After the End [ The 100 ]

1. How did we get here?

pre-pilot

[eiden]

The walls are gray, the Ark machinery is always humming, and the table is cluttered. But the worst part is that the paper is blank.

Wells paces back and forth behind me. His heavy footsteps thud with this random anxiety he's had all day. I don't think he realizes the stress that I'm under, trying to translate my feelings onto the last sheet of paper my best friend will ever see.

I sit in my family's beds room. Our table's bolted to the wall with me in front of it. My ankles are crossed on top of the rolling chair and my knees are pulled into my chest. But as Wells just keeps going and going, I shake my head in annoyance, plopping long brunette curls onto my palm.

I ignore him, but in the mirror's reflection he's wringing his hands together and making that scarily concentrated face.

I sigh before refocusing on the letter. "Ali," I mumble, inaudibly reading the singular word on the paper. "And that's all I've got," I release with a scoff, shaking my head again.

With the amount of people I know in the sky box, I'm gonna have to get used to this. Sitting down, contemplating my next words and their last moments. First Ali... then Clarke... but never Warren.

Warren's nineteen. But more than that, in the council's eyes, he's a hero. Around the time both Ali and Clarke got arrested, about a year ago, Warren prevented a mass panic. Talk about living in your sibling's shadow.

Not my real sibling of course. For that our parents would be floated, and we'd be arrested like Octavia Blake and a few other notorious names. Warren's dad married my mom.

Warren was lucky a few months ago for who his father is. Otherwise his age would've earned him the capital punishment.

Much like Ali in just a day's time.

My heart thumps louder at the thought, like someone has reached through my back and squeezed the life out of me.

"I got to see her," Wells' voice enters.

He's talking about his girlfriend and our best friend, Clarke Griffin. Yes, that Clarke whose letter comes after Ali's.

I drop my face into my hands while half-listening to Wells.

At least he's stopped pacing.

"How do you plan on doing that?" I ask, and there's an edge to my voice. But I'm this close to snapping my pencil in half. Ali was found guilty at her retrial, and I was right to guess that nobody was found innocent these days. The ark stopped doing that a decade ago, and nobody knows why. My guess? They haven't set enough examples.