4"We're back bitches!" was the call that unfroze us. We all rushed out at once, a mad, writhing mass of people, for now not in the least concerned about the radiation that might be seeping into our bones and killing us off even as we danced for joy. No, we were too happy for that. To feel the grass beneath our feet, the wind on our faces, the warmth of the sun- this was bliss. The heady feeling was only exacerbated by each others' excitement as we screamed our joy to this new and exciting world. Nothing could have brought us down, I thought. Nothing except for Clarke Griffin, and her incessant need to be in charge. I had never liked her, even on the ark, but when her newest puppy dog, Finn, grabbed Jasper and Monty for her little expedition to Mount Weather, I elected to go too. I had learned my lesson with Clarke once, when she was helping her mother and I in medical. She was persistent, and didn't give up even when she was wrong. No way was I letting Monty and Jasper go on a trip in an unfamiliar, dangerous place, with someone so single-mindedly focused on her purpose.
So what if I'm a little bit of a mama bear? I had always been protective of my friends. There was nothing wrong with that.
"Make that six," I added, walking up to the group. "What, you nerds think you can leave without me?" I shot at Jasper, who just looked away. I was confused. We had been getting along well earlier, why did he shut me down like that? I looked around, trying to figure it out. Then I realized Octavia Blake was there. Oh.
"I see. Well, Monty and I'll have fun, right?" I said cheerfully in the awkward silence, linking arms with the shy boy.
"Yeah, it'll be a blast," he said sarcastically. "We can die of radiation poisoning in each others' arms."
"Whatever guys, lets just go, alright? We need to get back here as soon as possible with food." Three guesses as to who that was. You guessed it, Chancellor Griffin herself.
We tromped out of the clearing we had landed in. It must've been quite a sight; six delinquents, all clad in impractical fabrics, walking out into the woods in total silence. We were all (except Clarke) trying to take in the scenery that was so unlike anything we had seen before. That, of course, couldn't last.
"That, my friend, is poison sumac," Monty tells Jasper. They had been messing around for hours, ever since they figured out that Clarke was not actually an official to whom they were required to listen.
"What? It is?" Jasper said, panicking. I just sniggered from my place in the back.
"The flowers aren't poisonous. They're medicinal, calming actually." It made sense for Monty to know that, with his background on Farming Station. It was more a wonder that Jasper didn't know that.
"I guess you would know all about medicinal herbs, wouldn't you guys?" I drawled, referring to their illegal activities back on the ark. Monty chuckled, and Jasper turned to glare at me. He had moved from hitting on me to trying to impress Octavia, and I didn't care about his his romantic goals, but I would have appreciated it if he didn't ignore me.
"Hey, guys, would you try to keep up?" Yup, right on time. You could always trust Clarke to hone in on any fun and destroy it.
"Why are you being such a bitch?" I asked bluntly, steamrolling over whatever Finn wanted to say. I didn't honestly care.
"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. But joke away, at least the scenery's pretty!"
"Someone should slip her some poison sumac." Jasper whispers, and everyone sniggers.
"I got to know what you two did to get busted." Finn says to my friends.
"Sumac is not the only herb in the garden," Jasper replies, winking, "If you know what I mean."
"And someone," Monty added, annoyed, "forgot to replace what we took."
"Someone had apologized, like, a thousand times. How about you, Octavia? What'd they get you for?" Jasper was trying to flirt again.
"Being born." Was the pretty girl's only answer, before she sped up to go talk to Clarke.
"That is so not game," I teased Jasper. He grimaced sarcastically at me, but my answering comment was disrupted by Clarke's motion to join her at the edge of a clearing.
A deer. An honest-to-god, real, in the flesh, deer. The first animal I had seen in my life. The first animal any of us had seen. It was almost surreal. Then Finn stepped on a twig, and it's second face made it seem a little less fantastic, and slightly more horrific. And ominous. Because who's to say we won't grow an extra face?
The walk was a little more somber after that. There was no more joking or messing around. Instead, we were treated to a sob story from Clarke, about how she and her father were arrested for trying to tell the citizens we were running out of air.
"You know," I said conversationally to Monty, "it was her mom who got me locked up." He seemed surprised.
"Clarke?"
"Yeah. After I tried the medicine she had to fix me, get the stuff out of my blood. Instead of just letting me go and passing it off as an illness, which, by the way, she totally could've done, she reported me. She was my mentor, she trained me, then she condemned me." I had no doubt I sounded bitter. "I don't really like the Griffin family."
"Well, uh, I don't really blame you?" It came out sounding like a question. "I would probably be pretty mad too."
"Well, thanks, but- hey, what are you doing?" Octavia was... taking off her pants?
"There's a river, Mia." Monty told me helpfully. I pouted- it wasn't my fault I was short.
"Oh damn, I love Earth," Jasper said, eyeing the skin Octavia was baring. Monty just looked away awkwardly.
"Octavia, what the hell are you doing?" shouted Clarke. I smirked.
"If she wants to get in the water, she can. Not like you can really stop her, can you Clarke?" she glared at me, and I could literally see the anger in her eyes, just under the deceptively pretty blue color. She managed to ignore me, however, in favor of chastising someone who might actually care, when Octavia jumped in the water.
"Octavia..."
"We can't swim!" Jasper shouted, as if that would stop her. She was already in the river, it wouldn't do much good now. She wasn't under for long, thankfully, when she came back to the surface, peering over the water like mermaids in the old stories.
"I know, but we can stand!" She said, emerging from the water fully, cackling.
"There isn't supposed to be a river here." Clarke was, once again, ruining things. This time, Finn called her on it.
"Well, there is. So take off you damn clothes." I was not willing to take my clothes off in front of these people. Earth may have been empowering, and sure I was reinventing myself to be more confident, stronger, but there was no way I was that confident yet.
"Oh, Octavia? Get out of the water." Jasper's voice was panicked again. I immediately saw the danger; what looked like an eel was heading right for her, fast.
"Move it, Blake!" I shouted. Why wasn't she getting out of the water?
"Get out of the water now!" Clarke's voice was added to the mix.
The thing reached her, and she went under.
"Octavia!" we were all panicking now. Jasper went to grab her, but Finn held her back.
"No." was all he said.
"What the hell is that? We have to help her! What are you going to do?" Jasper was readying himself for... something.
"Try not to get eaten." he replied. Man, he had it bad already.
"No,wait. If we distract it, it might let her go." Octavia was still screaming and thrashing in the water, sometimes managing to take a breath. Whatever the thing was, it had a strong bite. Clarke and Jasper knocked a rock into the water, and the animal followed the disturbance. Jasper waded into the water, going to grab the still-struggling girl.
I was frozen. The whole time, I couldn't move a fricking muscle. This was my first life or death situation ever. In my life. It wasn't something I could solve by knowing the entire periodic table, or every bone in the human body, or even having steady hands. I was not prepared for this. I was helpless, and completely useless as they all managed to get her to shore.
"Note to self: next time, save the girl." Monty joked, nudging me. He must've seen my freak-out.
We spent our first night on Earth in the woods. After Octavia's little incident, we just retreated back to the woods, where there were no man-eating fish. By that time it was dark, so we plopped ourselves down on the ground and slept anywhere we could find room. Somehow I ended up by Octavia, which wasn't terrible, until I found out she was a cuddler.
Next time, Jasper can have the spot closest to her.
It was a beautiful evening. The sky was clear, the stars bright, the crickets chirping. At least, as far as I could tell. I fell asleep within five minutes of my head hitting the ground.
The next day dawned just as clear and beautiful as the last. We dawdled for a few minutes upon waking, trying to delay the inevitable horror of moving, but Clarke, as always, was uncompromising.
"Seriously Griffin, just give us a damn break! You've had us walking since we landed. This is Earth! This is the first time we can, so curb your dictator tendencies for five goddamn seconds and let us look at the f*cking scenery!" Her look was offended at best.
"You know why we have to get to Mount Weather, Mia," she explained in that intense voice that seemed to edge on patronizing. "We need the food. Also, don't swear."
"I'm not even going to address the fact that you think you can tell me how to talk. Maybe, though, if you stopped to think for two seconds, you would realize that we have two kids here from farming! I'd be willing to bet money that Monty here could identify more than poison sumac, right?" I looked at Monty, who just nodded, looking a bit intimidated. "We have time, Clarke. We're going to be down here alone for a while; even if the ark decides that it's survivable down here, you think they'll be able to get everyone down here in short order? Stop and smell the roses, princess."
"Look, you're right. I'm sure Monty and Jasper could be more than helpful in identifying plants, but you don't get it. Maybe it's 'cuz you're young, or maybe you're just stupid, but either way you're being shortsighted. If we are going to be here awhile, we're gonna need shelter, blankets, tools- things I'm sure they don't teach you how to make on Farming Station! So get your head out of the clouds, and mature a little while you're at it. This is no place for teenage hormones."
"Don't you dare! You're only two years older than me, and I'm not the one who's naive enough to think that because my mommy's a bigwig on the ark you'll automatically get respect here!"
"At least I'm not a little girl pretending to be a woman for the sake of a guy! Just because a boy's paying attention to you for the first-"
"Stop it." Finn broke in. "We can't fight. Clarke, you've been saying we need to stick together. So both of you stop it. Mia, you're right, it wouldn't hurt to stop and look at everything, but Clarke's right too. We need to get the stuff from Mount Weather. Can you two just not talk until then? Please?" I just looked away, I hadn't meant to get into it with Clarke.
"Whatever," she muttered. "Come on, guys. Let's get moving." With that, we set off, the air awkward and still simmering.
"Sorry about that," I said to Monty, after a while of walking. "Didn't mean to go off on her in front of all you guys."
"Nah, you're fine," he said with a smile on his face. "We needed something to keep the walk interesting anyway."
"Hey Jasper," I was slightly heartened by Monty's forgiveness. "You said you liked chemistry, right?" He looked confused, but nodded. "Why am I making bad chemistry jokes?" the look of confusion didn't go away. "Because all the good ones… argon!" He broke down in laughter. It wasn't even very funny, but after the oppressive silence of the morning, my lame joke seemed worthy of a comedy club.
"You know what you should do with your bad jokes, Mia?" he said, smirking.
"What?"
"Take them all, and barium!"
"Do you wanna hear about nitric oxide?" I asked. Jasper thought for a minute.
"NO!" he crowed triumphantly when he finally realized what I wanted. "Why did you get picked by the doc, anyway? You seem to like chem much better, if the dumb jokes are any indication."
"Not really much you can do with chem but med training. They wanted to train me to make new medicines, I just got started a little early." I smirked.
"That's not funny, Mia!" Clarke stopped short upon hearing the amusement in that sentence. "Mom had to waste time and more medicine keeping you alive after your little experiment. She was upset for weeks after you got locked up."
"Upset for weeks, huh? Did she tell you she was the one who turned me in?" the blonde seemed surprised at this tidbit. Maybe she really didn't know. Whatever the reason, it seemed to stop her short. It definitely stopped the conversation.
"Hey guys, it's another river. Should we cross?" Octavia called from ahead.
"I think it's the same river," said Clarke. "But I can see better from here, I think Mount Weather is on the other side. Is there any way to cross without getting eaten?"
"I may have a way." Finn was smirking in a devious way that made me think I really wouldn't like his plan.
I was right; I hated Finn's plan. I was relatively fit from exercising in prison, (there's not really much else to do) but I think I was quickly developing a fear of the water. Swinging above it wasn't exactly my idea of fun. I was not, however, the only nervous one.
"You wanted to go first, now quit stalling." Clarke told Finn. He was poised by the river, vine in his hand.
"Just hang on till the apogee, and you'll be fine." I was very proud of myself when I knew that the apogee was the highest point of something.
"The Apogee like the Indians, right?" Finn asked, noticeably nervous.
"Apogee, not Apache." was Jasper's correction.
"He knows. Today, Finn."
"Aye, aye, Captain. See you on the other side." Finn prepared himself to jump, but was halted by Jasper.
"Wait.
"What?" Finn asked.
"Let me. I can do it." He said, glancing at Octavia. It was kind of cute how he wanted to show off.
"Knew there was a badass in you somewhere!" was his crush's encouraging response. He just chuckled anxiously.
"Don't fight it, Jasper," I added. "Don't let yourself think. Just jump!"
He jumped.
"We are the apache! Yeah!" he was shouting from the other side, holding up a Mount Weather sign. We had made it! Clarke readied herself to go next, spurred on by our cheers, when Jasper collapsed, a spear sticking out of his chest.
"What the hell?" I shouted. "Jasper!" Monty and I called his name together. wheeling around frantically, we tried to locate the thrower, with no luck.
"Get down; Get down!" Finn was pulling at us, herding us towards a rock we could hide behind.
"Jasper," Monty whispered, and I couldn't imagine how it felt to see your best friend be speared in front of you and not be able to stop it.
"It's okay," I said, crouching beside him. "It'll be okay."
Clarke looked at us, her expression grave.
"We're not alone."
And that was chapter 2! Hope you guys liked it; I skipped practicing my 5 solos in my orchestra concert tomorrow to upload this ;)
To Guest: Thank you for being my first reviewer, and I'm glad you like it! In regards to Mia's age, I just thought it would be an interesting dynamic between her and Monty to have her be not only the more forceful of the two, but also younger. Hope it doesn't weird you out too much!
Thank you to OhBeClever, my first follower! Thank you!