YEAR THREE / PART II.
The next few days had been harsh on them.
They had hunted like they couldn't hunt enough, worked harder than they ever had before, and even then the woodlands seemed devoid, seemed blank with nothing. And in the rare instance when they caught food, even then it had to be split into threes, and then into sixes—for what if there was no food for tomorrow?
Everything was nothing. They had everything from Becca's Lab—gears, machinery, books and resources—but there was nothing that they could nourish themselves with.
They didn't bother with the radios. Not when they couldn't even live on their own to care about them.
Even the weaponry didn't matter so much the fact that their rations were lost. From the packets to the berries and herbs they've scavenged during their hunt were all taken, all gone.
And save for some extra emergency rations they had taken for their trip to Becca's Lab, they had nothing saved in their stores—because something, someone had taken it all, raided them blank with nothing, left them to die.
It was then when they looked on the prospect of another survivor with such hate. Because how could they take everything, when they were all the only ones left in the apocalypse, looking to survive?
And half of Clarke berated herself for it. The marks of another survivor, the shadows, the fleeting presence were all there. And yet she chose to ignore it—in favour of ignorance, in favour of an easier life that was without another force working at bay. She pushed away from the evidence; pushed away Madi's words as nonsense, told herself it was just a result of Madi's trauma and her encounter with Emerson. Even when, looking back, it was so glaringly obvious that it wasn't.
And now she was facing the consequences of it. Everything was stolen, from rations to the resource to even Lexa's goddamn candles, and even though her mind was screaming some choice words at the survivor, in her heart, as appalling as it were, Clarke couldn't blame them. Not entirely, for it was true, for all they were doing was looking to survive. And if there were two selves—one for survival, one that was them—and they themselves knew better than anyone what they would do to survive—how could they really blame them?
She couldn't think that now, though. Not when her mind was supposed to be fixated on survival and not when she wasn't supposed to be sympathising with the survivor, goddamnit. And Clarke stifled a disbelieving laugh because the last time there was a survivor, she had killed him without remorse. Didn't flinch, but thought of their survival—didn't even think much about it after that. But now she was practically telling herself that she understood why a survivor did what they did— the same survivor that basically left them for dead.
(She'd probably have to thank Madi for that.)
They were on limited rations. Every day had been a fight, and surviving had never been harsher, had never been more evident now more than ever.
They had to split rations. Had to find food at hours on end. Had no time for recreation, no time to even talk to each other, for the energy spent was far more than what it was worth. And so they hunted and scavenged and tried to bring what little they could to support all of them because even little was better than nothing.
(And every little counted, now more than ever.)
Out of the three of them, Madi had been the most distressed. And Clarke suspected that it was because she sensed that they were distressed that she was, and thus in response Madi had worked hard to hunt, to fish and to scavenge and to find food for them, to the point where Lexa had to tell her to stop, to stop her from overexerting herself to the point past exhaustion.
