Taming Chaos // J.M // The 100

Chapter 28

"Lincoln, if the grounders see you helping us, won't they banish you?" Ethan breathes out, panting into the brisk air. He jumps over yet another fallen log and slows, stopping with the others at the entrance of a dark and foreboding cave.

Lincoln glances his way, "Banish?" He scoffs, stepping into the darkness.

Frowning, Ethan drags a hand against the cave walls to keep up, "What is-" He mimics the scoff, "-supposed to mean?"

Lincoln shushes him. Ethan's jaw clicks shut.

Finn's clearly already been through these tunnels, sticking beside Lincoln and not following behind like the duckling Ethan was. He holds a hand out behind him and Ethan stops, crouching. But they don't hide in the face of danger, they want to draw it in. Lincoln nods at Finn, both twisting around the corner with an air of confidence to their stances.

Ethan lags behind, simply peeking around the wall to see what he's up against.

"Oh. . ." He whispers, slinking closer to his friends, "Great."

He follows the minecarts stacked full with human bodies to the reapers, clutching onto detached limbs and digging bloody teeth in like the flesh was simply a juicy apple. 

One roars and the others follow, locking hungry eyes on their intruders. 

"Can we run now?"

The chase begins. Ethan is more terrified now than he was of the grounder army.

"Cannibals? Really?" He barks, shoes gliding against stone around the next corner. He rights himself against the wall and pushes off, back into rhythm. 

"How much further?!"

Finn points ahead, too breathless to shout his answer.

When they slip through rock onto grass, Ethan grins, escaping into the cold air and met with a blue moonlit glow. It's harder to run through the forest, darting over obstacles trying to hinder them and in turn, the reapers.

A boom that radiates for miles makes the three of them share a panicked glance.

Ethan can't ignore the immense curiosity itching at his skin, attaching a hand to Finn's jacket to keep close and not trip over anything when he looks up. Blue isn't the only colour reaching out across the night sky, mixing dangerously against the reds and oranges belonging to that of flames.

That is something coming down into the atmosphere.

His eyes widen like saucers. "Finn! Fuck -" He almost trips, "Finn, look!"

Finn glances at the sky, looks back down, then whips his head back up, mouth parted. "Is that-?" He breathes out, "Is that the Ark?"

"Holy shit!" The laugh that slips from Ethan's mouth sounds as crazy as the idea of cannibals.

Lincoln pulls them back to the situation at hand, "We're almost there!" He says, pointing at the flicker of fires spread throughout the trees. Then, the grounders.

They scale the fallen tree in tandem, choosing swiftly to take a right.

Ethan doesn't miss the shock on the grounder's faces when they turn and face the third addition to their battle. Lincoln separates from them with a nod, leaving as they duck through Ethan's makeshift tunnel.

When they come through the other side, Clarke is there.

She turns around at the sound of them and her whole face lights up. Finn's tackled into a hug in two seconds flat, leaving Ethan to scour the sky for the remaining sections of the Ark, two of them just burning bits of metal in the night. Three of them are still intact, and that's all he sees before the trees block the sight.