Gravity → The 100 [1]

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE
PRISONERS OF THE ARK

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

ONE YEAR LATER

     When the guards opened Aspen's cell door the day of her eighteenth birthday, Aspen thought it was to bring her to her hearing. Every juvenile delinquent on the Ark had their cases reviewed when they turned eighteen, so it was a fair assumption. That was why Aspen had remained calm. That was why she stood and faced the wall without complaint, why she didn't say a word when they cuffed her wrists together in front of her, took her arm, and started marching her out of her cell. She just focused all her energy on breathing evenly and trying not to panic. She was pretty sure she wouldn't be floated, but pretty sure wasn't positive, and being floated was a terrifying thing to think about. Being sent out into open space sounded like a horror show.

And then she saw every single other delinquent in the juvenile prison block also being marched out of their cells, and Aspen froze in her steps, because that wasn't normal. This had never happened before, not in the year she had been arrested, and now she couldn't move forward. A guard ended up shoving her between the shoulder blades, and she stumbled forward, catching herself on the railing that kept her from falling. Her cell was on the third story. She peered down, hoping that maybe this was a drill or something, only to see that the cells below her were also being emptied, and the Chancellor was nowhere in sight. He would be here to oversee things himself if it was some type of practice drill.

"What's happening?" Aspen demanded, her voice rising in her growing panic. She looked at the guard that had come to help her straighten herself, and was startled to see Miller's father, David, at her side. He looked absolutely devastated, his jaw clenched as he was forced to do his job, and Aspen's heart started racing. "What's going on, David? Where the hell are they taking us?"

"Everything's going to be okay," David reassured, squeezing her elbow gently, but his expression said the exact opposite. Whatever he knew, he clearly didn't like it. "Let's go."

"But—" Aspen started, wanting to argue or scream or do anything aside from follow the lines of delinquents being led out of the prison block. Before she could continue further, though, the other guard—someone Aspen didn't know the name of—grabbed her roughly by her other arm and jerked her back into the line. Her pause had caused everyone behind her to stop.

"Keep moving," the guard growled, shoving her forward once again. Aspen wanted to turn and kick him, maybe bring her leg up between his knees and watch his crumble and burst into tears, but she didn't. She just shot him one last glare, then raised her chin and stomped forward. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't. Whatever was going on, it couldn't have been a mass floating, right? Because they were all children, and mass floating a bunch of children was so evil that even the Chancellor wouldn't do that. Not because he wasn't evil, but because it would cause too many problems for him. Their parents would absolutely riot if he mass floated all of them, and if Chancellor Jaha cared about anything, it was his own career as Chancellor.