FROM HER ASHES³ ━━ Bellamy Blake

𝐕𝐈𝐈: Lyra Hates Life

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LYRA HATES LIFE

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"WHAT ARE YOU thinking about?"

Octavia's gritty voice shatters Lyra's reverie. Blinking hard several times, she grounds herself in the harsh reality that is the hollow husk of earth and let's the harsh sunlight scorch her skin. She grits her teeth.

No one else seems to be that torn up over Echo death. No one but Lyra.

     Well. Except Octavia. But that's beside the point. Octavia is furious that her brother is in love with her would-be murderer. Lyra is, too, of course. But beyond that, she feels. . . betrayed.

     Which is stupid. He thought she was dead. She got with his sister.

     But still. There's a gaping hole in her heart.

And she does not want to be the one who mourns everything when everyone else has clearly left it in the past. It is mortifying. It is mortifying to be the only one who cannot forget.

"Dunno." Lyra forces the clipped word out and then swallows. Everything feels like broken glass, but she wants to move on, too. "Clarke's kid, I guess. Who the fuck has a kid in the middle of the apocalypse?"

"She didn't have a kid," Octavia reminds her. "Clarke took her to Becca's lab and shared her bone marrow to keep her alive. She found her right before the Death Wave hit. She's a synthetic nightblood."

     Lyra makes a face. "It's still weird."

     And it is, to her, at least. Questions and theories pulse beneath her skin in spasming ripples because, really, Clarke has never been much of a liar, and the story really is fucking weird. Like, how is Madi the only person Clarke found? How did Clarke even find Madi on the island where the only other Grounder they'd ever even seen was Baylis? How did the synthetic nightblood kick in so quickly? How did Clarke even manage to execute the process so flawlessly when her own mother, an extremely experienced surgeon, had fucked it up before?

     But whatever. If Clarke wants to keep secrets, that's not Lyra's problem.

     Her concerned gaze flickers to Octavia. "You sure you don't need to be resting? Clarke said there was chance of infection — "

     "I'm done licking my wounds." Octavia's eyes harden to twin stones, immutable, unyielding. "We need to remind our people what we promised them. Kom folou oso na gyon op."

From the ashes we will rise.

Swollen lips thinning, Lyra does not argue.

     Polis ━━ and there's no other way to put it ━━ is a shit-show.

How could it not be? Ruins already ancient and crumbling, hollow and breakable and pale with dust, crumbled to little more than ash beneath the heat of the second apocalypse. There is no sweet, trembling bird song. No rustling trees. The sky is a frozen haze and scattered amongst the ruins are the injured survivors, murmuring prayers to a god that hasn't answered them in years. The sun does not try to break through their shadows. Even nature knows that whatever is left is left to be mourned.