out of this, Aria! I promise." While it was only less than week ago, it seemed like eons. "I will see you again."
Aria had to choke back a sob as she realised, she would never see her dad again. He was wrong. Somehow she had deluded her self into believing him. If she had even allowed her self to think of the other people she was leaving behind, she would break down, so she didn't.
Aria didn't want to die.
The dropship filled up. No one had told her that's what it was, but it was glaringly obvious. She recognised faces here and there, from classes and her short stint in the skybox. One of her oldest friends, Miller, sat next to her. They didn't say anything to each other, but he gripped her hand, as the drop ship lurched.
They'd met as kids in the mess hall. She'd known him most her life, now they would likely die together.
A silent understanding passed between them, they didn't want to die.
Then they launched.
Aria was smart, she loved to study, and learn. She was the top of her class, and the two classes above her. Youngest medic on the ark in 48 years, pharmacist, chemist, biologist, computer scientist. But she wasn't an engineer, and even she knew that this drop ship, wasn't in the best shape. That this was a rush job. She could tell just by the shoddy welding on the panels.
She didn't trust it to even make it to Earth let alone whether the planet would kill them all instantly.
The was a large jolt, the atmosphere. She gripped Millers hand harder. "Please don't let me die in an explosion." She prayed to no particular deity under her breath.
"At least it's quicker than being floated." The boy beside her muttered. Aria let out a shaky laugh. She hated this. She'd been afraid many times in her life, but she had always been able to control the outcome. In the operating theatre, the scalpel was in her hand. When she was arrested, she had turned herself in. She liked to be in control, and here she had less than none.
The video screens flickered on, displaying Chancellor Jaha in HD, she couldn't help her face contort with distaste at the sight of him. The man who killed her mother. The man who had sentenced her to death. "Prisoners of the Ark, here 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."
Aria's stomach turned at that. They've been sent to die. Why not just float them all? Probably would've taken too long, and there's the horrid personal touch of having to manually execute each child criminal.
But she would've gotten to say goodbye.
Even if they land, even if the Earth doesn't kill them right away, she still doesn't get to see her family again.
Of course if she was still in her cell she would've died within the week anyway. In four days exactly, she would've been led to the airlock in Arrow station, her family watching, and she would've been sentenced to death by Chancellor Jaha, and released into cold unending vacuum of space. Just as her mother had a 12 years ago.
She barely remembered her mother. But she remembered she was kind, soft, understanding. She'd been floated for some kind of hacking incident. Apparently the details were classified. Aria supposed she'd never know.
She supposes sending them to Earth, the Ark has nothing to loose, and everything to gain. More air and resources spared, and an answer to to conditions on Earth.
"Those crimes will be forgiven. Your record wiped clean. The drop side has been chosen carefully. Before the last war, Mount Weather was a military base built within a mountain. It was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain three hundred people for up to 2 years."
A horrible thought shuddered through Aria. Opening the mountain and finding 300 skeletons made her nauseous.
"Mount Weather is life. You must locate the supplies immediately."
If there's any left. Aria bitterly thought.
She could hear people yelling from the deck below. But she just gripped Millers hand tighter. He'd shut his eyes tightly, as if he what he couldn't see, couldn't hurt him. Aria resisted the urge to do the same.
"Your responsibility is to stay alive."
The gravity of the situation hit her. She was going to Earth. One way or another. Dead or alive.
Her body would be buried on the ground.
Of course Aria had always dreamed of the Earth. They all had. It was the only dream. But until today, that's all Aria had regarded it as, an impossible possibility. Now it was her reality.
The drop ship started to shudder and rattle. Aria gave in, clamping her eyes shut. At least the tears couldn't fall.
"In peace, may you leave this shore. In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey to the ground. May we meet again." She whispered, like a mantra, over and over again.
"I hate to point out that this is our final journey to the ground." Miller quipped.
"Shut up, Miller."
"The retrorockets aren't firing." Aria's panic consumed her. This is it. Her final moments. The ship shuddered even more, the lights flashing. "Come on." She pleaded.
Then it wasn't.
They had landed.
"Touchdown." Aria whispered to herself.
They had landed on Earth.
They weren't dead.
They were alive.
Everyone was silent for a second. Then the sound of 100 buckles unclipping filled the air.
Aria and Miller rushed to the ladder, as they were sitting fairly central they were the first on their level. On her descent to the ground level, she caught sight of two unmoving bodies. They must have taken their seatbelts off. How idiotic. Then Aria remembered that they were just kids. They might have been criminals, but they were just kids, with families, friends, maybe lovers. She scolded herself but kept climbing down.
"No!" She heard a familiar voice yell. Clarke. Of course, she hadn't seen her for a year. "We can't just open the doors!"
Aria reached the final level with a huff.
"Back it up guys!" A male voice rang out.
"Stop!" Clarke demanded. She was just behind Aria. She recognised a flash of surprise on Clarke's face at her presence, of course she wouldn't have known that she was arrested. "The air could be toxic." She told the male by the door.
It was the guard who manhandled her onto the ship. Although Aria suspected he wasn't supposed to stay. A stowaway perhaps. He looked older too.
"If the air is toxic then we're all dead anyway." He said.
"Aria?" Clarke turned to Aria looking for support.
But Aria had none to give. This many people, in a closed space this small with no oxygen regeneration. She did a quick calculation. It would be mere hours before the oxygen level got to a dangerous condition. "He's right."
"Bellamy?" A girls voices shocked voice called. The man turned, his face slacked in disbelief.
Aria could hear murmurs throughout the crowd as the girl approached him. "That's the girl who was found under the floor." One said. Aria remembered, a year ago, a girl had been arrested for being a second child, and her mother floated. She had been hidden under the floor. What a horrid childhood.
The guards face split into a smile. "My god, look how big you are." The girl under the floor flung herself at him in a bear hug.
"What the hell are you wearing?" The girl quizzed with a face of disgust. "A guards uniform?"
"I borrowed it to get on the drop ship. Someone has to keep an eye on you." A few alarm bells rang in Arias head. She turned them off. Stealing a uniform and sneaking on to a drop ship sounds exactly like something she'd do for her own brother.
"Where's your wristband?" Clarke questioned staring at the faux-guard. Aria shot her a disapproving glare for interrupting the reunion.
"Do you mind." The girl snapped. "I haven't seen my brother in a year."
"No one has a brother!" A voice from the crowd called out. Aria quipped an eyebrow. Clearly not true.
Another voice yelled, "That's Octavia Blake! The girl they found hidden in the floor!"
The girl, Octavia, lurched forward in anger, but her brother caught her. "Octavia, Octavia, no." He calmed her. "Let's give them something else to remember you by."
"Yeah? Like what?"
"Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years." Aria resisted the urge to correct him. 97 years. Her dad told her that her constant need to correct people was an unlikeable trait.
He pulled the lever. Arias breath hitched, the door hissed steam, lowering. Blinding white light flooded Arias vision. Natural light. Sunlight.
It was beautiful. Trees. So much green as far as the eye could seen. The breeze hit her face, it was soft and warm. Aria breathed deeply. She could smell the Earth. She couldn't place how it smelled because she had never smelled anything like it before. The living tree they kept on the Ark had no comparison to this.
Aria thought about the the first man on the moon, 180 years ago. An astronaut named Neil Armstrong. "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Octavia only had one small step now, before another giant leap for mankind.
Octavia tentatively stepped out, reached the edge of the lowered door. Taking a long deep breath. One small step. She paused, and jumped. She was on the Earth. Humans were on the Earth.
"WE'RE BACK BITCHES!!!" She yelled, throwing her hands up in the air. Aria couldn't help but break out into a grin, and along with the rest of the delinquents, she cheered and ran out the door.
Her feet hit the Earth with a squelch. Mud. For once her brain silenced, the thousands of thoughts of dangers and scientific inquiry subsided, she let out a purely euphoric laugh.
She was on Earth.