The 99

Chapter Six: Bellamy

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Blood was everywhere. It soaked through Bellamy's sleeve and ran in ropes down his arm, plastering the material to his skin. Not moments before he was down the corridor, the sound of alarms pierced the air, shattering the stillness between Bellamy's footsteps and the sound of pursuing guards. For a second, he thought blood must have gotten in his eyes, because the entire world turned red.

He ran for as long as he could, until his legs threatened to give underneath him and he dove into an equipment room. Bellamy barely registered the small quarters, full of repair utensils, before everything rushed back to him.

Now Bellamy was feeling the pain. It raked down his shoulder blade and lit the nerves on fire. It darkened the edges of his vision and made his head swim.

He splayed a hand over the nearest wall, trying to keep himself upright long enough to tear off a piece of his undershirt.

I'm not dying here, he told himself, even as unconsciousness threatened to overpower him. He hadn't shot the Chancellor just to die in an equipment room.

Bellamy wrapped the cloth around his forearm with quaking fingers and pulled it taught, until the fabric bit into him. Blood drenched it instantly and Bellamy's hand came away slick with scarlet. He let out a curse and looked around the room, trying to see through his blurring vision.

His eyes landed on a chest of sorts. Or a broken cryo chamber, dusted in a layer grime, thick with evident neglect.

He took a step forward, and the ground seemed to tilt sideways and Bellamy suddenly found himself lying on it. He struggled to get up, but a heaviness settled over his body, sinking him into the floor. A darkness crept into his vision, slowly falling over his eyes like a black curtain. The final act.

Maybe that meant he was dying. Forget that being in an equipment room or not. Whether he wanted it or not. His plans hadn't exactly deigned to go accordingly today. This morning, he'd expected to be on a ship headed for Earth. And instead he was bleeding to death in a closet still on the Ark.

But that didn't mean he would go quietly.

As a last ditch effort, Bellamy pulled himself over to the chest and hefted up the lid. Somehow, by pure will or stubbornness, he managed to clamor his way inside. Then he shut it, and more darkness erupted. The last thing he thought of was Octavia and the promise he made to their mother.

My sister. My responsibility.

Then the shadows took him.

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Bellamy didn't know what sunlight looked like, but he hadn't imagined it to be like this. Not like pools of gold, trickling though the branches. Not like a patchwork of diamond netting sparkling over the ground, beyond the door of the dropship he still stood inside.

It was beautiful and strange, but not quite foreign. It seemed natural, like this kind of light was supposed to be, and the one he'd grown up beneath was just some poor imitation of it. No, after seeing what sunlight was, he never wanted to be without it.

Bellamy took a step forward, eager to see what else Earth had to offer. To feel the dirt under his feet. To feel the wind in his hair, one that wasn't made by turbines or propellers but real wind that traveled on its own time. He wanted to breathe in this air, not the air that had traveled through corridors for ninety seven years. But fresh air, that no human had tasted before.