This Side of Paradise

Chapter One

Aspen was staring blankly up at her cell ceiling, she hadn't slept well the night before and that was not just because she spent most of the night talking to the boy in the cell over to the right. 

 That didn't start until she awoke from her first nightmare that night, they seemed always to be the same.  It was either seeing her mother float away when she was eleven or seeing her father getting sucked out of the Ark on her sixteenth birthday.  

When she awoke from the nightmares the night before she heard her friend John's voice through the hole in the wall they had been able to talk through for at least the last year.  The girl only knew that it had been that long because her 'uncle' came to visit her on her seventeenth birthday.  He was probably one of the only people on the ship who could come down and see her without raising suspicion, just because of who he was.

She heard the door to her cell click and she knew the door was unlocked, she wondered if she was going to be having a class today.  Over the past few weeks, they had been taking the prisoners to a classroom where they had been learning 'earth studies.'  Aspen tried to retain everything she learned, although she would often get distracted by the pair that sat on either side of her.  John Murphy to her left, and the girl who they found under the floor Octavia Blake to her right.  

Standing up she slid her shoes on asking, "Another class today?"  

"Prisoner 298 hold out your right wrist," the guard said roughly, and she noticed that it wasn't the normal guard who came to my cellblock.  

"What is going on?" The girl asked not giving him her arm, she didn't like how tense his face was.  She backed away from the tall man until she hit her back against the wall, it was at that moment she saw Octavia being led down the hallway looking just as confused as Aspen felt.  "Octavia!" She yelled but that's when the guard went for her, went to grab her.  "NO, you can't, you c-can't kill us all!" She screamed tears threatening to spill from her forest-green eyes. The man roughly grabbed her and forced a tight metal band on her right wrist, the girl cried out in pain as he started to drag her across the room.  

"Dante! That is not how we handle our prisoners, and that is especially not how you handle my niece."  A dark voice came, the girl shook the man off of her and ran towards the older man, throwing her arms around his neck.

"Uncle Marcus, please don't let them kill me." She said, holding onto him, taking in everything about him.  

"Aspen, we don't want to kill you, we want to give you the best chance at living.  You'll know more soon, but for now, I need you to follow the guards, and wear the wristband. It'll be how I know you are still alive, and I will fight to get down to you. We will meet again." He told her before giving her another hug and a kiss on the head before he left her with the guard she learned was Dante.  

Aspen let the guard lead her through the hallways, and she soon joined other prisoners, all children.  The arc only allowed criminals who weren't 18 yet to live, well that was until they were eighteen. 

Aspen knew she had no choice but to do as she was told, so when she was brought to a drop-ship she willingly followed her guard on, him not so gently pushing her into her seat, towards the back of the ship.

"Hey - watch it." Came a voice next to her, the guard just sneered at her friend but she looked at him giving him a small smile. 

"It's alright John," she watched as the guard left and then turned her head back to the boy, other than her earth studies classes they started taking a few weeks ago she hadn't seen him. She strapped herself in and looked into his steel eyes, "You should probably strap in, I have a feeling it's going to be a bumpy ride."