The One Who's Fallen

Chapter 124

The cold water stops after a moment and I spit some out of my mouth, disgusted. Something drops to the floor with a thud that seems to echo in this small room and I jump at the sudden unexpected noise.

I look over and am confused to see a generic shampoo bottle and another bottle has fallen to the ground from a hole I haven't noticed before in the ceiling.

"What the heck?" Raven questions, nudging the shampoo with her foot.

"Please wash your hair and scrub your skin clean. Do not scratch your skin, use the soap gently." The automated voice says.

"How does soap and washing our hair with shampoo help?" Octavia questions.

"The skin helps keep radiation from entering the body and can get trapped in the hair, so I guess the soap and shampoo is to get some of the radiation off. I think." I answer.

I'm not 100% sure that that's the reason, but it seems like a logical conclusion based on what I already know.

"Please wash yourselves." The automated voice says.

"Dang, can it see us?" Raven looks around anxiously.

I study the room and notice a nick in the wall I didn't see before that has a camera in it.

"Rae, what kind of camera is that?" I ask, pointing to where it is.

She squints. "That's one that reads heat signatures. Which sucks because that means we actually have to take a shower but it's good because they can't see our faces."

"Then let's get clean." I say.

We pass around the bottle of shampoo and wash our hair. Aside from Lincoln, at least. Octavia has fun rubbing some on his mostly bald head, though. We rub on some soap next, exaggerating our movements so the camera can pick it up. It's kind of awkward, bathing in front of the people I trust most in the world. At least we're clothed.

When we're all done, the water comes back on. Luckily, this time it's warmer. I scrub my hair and try to get all the soap and shampoo off of me.

The water shuts off and I shiver. My armor is sticking to me in the weirdest ways and I'm really hoping all of my moving around didn't reopen my wound. I tried to keep my right arm still, but I've found that it's really difficult to wash my hair with one arm.

"I have to say, Griffin." Raven says. "It was nice to finally see you taking a shower." She starts snickering.

"Float you." I put up my middle finger, which makes her laugh.

She's about to say something in response when air blasting from the walls drowns out everything else. I cover my ears, trying to keep it from murdering my eardrums.  When it finally stops, we all look at each other and burst out laughing. Everyone's hair has been messed up, even Lincoln's. We look like we just stepped out of a hurricane. Even Lexa's normally immaculate braids have come undone.

"You may now exit the decontamination room." The automated voice says.

There's a click and I spin around, putting my hands on my swords. It seems like it came from another door, different from the one we came in. I walk towards it and hesitantly open it a crack. Nothing explodes and I don't hear any yelling, so that's a bonus. I pull the door all the way open and walk through. We're in another small room. Please tell me we don't have to go through another decontamination process.

"Please place your outer layer of clothing into the nearest incinerator. New clothing has been provided."

Of hell no, there's no way I would ever part with this armor. Tell me it's a suggestion or that they don't keep track of what's incinerated. The others come in behind me, looking just as happy about the prospect of burning our clothes. There's a lot of extra clothing on some metal tables nearby.

While I mentally work through a plan that could work so we don't have to incinerate our armor, we all focus on making our hair less crazy. Because I don't exactly want to invade the Maunon's base like this. And I think I may have a plan that will work.

"Lex? Can you help me with this?" I question and she comes to my side.

I pick up the most amount of clothing I can in my arms and she does the same. I make my way over to the thing labelled incinerator. It's like a box-sized hole in the wall with insulated walls and a metal floor that's attached to the wall on one side. I dump it in and Lexa follows my lead.

I take Lexa's right hand in my left and we take a step back before I press the button. The metal floor drops open and the clothes go down. We listen to the clacking of zippers and buttons as it falls into the roaring fire below.

"Thank you for your cooperation," the automated voice says. "Decontamination process complete. You may now exit."

The next door unlocks and Raven high fives me. "Dude, that was brilliant! I can't believe you outsmarted an automated system!"

I grin shyly and Lexa squeezes my hand, giving me a proud look that tells me more than a thousand words could. I give her a quick kiss before we exit, but my smile falls when I see where we are. We're in the room of caged Grounders and the sight is just as heart wrenching as it was last time.

"Whoa." Raven breathes out, looking around with a horrified expression. "You told us about this, but... I never imagined it would be worse than you described. Holy crap. Yeah, the Maunon deserve to die; they have no humanity left in their hearts at all."

"They do what they think they must to survive." Lexa explains, and speaks again at Raven and Octavia's incredulous looks. "I am not saying what they are doing is right or morally permissible, I am saying it is understandable. Now come on, let's save our people."

I did look up what you have to do for a radiation decontamination process and it's *kinda* like this. This is according to the CDC... Usually you're separated by sex unless you do this at home, then you strip (outer layers are burned), then you scrub with soap and shampoo (not conditioner, apparently it can trap radiation), then dry off and put on new clothes. Which is simpler than I thought! Anyway. Thank you all for reading and for your amazing comments! Stay awesome!