After Praimfaya

Chapter 1: Clarke

6 years and 7 days later.

Sun rays caress and warm my skin. I open my eyes slowly and observe the beauty of nature that surrounds me. It's curious how something so beautiful can also be mortal.

But not for me, or for Maddie, the Natblida girl that I found six months after the Praimfaya. I was looking for a prey to hunt, some of the few species that survived, when suddenly I saw the silhouette of a body still in the bushes. I felt fear and relief at the same time, it couldn't be a corpse of the Praimfaya because all the remains had disintegrated long ago, but then, who was and why she was there?

Without a moment's hesitation, I approached the body and when I turned it I saw the face of a girl, she wouldn't be more than 10 years. But she didn't move, she was very thin and her face was pale. I took her pulse, and with great relief, I felt her blood pumping through her veins. She was dying of hunger, so I carefully picked her up from the ground and carried her over my shoulders to my shelter (which basically consisted of a cave filled with objects that I had found in my hunts).

She woke up when I knocked her down and managed to speak before falling back into a deep sleep. "Maddie ... my name is Maddie."

Since then, every night before bed, we have sat in front of a bonfire and I have told a different story every day: what the Ark is, how it was to live there, how we got to Earth and everything that has happened since then. I have also told her whom I have loved, whom I have not been able to tell her that I love him, whom I have had to kill in order to survive and with whom I have survived.

Sometimes Maddie tells me she would recognize Bellamy, Abby and Octavia when she saw them, for all I've told her about them.

I carry all my drawings of them and my memories in a notebook that I found in the ruins of a house, and right now I'm watching it, sitting in the hood of the only four-wheel drive that exists on the planet, the one that stayed in Alie's mansion before the Praimfaya destroyed everything.

I decide to close the notebook and get off the hood to do my routine of every morning: try to contact the Ark through the radio. I pick up the little antenna I found at Alie's house and the walkie talkie and I sit on a fallen log, at the edge of a small cliff.

- Here we go again - I say with a sigh - Bellamy, if you can hear me, if you are alive ... - a wave of pain invades my body to say that - it's been 2.199 days since Praimfaya. I don't know why I still do this every day. Maybe it's my way of keeping me sane, not forgetting who I am, who I was - tears are struggling to get out of my eyes, but I don't let them out - it's been safe for you to go down for over a year already. Why didn't you do it?

I forced myself to release the button on the walkie to take a minute's rest. Repeating the same words every day didn't make them less painful, on the contrary, they reminded me the possibility of living alone with Maddie the rest of my days.

- The bunker is silent too, we tried to remove them for a while, but there is too much debris. I haven't been able to contact them either - "I know nothing of my mother or Octavia" I wanted to have added - Anyway ... I still have hope. Tell Raven to point to the only green spot and you will find me. The rest of the planet from what I've seen basically stinks and ...

Suddenly I stopped talking, I heard an explosion from the sky, and a few seconds later appeared a luminous object from the clouds. I could feel my heart beating fast, so hard that I was afraid it would explode. I stood up and slowly the object began to take shape: it was a ship.

I tried to calm my heartbeat by breathing slowly and deeply and I spoke again through the radio.

- Doesn't matter. I see you.

I release the walkie and I run to the back of the vehicle and get into the trunk. Maddie is sleeping on the animal skins we use as a bed.

I kneel beside her and caress her.

- Hello my little Natblida - Maddie blinks and opens her blue eyes - it's time to wake up.

- I don't want any more lessons for today.

Another sound of the ship sounds in the distance and Maddie quickly gets up. First, she looked in the direction the sound comes from and then she looked at me.

- You've waited a long time for this moment - I say, smiling.

She smiles too and runs off the vehicle to see the ship. I'm still here, thinking that I have been waiting a long time for this moment, and at last, today is the day.

- I thought you said it was a small ship - screamed Maddie from afar.

That comment made all the joy I was feeling turned into fear. "A big ship?" I thought, "It can't be, something is wrong."

I ran out and came to Maddie's side, staring at the huge ship in front of us.

That ship didn't come from the Ark or from any place I knew.

- Maddie, bring my rifle, now.

Without asking me any questions, she ran away and was instantly at my side, giving me the rifle. With all the calmness, I was able to maintain, I put the rifle over my shoulder and looked through the grille, focusing on the ship.

"Eligius corportarion" was written on one side of the ship. I turned farther to the right, toward the ship's door. There were some letters that took my breath away, "Prisoner Transport."

- We are here! - Maddie screamed, jumping up and moving her arms up.

- Down! - I say, and quickly grab her elbow and pull her down to crouch beside me - I want you to hide the car, keep it out of sight and load the weapons.

- All of them? - I know I've scared Maddie with my words and she's afraid, but right now I have to act fast.

- All of them - I answer.

After a few seconds in which Maddie remains motionless, she runs off to the car.

I'm, however, unable to look away from the ship. It's landing on the esplanade below the small precipice in which I am. The noise of the ship mixes with a new sound, the off-road engine starting, but slowly the sound goes away until it stops listening.

"Now it's just Maddie and me against whoever leaves that ship," I think.