Hell and Back (The 100)

02- Toxic

Loud screams jerk me out of my dreamless sleep and throw me into the reality of being in a dropship. A red harness secures me safely in my seat. My head whips in every direction, eyes widening as I take in the other kids around me. What am I doing here? I remember nothing after being shot by the tranquilzer gun.

The girl from outside of my cell is sitting on my right side, already watching me look around in panic and awe. She must have guessed that I had no idea of what was going on by the look on her face. "It's okay. You're safe. Well, for now." The girl motions around the dropship filled with kids around the age of sixteen and seventeen. "No guards."

I nervously swallow. "Where are we?"

"Hurtling through Earth's atmosphere." The girl states, slightly surprised as she says those four words. Her own face shows how confused she is at that statement.

"W-What?" I slowly start to panic, remembering what my teacher had taught me about Earth. She came twice a week to teach me about what other kids were learning in school. The Council believed that I should have an education in case I was freed from my charges. I remember her telling me that the Earth has not been visited for ninety seven years. "But, it's not safe."

The girl half shrugs. "Probably explains why they are sending us first."

The dropship shakes as the lights flicker off. I grip the harness tightly in my hands, afraid that I'll fly out of it. Girls scream around me at the lights flickering. The lights come back on and tv screens flick on all around us.

Chancellor Jaha appears on the screen, as if he was looking directly at us. "Prisoners of The Ark, here me now. You've been given a second chance, and as you Chancellor, it is my that you see this as not just a chance for you, but a chance for all of us, indeed for mankind itself. We have no idea what is waiting for you down there."

I worriedly look around the dropship. They are sending us down to Earth with no idea if we will actually survive. We could be dead seconds after we land.

 "If the odds of survival were better, we would've sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable." Chancellor states, showing no emotion whatsoever as he basically says he doesn't care if we die or not.

"You're dad is a dick, Wells." A random guy shouts from somewhere behind me. The dropship fills with chuckles of another criminals.

"- those crimes will be forgiven, your records wiped clean."

The dropship continues to shake and the tv goes fuzzy every few seconds. "The drop site has been chosen carefully. Before the last war, Mount Weather was a military base built within a mountain. It was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain three hundred people for up to two years."

"Spacewalk bandit strikes again." A guy shouts from somewhere near.

The girl's head is craned to the far left. I lean forward as much as I can to see a guy around my age, floating around the dropship. The girl shouts out in approval at his stupid stunt. He's going to get himself hurt. We must be getting closer to the ground. Once the zero gravity is gone, he's going to go flying to the other side of the dropship, most likely slamming into the wall.

The guy stops right in front of a darker skinned guy and a blonde girl. A few people cheering him on and calling him by his name, Finn. "Your dad floated me, after all."

"You should strap in before the parachuts deploy." The darker skinned guy orders the floater.

The girl besides me laughs in amusement. I shake my head, annoyed. Someone is going to get hurt. Two boys across from our seats begin to unbuckle their harnesses.