Dark Matter • Bellamy Blake [Slow Updates]

Alone and Far From Home

"Hey you know what I'd like to know?" Finn interrupted with his insatiable curiosity.

"Why send us down today after 97 years?" He inquired to no one in particular, "What changed?"

"Who cares," Octavia shrugged, still keen on impressing Finn, "I'm just glad they did, I woke up rotting in a cell and now I'm spinning in a forest," she remarked placing a single hand on the bark of a tree and using it as leverage to rotate around its trunk.

Monty took Finn's inquiry into consideration, having had first-hand experience in the engineering labs he was well equipped to diagnose a viable conclusion, "Maybe they found something on a satellite, you know? An old weather satellite." He stated, "Or maybe it wasn't a satellite," he said, displaying doubt in his own hypothesis.

Clarke impatient with the groups lofty guesswork, bluntly declared, "The ark is dying."

Her words nearly caused me to choke on my own breathe. I sent her uncertain glance my brows furrowed in disapproval. This isn't the right time nor the right party to share this information with. A majority of the hundred had already expressed their fury with the Ark.

"What?" Clarke stated after observing my evident expression of discontent, "They were going to find out at some point in time," she remarked calmly.

"Stell, what is she talking about? Does this have something to do with your arrest?" Finn inquired.

"Tell them. You know the stats the best," Clarke insisted.

"Well, there was approximately three months left of life support on the ark, yet with the absence of the hundred the Ark benefits from a slight decline in the population..," I quantified.

"She's saying that now that we're gone. The Ark has gained a month's worth of oxygen," Clarke clarified.

"Exactly."

"So that's the secret they locked you both up to keep. Why they kept you two in solitary...floated your old man," Finn deduced.

Realizing that Finn was not about to simply let the topic go, I decided to recount the events that led us here, on earth, scouring for supplies, striving for survival, from the very beginning.

"It was during the late hours of my engineering apprenticeship with Jake that I noticed the flaw, well the first trace of it at least. I thought it was a miscalculation of some sort, a reckless error in the records. I reported it to Jake after our session in the labs and he assured me he'd look into it. A few weeks later Jake revealed to me that the Ark's supply of oxygen was...limited."

Clarke explained, "My father thought the people had a right to know, the council disagreed, my mother disagreed. They were afraid it would cause a panic. We were going to go public, anyway, when Wells..."

"What? Turned in your dad?" Finn exclaimed.

I bit my tongue to restrain myself from revealing the true identity of the perpetrator.

Clarke brushed Finn's exclamation aside. "Anyway, the guard showed up before we could. That's why today. That's why it was worth the risk. Even if we all die, at least they bought themselves more time," she concluded.

"They're going to kill more people aren't they?" Finn asked Clarke earnestly.

"Good," remarked Octavia, unrepentant, "after what they did to me. I say, float them all."