EMPTY HEARTS, b. blake [O.H]

ii. start of time.

°°°

EMPTY HEARTS.
ii. start of time.

               CATHERINE WAS ONE of the last criminals that ran out of the drop-ship and into the surrounding novelty of unusual green plants. It all happened so fast, like she was moving in warp speed. The few things that she remembered were Octavia shouting at the top of her lungs, the anticipation inside the pod reaching maximum before everyone spilled out into the forest, and then she was slowly meandering towards a blond girl with an old-fashioned looking map.

          The girl, who was standing a bit away from the others with a look of dubiety and confusion swirled into one, didn't even seem startled when Catherine slowed to a stop beside her, her crystal-blue eyes stayed glued to the paper sprawled out in her hands. She looked familiar, Catherine thought, but she couldn't quite place how she might have known her—she often wondered how she even knew anyone, considering she could count on one hand how many times she even left her own house.

          "You look familiar," Catherine seemed too absorbed in her own thoughts to even catch on to what was falling from her mouth as she spoke. "Have I seen you before or something?"

          Unlike most teenagers her age, Catherine wasn't peculiarly good, if you must, at filtering the bluntness out of her words. She was raised by man who couldn't contain himself, someone who was prone to using the back of his hand to solve his problems rather than talking resolute. She was given the gift of life by a woman who wore her scars as if it were binding her torn skin to her frail bones—as if it were the only thing keeping her together. Catherine lived with a coward of a brother; a boy who would do anything to save his own skin, no matter the cost; a boy who continuously fought the urge to care, and succeeded in doing so. She wasn't given the family love she was supposed to, she wasn't taught how to act around people, or how to conceal how she felt, she wasn't like others.

          "I'm Clarke," she said, offering a half, lopsided smile. "Clarke Griffin. You're Catherine Grey, right?"

          "Uh, yeah. I—how do you know my name?" Catherine seemed taken aback for a moment, shaking the clutter from her head before speaking again: "Right, I forgot. Everyone knows my name; I'm the girl who spent half her life hiding in the broom closet and the other half inside a metal box of a room."

          Catherine wasn't sure what reaction she'd get from Clarke, and as the blond stared at her with guilt and pity swarming her eyes, Catherine regretted speaking in the first place. Although her childhood wasn't the best, she didn't want, nor need, anyone's charity. She wasn't weak.