THE ARK'S LAST NIGHTBLOOD | LEXA KOM TRIKRU

T W O

I CLUCHED MY side and bit my tongue harshly every time my feet collided with the earthy ground.

My pants were self-evident and harrowing.

To me, it seemed like the vast green forest wanted to swallow us whole, it did not want us here in its perilous lands.

We were trying our best to make it back to camp without being killed by the unfamiliar populous; our neighbors, here on Earth. I mean, totally understandable why. We showed up in their lands –lands they mostly likely fought for at one point– and started to cause commotion and uproar.

I started to hear chanting coming just slightly west.

The camp, it had to be.

With that thought in my mind, I pushed myself forward a little more. I grunted just as I started to lazily scale a large hill before carefully making my descent downwards toward the camp. My hand still cupped my wound cautiously, careful not to let it reopen.

I was about halfway down when I started to feel lightheaded. A few coughs escaped my lips when I looked up and saw Murphy and that other boy from before trying to kill each other.

"Wells!" Clarke bellowed out from behind me, right before trotting over to him. "Let him go!"

I slowly started to descent again, my feet moving sluggishly. I felt like I was basking under a thousand suns at once.

The large kid, who I now knew as Wells, pushed Murphy down to the forest floor with ease. The bloodied boy quickly picked himself back up before trying to ram into the giant boy. The fake guard intervened and held him back, stopping him from killing the son of the chancellor.

The fabricator easily turned his head and widened when he saw Octavia. He immediately hurried over towards her, calling her name and suddenly asking about her well-being. Slowly, I started to feel all my energy begin to fade. The male imposter started to ask where all the food was, the food Clarke promised to bring back.

My breath seemed to be getting heavier and heavier. I don't know how much more I can take at the moment.

The disguised guard's voice boomed from where he stood. "What the hell happened out there?" I could feel my small but nimble frame start to deliberately sway.

"We were attacked." Claimed Clarke. My knees were slowly turning gelatinous. Wells turned to Clarke in curiosity before speaking up. "Attacked? By what?"

Finn cut his way into the unaimed conversation, "Not what. Who." He stated knowingly. "It turns out, when the last man from the ground died on The Ark, he wasn't the last grounder."

"It's true," Clarke professed.

My head started to lull every which way. With every waking moment, my wound was beginning to grow in its throes. I was beginning to tire with every passing second.

"Everything we knew about the ground is wrong. There are people here, survivors. The good news is, that means we can survive. Radiation won't kill us." The solemn blonde declared. Finn cuts in once more. "Yeah, the bad news is the grounders will."

I felt a large burdening weight suddenly start to crush my chest from the inside out, making me feel worse. I could not overcome it at the moment but it made me think wholly about our current situation. Maybe we shouldn't be the ones to wage war on our crude acquaintances. But maybe, just maybe, we could get something out of it. My mind flipped through various thoughts and ideas on what could work. All of my atom-sized thoughts started to piece themselves together slowly, forming a rough outline of its strategic advantages.