Date: December 1st, 2149
Location: Ton D.C.
THE BOMB THAT HIT the quiet Grounder village of Ton D.C. just shy of a month ago still created a sense of destruction masked within the rubble. It was another reminder of death in the world; another reminder of the mass murder that happened in Mount Weather. The murders he committed.
"Together," he said to the girl he never imagined taking on life on the ground without. The word seemed to mean so little to her now. Where was she? She wasn't there helping him through the guilt. Together. He hadn't just meant pulling the lever to end so many lives. He also meant dealing with the aftermath. Together. The word still echoed in his ears; the horror of all the dead bodies in Mount Weather still haunted his dreams.
Going on a scouting mission always made him anxious to look for her just in case she had come back, or maybe he was traveling to wherever she was headed next. He shook his head. 'She's not coming back', he told himself.
The man standing in the middle of the desiccated village shivered as a fresh and bitter wind swept through the air. Winter was his least favorite season. He hated the way the cold caused his hands to feel numb as he held his rifle in his hands. He hated the aching feeling that the freezing weather put in his bones. No matter how many layers of blankets he set over his body at night, he still felt cold. In his mind, the weather matched his mood. He gazed around him at the bare trees that were once lively with the autumn colors of yellow and orange and red. Now, all of their leaves were scattered on the ground and withered into nothing; another symbol of death. Those seemed to be everywhere on Earth.
He focused his thoughts away from the leaves and scanned the area for any hostiles. Relations with the grounders were strained ever since their leader betrayed his people in Mount Weather. He resented for the grounders for everything that had happened in the past months, but most of, for their betrayal at Mount Weather that caused the unspeakable genocide of innocents. The grounders had done little to reach out and try to repair the alliance. For that, he was glad. Grounders only complicated everything and all they wanted to do was inflict more violence. His opinion was good riddance.
But, this scouting mission wasn't for the Grounders that broke the alliance. This was for another clan that was stirring up trouble and slowly breaking the borders they weren't supposed to cross. The Ice Nation, or Azgeda as the Woods Clan called them, were even more vicious and problematic than the other Grounders on Earth. His job was to make sure they weren't advancing towards Arkadia, the home of his people.
"Bellamy!" The sound of someone calling his name caused him to swiftly turn around, ready to use his gun if he had to. Bellamy noticed his best friend, Nathan Miller, motioning for him to come over where he was standing. "You need to see this."
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She couldn't breathe.
The first thing Lane Sawyer noticed when her eyes snapped open was that she couldn't breathe. Her brain automatically went into survival mode as she gasped for breath and looked around in her pod for the button that would snap it open. Lane's eyes fell on a small circular black button to her right as panic seeped into her whole being, and without hesitation, she slammed her palm on it with as much force as possible.
The pod made an irritating beeping noise as it opened, and the brunette inhaled loudly as the air began to return to her lungs. Lane laid in her pod for a few moments as she focused on getting her breathing under control. She closed her eyes as her heartbeat slowed, and when they opened she realized that she was in complete darkness except for the small trickle of light emitted from her pod.
With furrowed eyebrows, Lane sat up. Her mind felt foggy; like she wasn't actually awake. Was this a dream? She didn't know for sure until a shooting pain went through her skull suddenly, and she winced realizing that all of this was extremely real.
Lane hung her legs off of the side of the pod and tentatively pressed her bare toes on the hard floor. She jerked her toes away as soon as they contacted the freezing concrete that felt like ice. The brunette glanced around the room as her grey eyes adjusted to the darkness. Why was the room so silent? There should have been a faint humming from the seventy-four other pods that held people like her, but the only sound echoing in the room was Lane's heavy breathing. Lane knew something was very wrong, but she was tempted to just lay back down because of how unsteady and groggy she felt. Lane shook off those thoughts as her naturally curious nature took over. She had to find out what was going on. So, she carefully stood up.
The thin white tank top and leggings weren't anywhere near enough to keep her from shivering as she strayed away from the warmth of her pod. Lane tried to ignore the icy feeling under her feet as she began to walk around the bunker, noticing that all the other pods were still sealed shut. Maybe hers was just the first to open. Maybe the others would be awake soon.
No, Lane knew all the pods were supposed to open at the same time on May 9th, 2252. If it really was Awakening Day, the others would rise from their pods right when she had. Fear, dread, and uncertainty all bombarded Lane at once. She had woken up early. The question was, how early? Was the Earth even survivable yet? Were there any survivors at all besides the others in the bunker?
Lane brushed off the questions from her mind as she wandered throughout the wide bunker. Her feet had become numb as she searched for the light switch. She knew it was somewhere around the front of the Pod Room. She finally contacted a wall and felt around for what felt like a lifetime before her fingers landed on a small switch. Lane quickly flipped it on, and slowly all the lights above her began to flicker with life.
Her grey eyes returned to the other seventy-four pods, and her curiosity quickly was replaced with horror at the sight before her. Almost every single pod was dead, and the people inside of them looked like they had been dead too for a while. Suddenly forgetting completely about the cold, Lane's panicked mind took over as she ran to every pod checking for anyone that was still alive.
"No," she gasped over and over again. "No. This can't be happening."
She frantically moved throughout the room, her mind racing to find an answer to why all the other pods had died. Some of the people inside were so decayed that Lane couldn't make out who they were; if they were a man or woman, old or young.
Lane stopped at the pod next to hers as a realization popped into her mind. She woke up not being able to breathe as if all the oxygen was vanishing from her pod at once; like it randomly malfunctioned out of nowhere. No warning, nothing at all. The scientists who invented them miscalculated with how long the pods could last; it was a miscalculation that took seventy-four lives.
The real question was why was she able to get out of her pod while no one else was? The button to open them was very reachable. What possibly could have happened? Why was she the only one alive? The situation was fishy, but every time she tried to remember how she ended up in that room, she was met with a blank image of white.
Lane continued to check the pods still having no luck finding anyone else that was alive. Frustration conquered the fearfulness and uncertainty in her mind as the brunette kicked the nearest pod in anger. She sank to the ground with her head in her hands, pulling her knees tightly to her chest as the numbness in her bones began to grow like a wildfire in her body.
She refused to accept death. Lane wasn't going to die down there. There had to be a reason she was the only one to survive, and it wasn't just so she could freeze to death.
"Get up!" Her mind yelled. "Get up!"
Lane forced herself to stand, feeling unsteady in her skin. When she tried to walk, a sensation of a million tiny pinpricks went through her feet. She was absolutely freezing. Lane had never been so cold in her entire life. Her body felt hopeless and dull and void of anything at all. This felt like how she imagined death.
But she was not dying today.
The brunette moved as quickly as she could towards the back of the room where the supplies were stored. There were cobwebs all around the metal drawers that held clothing and blankets. Her hands shook as she pulled open the first metal drawer and searched for a pair of jeans that looked like they would fit.
Once she had gotten the clothing she needed, Lane felt like collapsing. She could barely feel any muscles in her body. Her teeth chattered as she pulled on navy jeans and warmth slowly started to return to her feet once they had socks and shoes to shield them from the icy floor. After pulling on a new shirt and thick, black leather jacket Lane felt some of the numbness seeping away from her body, but she was still shivering.
Her head began to feel even foggier. The room spun a few times as Lane stumbled. She knew this couldn't be from the cold. It was too early for that. Something about her body felt off and abnormal. Maybe it was the after-effects of the hypersleep. Maybe she was just dying slower than everyone else.
Lane finally fell to the floor, not being able to keep her eyes open as everything around her faded into a frozen blackness.
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Bellamy looked around him at the sickening sight in absolute confusion. Not only was there a secret bunker located right under a Grounder village, but it was also full of dead people in circular silver pods. Was this a tomb of some sort? It couldn't be. These people didn't look like they were meant to be buried.
Miller moved around on the other side of the room as he looked into each pod with a disgusted look etched on his face. Bellamy ran his hand through his dark curls and let out an exasperated sigh. Just when he thought earth couldn't get even more messed up, he found a bunker of decaying dead people trapped in weird pods.
"What do you think this is?" Miller asked as he walked back over to stand beside Bellamy. "Some kind of weird, religious burying style?" A sly grin formed on his face. "Aliens?"
Bellamy scoffed, "Definitely not aliens, Miller. I think these people were trying to escape the radiation, but obviously it ended up finding them." Bellamy glanced around the dark bunker. "Let's keep looking around. Maybe we'll find some good supplies."
Miller nodded and strolled to the other end of the room as Bellamy slowly moved throughout the pods. He scrunched his nose from the awful scent of decayed flesh emitted in the room. He wanted to get out of that place as soon as possible.
Bellamy made it to the back of the room where a bunch of metal drawers were located. A few of them were thrown open. Some clothes had been scattered out on the floor as if someone was rummaging through them in a hurry. He was surprised more clothes hadn't been taken yet. After all, the door to the bunker wasn't locked or sealed. The bomb that hit Ton D.C. must have destroyed whatever was keeping the bunker hidden for ninety-seven years.
He stopped when he noticed something odd out of the corner of his eyes. Bellamy turned around, and his eyes widened when he saw a girl lying in the corner. Her cheeks were pale; her lips had almost turned blue. Bellamy immediately ran over to her, stopping when he noticed her features. She looked to be in her early twenties like he was. She had long, wavy brown hair and soft olive skin with a few brown freckles dotted on her cheeks.
Bellamy carefully reached his hand down towards the sleeping beauty. He brushed a piece of her thick hair out of her face before moving his hand down to her neck. Right as he began to feel for a pulse, the girl's eyes shot open. Deep, chocolate brown met a wild, stormy grey as the girl aggressively grabbed his hand and gave him an alarmed look.
"Easy, easy," Bellamy said lowly as he tried to calm her down. The girl released his hand in one swift motion as some of the fear seemed to fade from her eyes. "I'm not going to hurt you."
"What year is it?" She asked frantically in a desperate tone. Bellamy gave her a perplexed look as she sat up quickly; too quickly. She looked like she was about to pass out again.
Bellamy reached out for her, "Just calm down-"
"What year is it?!" She asked again, even louder and more desperate than before.
"It's 2149," he finally answered.
The girl looked down, "No," her voice was barely audible. "That's-that's too early."
She was only confusing him more, "Too early for what?"
The girl's eyes caught his again as a horrible realization seemed to strike her, but before she spoke her head began to sway. The girl fell right into Bellamy's arms as she was at the brink of passing out once again.
"I have to warn them," Were the last words to leave her mouth before her eyes fluttered closed.
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So, what did you guys think of chapter one. Any ideas about why she woke up early, or was the only one to survive? Leave your comments below and don't forget to vote. :)