𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐃𝐀𝐖𝐍 | the 100

01 | No Longer a Dream

"You're not funny, Murphy."

‧ ✩ ｡ ✭ ° ☆ ･ _______ ･ ☆ ° ✭ ｡ ✩ ‧

Earth is more beautiful than Amber could have ever dreamed. When the heavy metal doors open with a roar and reveal the world behind them, it's like walking through the gates of heaven. Bright light blinds her, then slowly the pain in her eyes fade and she sees it for the first time—a world of color and life and freedom. Soft winds sway the luscious ferns gently and the sun warms her face through the mossy trees. When she takes a deep breath she's almost knocked back by the crisp air. She never knew she had been suffocating until now.

"We're back, bitches!"

The shout jars through Amber's hypnotized trance, and the teens around her spring into action. She grabs a wall to steady herself as they push themselves out of the gray dropship and crash into the forest, howling and roaring like delirious dogs. A wide grin sneaks its way onto her face.

When everyone has rushed out of the room and she finally stands alone on the threshold to their new world, she lets herself soak in the view a moment longer. It's a view she never wants to turn away from, it calls, and she needs to be in it, a part of it.

With careful steps, she walks down the dropship's ramp and merges fairytale and reality. Laughter and shouts flutter through the air, fuel to her heart and lungs, and then she can't hold back anymore. She runs. Trees swoosh past her and soft dirt is trampled under the soles of her boots, she moves faster than she ever thought she could and she is invincible. Until she trips.

A bush catches her fall, but she lets the branches lower her body gently down to the forest floor where she slumps onto her back in a dazed heap, too overwhelmed to stand. A nerve distantly registers a stone under her shoulder blade, but she doesn't even bother to shuffle her weight, the crowns of the trees above stealing all her attention. It's dizzyingly green.

I'm here, I'm on the Ground. Repeating it over and over in her head still isn't enough for it to sink in, but euphoria warms her chest. Maybe her mind can't make sense of the fact that one of her dreams, and one as impossible as this, has actually come true, but her body knows it's home.

A laugh slips out. Her hand clasps over her mouth, cutting off the sound before she alerts the others of her emotions. But no one cares, not when they have a whole new planet to explore, and she welcomes the smile on her face with relief. There's no competing with Earth. Content, she rises to her feet.

A mocking voice cracks her smile, as jarring as a discordant chord. "Don't freak out, but I think you've got something in your hair."

John Murphy stands barely twenty feet away with his usual arrogant smirk plastered on his face and nonchalantly dead gaze. At seventeen, he's one of the older criminals, same as her, and his crime being arson, no one was expecting him to be pardoned and live past eighteen. Until now.

He doesn't usually look at her. It makes her freeze.

Then the three guys behind him snicker. As fast as she can, she anxiously rips through her usually fine hair that's now in stubborn tangles and a heap of leaves and twigs fall to the ground.

"Yeah." Murphy nods and squints his eyes, pleased with himself for whatever hairstyle his unsolicited comment resulted in. "That looks better."

He walks away and his little group follows. Amber looks at their backs in silence, wishing she was smart enough to yell something clever after them. But her mind is blank.