Red - Bellamy Blake - I

Four - Earth Skills

\Four - Earth Skills\

X

The skybox was always a grim place. It was purgatory. It was drifting in nothing until a decision was made for you. The skybox kids were never the first priority. We were vermin awaiting our execution. We had accepted it, too. 

I had daydreamed often. Sometimes about the fiery inferno undoubtedly awaiting for my soul to rest in. Others, about how it would have been to live two hundred years ago. About a deer asleep in the healthy grass, devoid of any worries- any societal damnations that would devour its soul. I thought the worse would be after death, for me. So when I had woken to find the familiar itch of a gag tied around my jaw, I realized that, then, death would be mercy. That if I had still been that thirteen-year-old girl on the ark, death would have been most preferable.

I was wrong. Though my day-dreaming was a wild and common venture, never had I the creativity to predict where I would be now, staring at cloth stitched together to hide the blinding rays of the sun. I was drowsy, but I still ached. I could feel the dull pierce from a spear embedded under my ribcage. As the confusion cleared and my head was voided itself of muddled reality, I bit down on the cloth to suppress the inherent panic that began to take over. I tried to move, but my body was out of sync with my mind. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jasper laying alive beside me.

At least, I hoped.

A man sitting on the opposing side of the tent noticed my movement and ran out. There were three welted marks on his bare chest and a braid that swung as he rushed out.

 Whoever these people were, they were undoubtedly going to kill us as a warning to the rest of the delinquents. We were still vermin, and now the extermination would be much more violent.

A hand was placed on my shoulder, and my eyes shot open, landing on a man of an olive skin tone, with two diamonds slathered around his deep black eyes. "Shallow breaths." He ordered, his voice was deep, and although he was a stranger, and was more than likely wanted to kill me, he gifted me a sense of calm. "If you don't, the stitches in your lungs will snap, and you'll be breathing your own blood. Then we will have to kill you. . . Nyko!"

A man of a lighter complexion walked in and allowed his pale blue eyes to rest on my wide, green ones. He nodded at the man with the diamond eyes. "Lincoln- " The rest of his words were familiar gibberish- like the mixed words in a dream, and I watched in confusion as they traded them.

The first man, Lincoln, opened a small leather pouch and pulled out a small, glass bottle, filled a third of the way up with a dark liquid.

He pulled the gag away from my mouth and uncorked the glass. "To sleep." He said. Whether he meant to sleep forever, I did not know. None the less, I let the liquid return me to sleep.

-

My drowsiness was still ever-present, but now I had been gifted back my pain. My vision was blurry and I was shivering despite the heat of Earth's star.  I couldn't quite see how far I was from the ground, I could faintly see what may have been the roots of a tree, and I knew I was too high to get down in the state I was in. 

I heard footsteps- lots of them and I bit the inside of my cheek. Please don't burn us alive. Please.

Then relief flooded my system. I could hear the familiar voices of Clarke and Bellamy.

"Jasper?"

"Grey?"

I took too deep a breath. Shallow breaths were the advice I was given and I should have recalled that before I was flushed with another wave of pain. I let out a sharp should as my world shifted more hazy. 

"The hell is this?" Bellamy's voice grew closer to us, then Clarke let out a shriek. I couldn't look up. I heard shouts followed by grunts, then a few moments of silence.

"We need to get them down, now." 

"We've got to climb up there and cut the ropes." The more awake I became, the worse the pain grew. A handful of painful sobs escaped in short-lived bursts.

Bam.

Four more gunshots rang out, then three more screams flew from the group below me.

Just let me die already.

I wasn't sure of how long had gone past, where my consciousness weaved in and out of reality, before hands enveloped my waist, avoiding pressing on the ugly wound my body undoubtedly adorned. I know I was lowered off the tree and was sat of the soft dirt as Jasper was most likely being brought down. I kept my eyes closed. My head was pounding, and the last thing I needed was to be attacked by the beaming sun.

"Bellamy, you carry Grey, Finn, grab Jasper, and Wells, grab the. . . thing, we can eat it back at camp." Clarke commanded the group, and to my dismay, picked up from the dirt. Every step that Bellamy took caused spurts of pain to erupt from my wound, therefore a displeased shutter to roll through my already unsteady body. "Sorry, just. . . we've got to get home somehow."

When I had found the energy to open my eyes, I saw Bellamy's eyes shifting from the others down to me. I was close enough to see freckles that I hadn't noticed before, and he most likely had more than my blurred vision was registering. He lent a gentle smile to me and spoke in a tone I hadn't heard anyone use towards me in years- as if comforting a child "So, you're not brain dead. . . good to know."

I didn't have the energy to smile, but I think he understood that and looked back up. Yet, not soon enough, as when he took a wrong step, nearly sending me to the ground.

"Careful." Clarke's voice jabbed at Bellamy.

"Like you honestly care," Bellamy sneered back at her. My eyes rested behind my bright red eyelids, and my aching head was against Bellamy's chest, in the perfect position to hear the thumps of his heart beating quickening. "I heard what you said to her when we landed."

"It's hard to love- much less, care- about someone who has murdered people. But I'm trying. It's none of your business, anyway."

"Why would you care about her?" Finn spoke up. I couldn't quite tell where he was.

Clarke was debating on speaking. Telling people she was related to the infamous Grey Conners was understandably a difficult position" She's my. . . my sister. Twin sister." It was silent for a few seconds.

"I begged my dad to tell me why she did it- what kind of thirteen-year-old kills their parent? He never did." Wells sighed, clearly annoyed at the mention of his and his father's conversation about me.

"I wish I knew." Clarke scoffed, letting out a half-hearted laugh.

" I overheard guards talking about her, back in the skybox, all the time." I felt Bellamy tense up at Murphy's voice. "I heard the full story, but they always mentioned her father was abusive. . . and not the emotional kind."

If I weren't in pain and had any energy, I would have sewn John Murphy's mouth shut, right then and there.

There was an uncomfortable silence passing through the group, and I nearly missed Bellamy whisper in my ear. "Go to sleep, we'll be home soon."

-

The next instance I was woken up was abrasive. A loud shout coming from somewhere. "THEY'RE BACK!"

"Are they. . .?" I heard Monty ask.

Clarke instructed him to go grab some supplies, and I felt Octavia grabbed my hand as I was sat down. "If you die, I'm so going to beat your ass." A hint of a ghost of a smile crossed my lips and heard Murphy shout at the apparent growing crowd.

I heard Jasper lowered beside me, and from a distance- the slamming of another form onto the ground, and a heavy shout at the cheering delinquents.

 "WHO'S HUNGRY?"