✓ | rarity. ( john murphy )

prologue.

ZERO | " i don't belong here "

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   AT eight years old, Noora Quinn was a content little girl, who enjoyed her life in space, having started school only a few years before. She had made many new friends, and loved the care-free feeling of being a child with no responsibilities whatsoever. However, being a child came with naïvety and Noora was oblivious to the fact her father was experiencing severe mental health problems — after all, she was too young to even know mental illnesses existed.

   As a result, she didn't think much of it when her father hurriedly took her out of class one morning. He had told her not to worry about it and that nothing is wrong, and the eight-year-old believed him. Being led through the halls, passing many unsuspecting people, Noora didn't shout for help. Why would she? Her father had all her trust, so she hadn't even questioned his erratic actions at the time. Not to mention, her father was a good actor and able to make people believe the young girl was ill. Nobody they passed second guessed his motives.

   The next thing Noora remembered was waking up on the ground, on Earth. Blood was dripping down her face, her ears were ringing and some of her clothes were charred. She couldn't recall how she ended up in this predicament, and her father was still out cold. Noora wanted to shake him awake, to cry into his chest, but she could barely raise her arm out of her seatbelt. Her whole body was trapped in a tiny pod that crashed into the ground, and she had never felt more alone and confused.

She passed out a few minutes after, her body too over-whelmed to cope with the sudden trauma.

   Her eyes reopened a day later, but her mind was still as shocked as the first time she awoke. Instead of waking up in the pod, Noora found herself staring at the ceiling of a cave, water dripping off the surface in the background. Her eyes flit around the cave, but nobody else was to be seen. Noora's body was extremely fragile, but she managed to prop herself onto her elbows.

   Empty. The cave was almost void of any life.

   Tears instantly flowed from the girl's eyes, her face scrunching up as her heart began to race. With her last burst of energy, Noora shouted at the top of her lungs, "Dad! Help me!"

Within a second of hearing Noora's weak voice, her father raced around one of the corners of the cave, knelt down beside her and enveloped her in his arms. A rush of relief filled the girl's body, her cries now muffled into her father's shoulder. She no longer felt abandoned, or alone. The eight-year-old had her father back, and that was all that mattered.

   After her father had calmed Noora down, he sat beside her makeshift bed, a warming expression across his face.

   "Don't worry, Noora. We're in a better place now. There are other people on the ground that will take care of us — of you," her father paused, almost questioning if Noora was ready to see what he wanted her to. "This boy you're about to see...his name is Lincoln. Now, I don't want you to be afraid, he's just like us. Okay?"

   Noora didn't even have time to nod at her father when a tall, rather heavily built boy, around a few years older than her, turned the corner, coming into the view of Noora as he slowly walked closer to her. As an eight-year-old who knew virtually nothing about the ground, her natural instinct was to back away from him. She attempted to push herself along the cave floor by her feet, but her bones were far too feeble and she barely moved an inch.

There was nothing Noora could do but to face the scary-looking boy, who wore heavy body armour and war paint across his face. She thought he was terrifying, but as soon as he knelt down next to her, with nothing but a tender smile, Noora didn't feel so afraid anymore.

For the next few days, that cave became their home. Lincoln had tried to explain to Noora that he didn't have any other choice but to keep them in there. Although, his English wasn't that great, so Noora was sometimes confused. His people would kill them both, and the thought of that had sent shivers down the girl's spine. She was only eight — they wouldn't kill her, would they?

But Noora soon found out the reality of their situation. Somehow, one evening, Lincoln's father had stumbled upon the cave and was startled to see Noora and her father sitting on a log, their hands hovering over a small campfire. Although Lincoln's father hadn't conveyed how furious he was in front of the pair, he had marched out of the cave within a few seconds of entering to search for his son.

Lincoln hadn't returned to the cave that night, which only made Noora nervous. As a young child, she trusted people easily. She had put her trust in Lincoln, despite only knowing the boy for a couple of days, and the fact that he suddenly disappeared made her question this.

She got her answer the morning after. Lincoln hastily entered the cave and awoken both Noora and her father up in the process. He motioned for her father to get up, to which he did as he was told. Her father looked puzzled, his eyebrows furrowed.

   "Dad? W—Where are you going?" Noora's small voice barely even echoed off the cave walls it was that quiet.

     Lincoln turned to face her once more, his eyes showing an over-powering sense of sadness. Noora hadn't noticed it, but Lincoln had nodded slightly at her father in the direction of his daughter. Still incredibly confused at the situation, her father paused for a second, but eventually crouched beside Noora.

   He hugged her tiny frame, like it would be the last time, and as he stroked the back of her head, whispered, "You'll be okay, Noora. Trust me. I love you to the moon and back, always remember that."

   And that was the last time Noora ever saw her father.

At twelve years old, four years after crash landing on the ground, Noora had settled in more to Grounder life, though she would often question what her life would be like if she was still in space and believe that she didn't belong on the ground. The Commander at the time ordered her to live with Trikru, which meant that Lincoln could continue to take care of her with the help of his father. At first, she was incredibly apprehensive and didn't want to trust anyone after the disappearance of her father, not even Lincoln.

   It wasn't until she turned twelve, however, that she learnt the fate of her father. Lincoln was ordered by his father to kill him, but after debating with the Commander, it was decided that Noora was too young to be killed — she was only a child. Instead, Noora was to become one of their own, with her name changed to Nova. She was dropped a bomb-shell at such a young age, but knew she couldn't show weakness, so she dealt with the truth of her father internally, feeling guilt and sadness inside of her, but never showing it.

   By twelve, Nova was fluent in Trigedasleng, but still hadn't forgotten English, and she was in the process of becoming a trained warrior.

   However, she often found it difficult to fit in with other Grounders her age. Everyone knew she wasn't born one of them, so she was isolated from many things. Nova struggled to make friends, with nobody wanting to have the 'outsider' as their friend. At this point in her life, she was forever grateful to Lincoln for remaining the only person in her life who stuck by her — he was like a brother to her.

   Now, at eighteen, Nova is as much as a Grounder as anyone else. She's won many battles and hardly lost any. She rarely looks back at her life in space, and now considers herself a Grounder. She can fight like one, speak like one and, most of all, thinks like one. 

   Nova has fought so hard to make everyone think of her as a Grounder, as one of them. Her identity as a sky person isn't her identity anymore. She's not Noora Quinn anymore  — she's Nova, and she is a Grounder.

   After all, the majority of her life now has been spent on the ground. Her life in space is just a distant memory.