Scars to Your Beautiful (the 100 fanfic)

Chapter 6

That day marked the beginning of a new routine. My days were spent training with Tomas and then heading over to Nyko's to learn healing. At night, Ava and I would spend it talking as she taught me more about the world I was now living in. My feelings for her grew as the nights got longer and the days colder.

My world became that of my new home and I rarely thought about the people that I had left behind, both in the sky on the Ark and here on the ground at the dropship. That all changed one night as Ava and I were walking around the village, speaking of inconsequential things, when a sound drove our gazes upward. I recognized the sound as that of a large object breaking through the atmosphere and watched as a dropship plummeted down to the earth. Nothing firing to slow it down, no parachutes deploying. There was nothing to keep it from becoming a metal death trap. My chest squeezed tight as it crashed and an explosion of light and sound reverberated through the land. I found myself unable to move, breathe, think as I watched the fire burn and the smoke begin to choke the sky.

It wasn't until Ava shook me and calling my name that I was able to focus on her.

"Rook, do you know what that was," she asked, glancing fearfully at the flames that could still be seen.

I nodded numbly, "It was a dropship. From the Ark. No one could have survived that, but what made it crash? The retro thrusters didn't fire. The parachutes didn't deploy. How could they have a complete systems failure? That's impossible."

"Rook, what are you talking about," she asked desperately as others started to come out of their homes at the noise and were staring off into the horizon that was slowly fading back into the night as the fire died down.

I shook my head, trying to clear it of all of the things that could have caused it to crash as it did, and focused on her and said, "It shouldn't have crashed like that, Ava. It should have landed exactly like the dropship that was carrying me did. That sound we heard, was it breaking through the Earth's atmosphere. At that point, the reverse thrusters should have fired, slowing it down. The parachutes would have deployed, slowing it down even further to make sure that those inside would survive the landing."

"I still don't understand," she lamented.

I growled in frustration, but said, "It's fine. It's okay. All I'm saying is that it shouldn't have crashed. There are things on that ship, tek that is supposed to prevent such a tragedy from happening. Everyone on that ship is dead. They would have died on impact and not felt a thing. They didn't feel their deaths."

"So, more Sky People were trying to come down," Indra said, startling me because I hadn't realized that she'd come over towards us.

"Yes, the camp must have found a way to contact the Ark," I replied. "Or it's getting that desperate up there that they took a chance and sent more people down. I won't know the answer to that question unless I go back to camp."

"Which you are not doing, Rook," she said, giving me a steely gaze.

"I understand that, Indra," I replied. "I'd be killed or captured on the spot anyway if I came close to the camp. I no longer look, speak, dress like they do anymore and wouldn't be trusted enough to get any answers."

"I'm glad that you are not going to argue with me on this. Do you think they will try again?"

"It's possible, but I don't think they have any more ships that are near complete enough or could be completed in the time they have left before the air runs out," I replied, thinking.

"You should head inside, Rook," Indra said in a voice that brokered no argument, so I nodded and headed home.

When I crawled underneath the covers and allowed Ava to pull me close to her, I couldn't help that my mind tried to figure out what could have caused the crash and I slept very little that night.