The Space Between Us / The 100 Fic

The Ark

Every day it's the same.

I wake up to the low hum of a machine. Most of the time, you can hear a bunch of machines at once, some giving off loud thumps and others softer buzzes. It makes a sort of song when it's all put together. Not quite music, but a soothing kind of rhythm that often lulls me to sleep. You always hear noises here, up in space. It's scary really. Knowing that human invention is what's keeping us suspended in the air.

And humans often make mistakes.

I was in space, floating in the Ark. That's what we called it; our space station in the sky. Sometimes I would get nightmares about the Ark getting thrown out of orbit, released from its continuous rotation around the radioactive Earth. But then I would open my eyes and Earth would still be there. And we were still twirling around it.

One of the only good things about being stuck in solitary confinement is getting away from it all, the drama, the people, the expectations. You get some perspective. I kept trying to tell myself that this could be good. Or at least, I'd repeat it countless times, until the words I breathed out became my own truth. It was a good thing. It meant I no longer had to listen to Mom, no longer forced to argue with her.

She had never come to see me. Never tried to sneak through security, or come in during my birthday. I've been stuck in this room for 2 years, and now, more than ever, I could do with an argument. Something. Anything. Whatever it takes prove to me that I was still alive, still capable of feeling emotions that weren't fear and sorrow.

Sometimes I imagine that's all I'll ever feel. And when it gets really bad I would take the covers off my bed and cloak them around my body, like a cocoon. There's a window in the back corner of my cell. I was lucky, because not all cells had windows where prisoners could get to them. In fact, most of them didn't. My cell was one of the older ones. And so I would curl up in the corner of my room, staring out into space. I don't know if it ever helped. If anything, it made me feel small and inferior to that large expanse of space.

But on some days, when I got really lucky, I would see a meteor shower. And on those days everything felt like a dream. Those glittering pieces of burning rock that swept across my window were too beautiful to seem real. Yet they were. They burned through the sky until finally their flame would extinguish and they would be forgotten.

Sort of like me.

I tried not to think about it too much- death I mean. Thinking about it always forced my stomach into knots and had a way of depressing me. And it did even more so now that I was turning 18.

18 was it. The end of the line for someone who committed a crime on the Ark.

We were floated. Released into that large expanse of space. It killed you in a heartbeat. Faster, maybe.

I shivered. It was always cold on the Ark. That weird kind of cold though; the one that lingers with you no matter where you go. The one that clings to your bare skin and sends chills through your whole body. The one you can never seem to get rid of. I was sitting on my bed. That hard metal bed. Watching the door and letting my bare feet swing lightly. I don't remember how long I sat like that. It must have been an hour or so before I saw the shadow of a person walking to my door and turning the knob with a rushed force.

I had not expected anyone to come in at the time and jumped back, startled. I saw the guard. His uniform told me his position but his appearance showed that he was only about 20. Maybe even younger.

Still, his visit surprised me and I found myself folding my arms across my chest, lacing my fingers around them gently. I was suddenly very aware of how dry the air was, and how desperately I wanted to leave. The guard took in my appearance. His brown eyes traced over my figure but he stopped when he reached my face. I tried not to let fear show in my features but it was hard. I knew it was my day to be floated. I should be 18 by now.