in which a girl with a heavy burden tries to find her way through the trials and torments of the earth they've come home to.
OR
in which she must rebuild.
EMBERS
JOHN MURPHY
DEATHLIES 2016
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN T...
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T H I R T Y O N E
Althea had never felt her muscles burn so badly in her entire life. Good stamina did not come from being locked up in a cell. Luckily, she had fear driving her forward, moving her muscles impulsively and decisively. As she ran, she stuck close by Finn just hoping and praying that he knew where he was going. Out of everyone, he seemed to have the clearest head. Althea trusted her judgement, and ran alongside him.
The feeling of fear in her veins felt like crows trying to force their way out. Flying in panic, searching for any exit possible. Upon finding that there wasn't one, they resorted to force. Their beaks pecking into the flesh for freedom.
People did the irrational when faced with fear.
"What are we gonna do? They keep heading us off!"
"Just keep running."
"I can't run much longer!"
"I'm not stopping for him!"
Bellamy halts in his tracks, jolting his weapon in his fingers. "I'm sick of running anyway," He growls lowly. Everyone stops around him. The delinquents who were arguing look at one another briefly, but then look to Bellamy, their leader.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Finn asks, panicked. He wasn't alone in the panic. Althea didn't think stopping was the best idea either.
"They know where she is," Bellamy tells him.
"You really think they're going to tell you where she is?" Althea snaps, not being able to bite her tongue any longer. He was being irrational. "You're going to get us all killed."
"You didn't have to come with me. Don't act like I made you come," Bellamy shoots back. Althea's eyes flicker over his expression. It was determined and not in the least bit regretful.
"I came for Octavia. Not for you." And her voice is so steady, so emotionless, that Bellamy's demeanour fails for a split second. For a moment, he really believed that she didn't care. Of course she cared. She had to care, didn't she?
"Diggs, where are you?" Roma calls out, oblivious to the rising tension between the leader of the pack and the girl who whispered melodies to the crows as if they were her personal audience. Never did they applaud, only did they cackle.
"Roma!" Diggs shouts back. That's all it takes for Roma to start running towards the noise. Her hair rushing out behind her in ribbons of ebony. Like the ballerinas of the stage, she ran with an elegance that only Althea would have noticed in a time like this.
Finn did not notice. Finn only cared about what she was running into. "Wait! Roma! There could be more! Stop!" He shouts, beginning to run after her. Everyone follows, no questions asked.
-
"There she is! Roma!"
And there she was, stood behind a tree. Her back pressed against the bark and movement minimal.
From a distance, she looked as if she were hiding and as if she were struck frozen with fear, but as the group approached her, it was clear by the spear jutting out of her chest that she was not hiding. In fact, she was dead. Another victim taken by the grounders.
Althea watches as Bellamy lifts two fingers to close her eyes, but it didn't make her look peaceful at all. The blood that had flowed from her mouth, down her chin and her neck made her look like a scene from a horror movie. The spear from her chest was barbaric, thrown with pinpoint precision.
"They're playing with us," Finn concludes solemnly.
"She only came because of me," Bellamy says, his voice woven with a twinge of regret that Althea was glad to hear.
"They can kill us whenever they want." Finn turns to them, his eyes flickering to Althea for a moment and he's surprised to see her face still full of colour at the sight of another dead body. She was not as scared as she was before and whether or not that was a good thing they were yet to see.
Jasper sucks in a breath and turns his head up slightly. "Then they should get it over with! Come on!" He shouts, his voice being carried through the open air of the forest, right into the ears of the hidden grounders. "We know you're out there! You want to kill us..."
The grounders act immediately and that's when the fear arose back into Althea. She slinks in behind Finn. He holds up his weapon, ready to defend himself and his companions. In that moment Althea wished she'd picked up a weapon too, but she didn't trust herself with one yet.
The grounders rushed through the trees and the foliage towards them, murder in their eyes, but then the sound of a horn vibrates through the air and they stop in their tracks, dispersing from the hunt.
"They're leaving," Bellamy points out in confusion.
"That horn," Jasper says. "What does it mean?"
"Finn?" Althea turns to him, looking for the answer.
"Acid fog," Finn replies, a grim look on his face.
"We need to run," Althea says, her face weakening to worry. She didn't want to end up like Atom, burned and scarred by the acid fog to a point unrecognisable to the ones she cares about. A horribly painful death that left the victim begging for mercy from the hand of death. "Finn?"
"There's no time."
-
885 words im loving althea and finn's friendship too much
