Of Everything That Could've Been - Bellamy Blake [2]

Chapter 16 - Blood Must Have Blood (part 2)

Their harsh panting breaths is the only sign of other humans in the dark abyss they find themselves in, their hasty steps stumbling over uneven terrain and rodents. Myles' splint covered broken hand runs along the hard dirt and jagged stone wall as her exhausted body pushes her legs to just keep running, feeling her long red ponytail slap against her back and neck. Lights are scarce, the few fire lit torches having either burnt out entirely or been taken by the army that retreated almost two hours ago. It's cold and dark, their frantic breaths and rushed steps bouncing off of the walls and echoing back at them.

Shadows bend and twist in her exhausted eyes, taking shapes of things and people she knows aren't there. Myles knows that bright blue eyes filled with loathing aren't scattered around the darkness, she knows his breathing doesn't float through the air with theirs. Yet, her stressed and sleep deprived mind won't let him go away, he's everywhere. Still, the painful and desperate pounding of her heart keeps her left hand scraping against the wall, tempting whatever may lurk in the pitch blackness around them.

Suddenly, her splint stops scratching along the wall, her arm ceasing it's random jolting from the uneven and rough tunnel, and her whole body falls into the open air as her two moveable fingers touch nothing but cold air. Myles' boots try to slow down sloppily, a feeble attempt to stay on her feet.

"Left," Myles pants immediately, and the redhead can hear Clarke change course as her splint finds the wall again.

They continue on, only skittering rodents, the distant squawks of bats and insects to keep their pounding boots and loud breaths company in the dark tunnels before Clarke speaks.

"Are you sure this is the right way?" Clarke huffs into the darkness after Myles directs them left again, the blonde sticking close to the other wall.

"Now you're doubting me?" Myles asks sarcastically, thinking about how long they've been in these stupid fucking tunnels trying to get to the harvest chamber door. "I've spent the past eleven days staring at Lilo's map. Right, left, right, right, straight, left, straight, left, left, right, straight, round the bend."

"So we're almost there?" Clarke reiterates, a light lilt of relief in her voice from the red haired teens assured tone.

"Yeah," the redhead puffs out, "next turn is on your side. Let me know when the wall disappears, then it's a relatively straight shot. Hopefully the lights by the door turned on with the back up generator, so we don't run into the wall."

Sure enough, the right wall opens up after another few minutes of running in the frigid darkness, and both teens book it even faster down the tunnel. Myles keeps her splint scraping along the wall, just in case she's wrong about the maze's layout. Several agonising minutes pass, and then the dull shine of bright white lights bleed around a bend in the tunnel up ahead. Hazel eyes can almost see Clarke when they look to her now, the pitch blackness giving way to the tiny shreds of light that reaches them and allowing her to see her blonde haired friends outline.

Clarke looks back at her, and the gradually increasing lights showcase the mildly relieved expression mirrored on both of their faces. The eery silence that echoes back at them is louder than their loud, hasty movements and it quickly hardens Myles' relief to dread. Looking back down the tunnel, the closer they get to the bend, the more anxious the redhead becomes.

What if the team down here retreated, and left Octavia alone with the Reapers and the mountain men? What if the team never got a chance to withdraw because the mountain men found them? The most pressing worry the red haired teen has had to do with the mountain men keeps changing and evolving, morphing into new nightmares.

It had started out as for herself, thinking all of her friends were dead and she was all alone while being tortured in the mountain. Then, it became Clarke, finding her in the horrific mountain and being scared for her. That quickly branched out to the grounders, hundreds of them, weak and in pain, terrified, and kept in small cages with only small white underwear to keep them warm in the freezing cold air. The extent of her friends trapped in the mountain hadn't registered until a bit later, too consumed with saving who she can and escaping the pain, knowing she couldn't help them then.