Why the Change of Mind (More a Change of Heart)

Hold Onto My Hand (Don't Let Go)

Hope you like Bellamy pain, whoops

Earth was much better in real life.

This was all Bellamy Blake could think as he and his baby sister Octavia, who was secured in his arms carefully, were pulled out of the ruins of the Ark to see the first glimpse of his new home. There was the view, first of all—for miles each way all he could see was colors, more vibrant than he ever could've imagined before; rich greens and browns and yellows and, best of all, a gorgeous expanse of blue, speckled with white clouds, that swept over it all like a dome. And the air—all his life Bellamy had been used to the air on the Ark, and he had never thought of it as secondhand, but now he knew better. This air was so clean, so refreshing; he finally understood that old saying his mom had used sometimes, about a breath of fresh air. It seemed to purify him, cleansing his lungs and opening his airways.

"Look at it, Octavia," he murmured, holding his sister up to the light. "Isn't it beautiful?" She babbled in reply, and he touched his face to hers briefly, sighing out in relief. Maybe here, on Earth, things would be different. Maybe he wouldn't have to hide her anymore, and they could finally be safe.

This hope came true, for a few days. Everyone was gathered together and the adults – his mother among them – started making a rudimentary wall while children like Bellamy and Octavia were corralled into an area and essentially left to play by themselves. It was a wonderful time, and no one questioned who the bundle in Bellamy's arms was (there was too much else to think about, plus they probably just assumed she was an orphaned child he had grown fond of), which meant he actually got to interact with the children. A strange experience at first, considering he had mostly avoided anything like friendship since the day his sister was born, but he kept trying anyway.

It was on the third day when he saw it. He had slipped away from his 'babysitters' to where they were working on the fence, Octavia cradled against him as always (he rarely let her go), when in the trees, he caught a glimpse of something—no, someone. A figure, clad in dark colors, with a strange scar across their face. He stared for a few moments, flabbergasted, before an older woman saw him and ran over.

"What are you doing out here?" she scolded. "You're supposed to be with the other children."

"But I saw—" he said, struggling to point with the bundle in his arms, but it was too late anyway. The figure had slipped out of sight.

"Come on, back inside," the woman said, turning him and keeping a hand on his back to guide him away from the edge. With a last, bemused look behind him, Bellamy let her.

After a few hours of thought back in the so-called nursery, he decided it had been a trick of the light, or someone playing a prank on him, or something. It was some trick, though; he saw several more figures later that day, and the morning after he saw maybe a dozen creeping in the tree line together. He tried to tell someone, feeling a little nervous, but no one believed a seven-year-old, especially the son of Aurora Blake.

Later, he wondered if it all could've turned out differently if he had just been someone else.

They came the way a tornado might—wild and fast, yet nearly unnoticeable until after the carnage had begun. Bellamy, caught in the eye of the storm within the walls of the ruined Ark, didn't see the first wave of attacks. He didn't see the arrows whizzing out of the undergrowth and burying themselves into the flesh of unaware adults. He didn't see the panic fall over the others like a wave and make them entirely vulnerable to the camouflaged warriors waiting for their chance; didn't see the fighters, each one scarred in the same way, charge with a battle cry and slice down anyone their weapons could come in reach of.