Earth's Echo (The 100)

I Meet a Grounder

My dreams were haunted Charlotte.My dreams were of her jumping off that cliff over and over again. "Charlotte!" I screamed. "NO!"

"Echo!" My eyes snapped open to Octavia at my side. "Wake up!" I sat up, and saw that I was drenched in sweat. Octavia was sitting on the edge of my bed holding my hand. "You were screaming in your sleep." I hung my head in disgrace. I told myself I was going to be strong, I would rid the weakness, but my dreams were betraying me. "Hey, it's okay to be upset, if that was Bellamy, I would be the same way."

"But I'm stronger than this, showing weakness will only get me killed." I said. "Love is weakness."

"Echo, you can't be a doctor without caring for your patients, and you can't be a leader without some sort of love." She said. "Love is not weakness, caring for others are not weakness," She grabbed my head and made it so I was looking at her. "You are not weak."

****

I wanted to believe Octavia, I really did. She trusted me, she and the others. As I walked out of our tent I got mixed looks from the people. Fear, pity, unease, but all of them nodded at me in respect. They must have been told about me almost killing Murphy, I got some pretty terrified looks from his bitches.

I walked through the camp, all the way to the exit. It was time for me to take care of these people. I held my knife in my hand, as I walked out.

The woods were just like always, tall, green, and shinning at beautiful glow over the forest floor. The birds were chirping, letting me know everything was okay. I ventured deeper into the forest and looked to the ground for some sort of tracks. I found a pair of bird feet, the size of my hand. I remembered learning about these in earth studies. Turkey.

I followed the tracks making sure to remain silent. I kept my eyes to the ground, and flashing up every once and a while making sure everything was okay. My ears remained acute to any abnormal sounds. Then all of a sudden my ears heard the distant gobble of turkeys. I smiled and quickly and sneakily wandered toward the sound.

In the clearing ahead were a flock of turkey. They were pecking at the ground most likely eating seeds. I counted around 10, I knew my chance of getting all of them were none, so I would have to make this quick. Raising my knife I got ready to throw. I chucked the knife at the farthest one, hitting it right below the neck, kill shot.

I then sprinted out before any of the turkeys could run. I reached the closest one and grabbed it's neck snapping it. The turkeys started flapping and running. I reached another one before they could get far doing the same thing to the second on. I did this two more times, and I picked up my knife and threw it once more hitting another, then they all disappeared. I looked around and saw my work. Six dead turkeys, all pretty big in size. Hopefully enough to feed us all.

I put my knife to my belt and then grabbed the turkeys tying them to stick. Blood drained from the two turkeys I had stabbed, and the others had bones sticking out of their necks. I should have been disgusted with myself. I would have never thought I could do this, but here on earth, everything changed.

I began to make my way back to camp. I kept my ears on high alert, the blood would draw attention to me. The walk back seemed a bit darker. The leaves no longer seemed to shine a warm glow, but a dark one. The birds were no longer singing, but instead the only nose that could be heard was my soft footsteps on the ground. However, soon my footsteps were joined.

I froze, and so did the others. All my muscles clenched as I turned my head searching for whatever was making that noise, but when I saw nothing I just played it off as a figment of my imagination. But as soon as I started walking again the other footsteps started. I stopped and they stopped.