Shoelaces (A Bellamy Blake Fanfiction)

5 ~ F r i e n d s

A/N:

Hey guys, 

I just realised that either I didn't finish this chapter or the end of it was deleted accidentally. I dunno how long it's been unfinished for but I've finished it now and given it a bit of a spruce up. 

Hope you all enjoy it. 

Much love.

Octavia handed Sophia a water bottle. It was old and battered, no doubt brought down in a tucked away compartment on the drop ship, and was nearly empty. Sophia brought it to her lips, welcoming the exquisite taste of the liquid, sighing as she swallowed.

They'd been walking for an hour now and were surrounded on all sides by thick shrubbery. The trees seemed to stand taller, their branches meeting together in the middle like hands entwining their fingers. It seemed darker than it was where the drop ship had landed and a biting chill hung in the air. As they kept walking, they moved deeper and deeper into the forest, ever closer to the supplies they desperately needed.

Clarke walked up ahead, her head still buried in the map, occasionally looking up to check they were still heading in the right direction. Finn, the tall, long haired brunette boy who'd broken up the fight back at the drop ship, walked beside her. He had an amused expression on his face as he watched her look at the map like a girl on a mission. She looked up, catching his eye. Sophia heard the murmur of her voice as she told him she needed to focus, they didn't want to end up a hundred miles in the wrong direction after all. Finn ignored her, grinning as she sighed in exasperation. 

Sophia's mud sodden boots broke a pile of dead twigs as she stepped over an unusually shaped rock, careful not to knock it with her other boot and send herself toppling face first. Her bare arms were covered in scratches from the low-hanging branches, their thorns menacingly poking into her in warning not to come any closer. A few times, she'd had to stop to wipe a layer of blood from her skin, regretting the decision to take off her jacket and wrap it around her waist. Despite the chill, Sophia was heating up. The walk wasn't easy. They'd had to hop over things, climb under fallen trees that were too high to climb, not to mention the miles of ground they'd covered since they'd left the drop ship.

The other kids seemed fine. Of course, they were covered in moisture from the cool climate, but none of them seemed to be really worried about all the physical exertion. Sophia wondered if maybe she was just really unfit, which was most likely since she'd not been allowed out of her cell in a year. For a long time, she'd been too upset to do anything more than lie in her cell and stare at the ceiling, watching the days go by.

The group had stopped abruptly. Clarke was kneeling down at the front, her map rested carefully against the damp ground at her feet. She pointed in front of her, her eyes wide as a look of pure wonder overtook her strong features. A deer, tall and healthy looking, grazed over a patch of grass not far from where they'd stopped. Sophia went to kneel down beside Octavia, but her boot landed on another dead twig, startling the deer. It turned to look at them. Sophia gasped in shock as she took in its face. It seemed to have two heads that were split in the middle by an angry red growth that made the brunette cringe.

Sophia and Octavia shared a look. Both had a look of complete horror sparkling in their eyes. Both had their mouths hanging open in a common shock. What was this world capable of? If this was what radiation did to animals just trying to survive, what would it do to them if they were exposed to it?

The group decided to move on, heading in an arc around the animal, careful to avoid it. Sophia was shivering with the shock of what she had seen. She felt so sorry for the creature, guilty that it was her race that was responsible. In her school books, deer were beautiful creatures susceptible to the jaw of wolves and other sharp-toothed predators.