Kingdom Of Heavens - The 100 [1]

Chapter 2

I walked into the mess hall with Skylar. She was an old friend of mine. We grew closer after her brother got arrested and put in lock up. Well, he wasn't really her brother. Both his parents died when he was little, so her family took the orphaned boy in. No one has an actual brother or sister. Well, except for the Blakes. Skylar and I were the same age, and unlike me she chose to go into farm, feeling that was the best place for her after she fell in love with our Earth Skills class. She had jet black hair, and these brown eyes that could look deep into your soul if you weren't careful. As we grabbed our trays and sat at a table, I couldn't help but feel a need to tell her what happened with everyone in lockup, even if I didn't know much.

"Looks like the council is up to something." Skylar remarked, gesturing to my father across the mess hall. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw him sitting with a couple of the council members, talking about something that, by their body language, seemed to be very important. Chances were they were talking about the 100 prisoners, and how to kill off the rest of them. I turned back around and took a bite of my meal. Bland, like always.

"They're always up to something." I put another spoonful of my meal into my mouth, trying to keep myself from saying too much. I heard a spoon make contact with the metal lunch table and looked up to see Skylar staring right at me with those eyes of hers.

"You know something, don't you? And here I thought you and your dad weren't talking." She had this little smirk dancing on her face.

"We're not." I lowered my voice down to a whisper, so as not to be heard by anyone else. "I'll tell you later."

"You'll tell me now. Does it have to do with that drop ship the other day? That obviously was not a maintenance accident." Skylar always had this demanding air about her. Things were either her way, or they were her way. There was no other way around it.

"Keep your voice down!" I whispered harshly. "I'm sure they'd float me for saying. After lunch we'll talk." I went to take another bite of my meal when Skylar got up and dropped her tray off. She stood in the doorway, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and an impatient look on her face. I sighed and got up to return my half eaten tray. Sure the food tasted horrible, but it was still food. And I was starving.

The two of us hurried down the halls like two little school girls, and slipped into her quarters. Both her parents were out working, so we knew the room would be empty. We sat down on her bed facing each other, as if we were about to exchange secrets.

"So tell me!" She had this big smile on her face, excited to hear the latest council gossip. I was able to deliver on this a lot better when we were kids and I still talked to my father. Come to think about it, we hadn't had one of these conversations since before I started dating John. She noticed the frown on my face as I looked down at my hands. John was dead, this wasn't the good news that she was expecting. Her frown faded away. "Venus? What is it?"

"I... I think they sent the 100 or so in lockup down to the ground..." I looked back up, and could see very plainly on her face her mixed emotions. Happiness, sadness, fright. But, most of all, confusion.

"What do you mean the ground?"

"I don't know. All I know is that there was the drop ship launched yesterday, and John...he's dead. But he didn't die here on the Ark... I heard Chancellor Jaha asking Abby if 'the 100 made it'." Now I was on the verge of tears once more. The reminder that John was gone forever stung each time it reemerged. Skylar pulled me into a hug, rubbing my back in an apologetic way. But I knew there was still one more question on her mind. When our hug was finished, I wiped away the tears from my eyes. "I don't know if Neil is alive or dead, but I can try and find out." Neil was her adopted brother. They were very close before he got locked up for supposedly stealing, even though we both knew he didn't. He was just a little boy, barely ten years old at the time.