| xxxvi. NIGHTCRAWLER

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CHAPTER THIRTY SIX;

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX;

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NIGHTCRAWLER.

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        HAVEN OFTEN FOUND HERSELF CAUGHT IN THE INTRICATE WEB OF DESTINY AND CURSE, struggling to discern where one ended and the other began. The two seemed indistinguishable at times, both carrying an oppressive weight of finality and inescapable certainty. If she were fated for death, logic dictated she should remain in its grasp. Yet, time and again—she defied its embrace, resurrected by a stubborn heartbeat that refused succumb to its demands.

Perhaps Murphy's words held a kernel of truth—Haven wasn't destined to die, but to become the living embodiment of death itself. A spectral figure, cursed to wander the realms of the living, her presence casting a looming shadow over all she held dear. Every breath she drew felt like an exhalation of doom; everything around her seemed to wither and perish, her touch a silent promise of inevitable decay.

But as she glanced at the weary faces of her friends surrounding her, absorbed the distant hum of activity permeating the dropship's walls, a somber realization settled over her. Fate, she understood, held no sway over the bleak reality they inhabited. The grim specters of war, violence, bloodshed, and death—the very antithesis of innocence—was never meant to be the destiny of teenagers, of children.

They were just kids.

Kids were not meant to be forged into instruments of destruction, their spirits sharpened into knives, their dreams pulverized into gunpowder and forcibly jammed into cobalt bullets. Kids were not meant to decide who lives and who dies—whose breath would continue to grace the air, and whose would be extinguished forever. Kids were not meant to greet the dawn with the expectation of death instead of the rising sun.

       They were supposed to be happy. Safe.

       Earth held other plans.

        "We've got twenty-five rifles with twenty rounds each, give or take."

Bellamy's voice shattered the noise rioting beneath because Haven's skull, wrenching her from her reverie and compelling her to sit a little taller. Finn and Clarke stood across from him, their faces taut with stress, leaning over a large table strewn with a detailed layout of the camp. Toy soldiers meticulously marked positions and strategies, their plastic forms a grim representation of the real lives at stake. Raven slumped against a stool, pressing a rag against the seeping wound on her stomach, while Haven sat huddled on the floor beside her.

"Roughly five-hundred rounds of ammo," Bellamy continued, eyes black as night, his arms folded across his chest in his familiar, authoritative stance. "While you two were gone, we made some improvements. Thanks to Raven..." He paused, pointing to the shallow trench of earth carved into the layout before them. "The gully is mined."

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