I Am the Reaper

Breaker

Okay, guys. I know I am so behind on my other fanfictions but that is because I am stuck. I'm not stopping, I've just hit a wall. So if anyone has any ideas as to what you want to see in Because of You please tell me because I am struggling. Also, from here onward, this fic will be written from Clarke's POV. Starting now. Please review!

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Those numbers overwhelm the world. I count along with my mom's compressions, feeling everything dim to an agonizing crawl. I watch it all, playing out before me, trying to find the switch that'll turn this nightmare off. There is none, and a silence open up inside me, so deep I can't see the bottom.

But it's not over yet.

"Bel, don't do this!" Octavia screams, on her knees now by Bellamy's head. She'd shoved me out of the way the moment his chest stilled. I don't remember standing but I am, at his feet, staring out at the scene before me.

I feel the silence in me expand and contract, filling up my the cavity in my chest, threatening to pull and bury the rest of me inside it. No, he's not gone, a voice in mescreams. He's not. He can't be.

Thirty six. Thirty seven. Thirty eight.

You knew how dangerous it was, but you sent him in there anyway! Octavia's voice is a faraway memory, but it slams into me, again and again. You are responsible for this. You are responsible. You. I can feel myself cracking, skin spiderwebbing down my arms like I'm made of porcelain. Pieces of me chip and fall away.

I clench my hands until a tingling starts in my fingers, nails carving half moons into palms. No. This is Bellamy. Strong, stubborn Bellamy. Giving up is not in his nature, anymore than letting him is in mine.

My eyes burn, but I don't dare blink, still standing perfectly still, gaze frozen on his face. Beads of sweat coalesce on his forehead. His usual tanned complexion is a deathly pale, making him more ghost than man. I have the mad urge to reach for him if only to prove my fingers won't cut through him like a mirage.

Fifty three. Fifty four. Fifty five.

Mom stops counting at sixty.

I wait for her to do something else. Start another round. Bring out the epinephrine and shoot it into his heart. But it takes me a second before I realize that we don't have any epinephrine, and another to understand my mom isn't trying to do anything else at all. That there is nothing else we can do.

And then that silence lets out a scream.

I see tears falling from Octavia's eyes and she's shaking her head. She takes my mom's place and starts compressions again, but her arms are bent and her hand placement over his chest is wrong.

"No," I think I whisper, but I can't hear my own voice. The silence inside has bled into the room, muting everything around me. So I say it louder.

"No." No. No. No.

"Clarke." Somehow, my mom's voice breaks through the barrier and her hands are on my shoulders, fingers pressing hard into my shirt. "He's gone."

I shake my head. Because she's wrong. Bellamy can't be gone, anymore than the sky or ground can't exist. It just doesn't make sense with one less Blake among us.

If my brother dies, it's on you, Clarke.

I stumble back a step. Run my hands through my hair, trying to dislodge those words. That hideous, ruby red truth. There is already too much blood on my hands. It's a steady ocean surging around me. Soon I'll lose my footing, and slip beneath red waves.