Following the Stars

Chapter Two

"No!" I continued to scream.

Their faces surrounded me, taunting me, mocking me. I reached for my dagger and slashed at them, trying to get them to go away.

There's no use in stabbing ghosts.

I curled up into a ball again, wanting to just see darkness. Nothing else. I needed them to go away.

"Sky," someone tapped my shoulder and rolled me over.

"Murphy?" I asked. He was one of the people I'm pretty sure I didn't kill. I wanted to kill him, but last I checked, he was still alive.

He frowned, "The toxin's affecting you."

"I know," I did know. But knowing that didn't stop the guilt these faces brought.

"Jackson and Miller are alive and chained up," Murphy informed me, "Echo knocked herself unconscious to get away from the toxin and Emori is just sat there laughing."

That left two people.

"Bellamy's trying to kill everyone else and Clarke's trying to kill herself," Murphy finished.

"Then we need to stop them," I pointed out.

He pointed over to Clarke talking to a radio that wasn't even turned on while holding a knife, then to Bellamy running over at us with another knife.

So, stopping them. Easier said than done.

"Why do these people have so many knives?" I asked.

I reached for a sword, and Murphy eyed me warily, "Are you sure-"

"You're holding a gun," I stated, "And all I'm going to stab with this sword are ghosts."

The confusion on his face was evident, but he didn't say anything, thankfully.

"Get Clarke, I'll try to talk to Bellamy," I said, taking the sedative stick Murphy held out.

"Alright," Murphy agreed.

He must think he has the easy job. If Clarke's trying to kill herself out of guilt, that's going to be a lot harder to fix than stabbing Bellamy with a sedative.

"Bellamy," I said. He turned to me with bloodshot eyes.

"I'll kill you all!" Bellamy roared, running over to me. I put the sword away. It wouldn't do much good unless it was to kill him.

Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

I slowly backed away as he lunged forwards with a knife. I dodged the attacks, but there was no opening to sedate him. This was frustrating.

"Bellamy, stop!" I shouted.

He didn't. He kept waving the knife in the air like a madman. Then again, with all the toxin from the eclipse, we were all madmen.

My reluctance to return any attacks was the only thing giving him an advantage. I tripped backwards, but Murphy grabbed Bellamy around the neck and threw the knife away.

Removing weapons from the problem. That would work.

I threw my daggers and swords far out of reach. Clarke and Bellamy's knives were thrown onto the pile by Murphy, who also threw his gun.

Screams erupted from elsewhere in the camp.

"That's Emori and Echo," Murphy said between gasps, "Get Clarke."

Right. We left Clarke on her own while she was trying to kill herself. Bad idea.

"Clarke," I said as she looked at us all while talking to the radio, "It's not real."

"I killed them all," she broke down in front of me.

I took the radio from her hands, "You get up right now!"

"I killed them," she repeated, "I killed all of them."

With Bellamy and Murphy trying to kill each other in the background along with Echo and Emori screaming at each other, I really didn't want to have to deal with Clarke's emotional breakdown.

"Clarke!" I slapped her to get her attention, "Snap out of it!"

She still wouldn't listen. How could I reach her?

Trig.

"Yu gonplei nou ste odon. Ge smak down, gyon op nodotaim," Your fight isn't over. Get knocked down, get back up.

None of it was getting through to her.

"Yu laik ai kru," You are my people. I shouted at her, "I can't lose you."

"But I killed them," she turned to the radio. She was clearly hallucinating that it was talking to her.

I looked up. The eclipse was slowly passing, but the toxin would still be in the air long after that.

Finally, I realized what I had to do. I looked at the radio, then dropped it on the floor and stepped on it, destroying it. I threw the spare parts into the lake.

"Get up now," I growled.

Clarke panted for breath, finally awake from her hallucination, "That's a lot stronger than those jobi nuts."

The hallucinogenic nuts back on Earth that made everyone hallucinate? Those were hilarious. After everything happened, Monty had said, "I'm pretty sure I just ate a pinecone- because it told me to."

I missed Monty and Harper. It was surreal to think I'd gone to sleep overnight and woken up to find they'd been dead for at least fifty years.

I couldn't think of that right now.

"Little help!" Murphy yelled. Clarke and I ran over to the lake, where Bellamy was drowning him.

Bellamy stood up to face us. Murphy didn't move.

Clarke pulled him out of the lake and started to try to revive him while I distracted Bellamy.

Not being able to hurt him really made this a lot harder. Mainly because he was my friend and I didn't want to hurt him, but he wanted to kill me.

"Clarke," I choked out as Bellamy slowly tried to crush my throat.

I clawed at his hands, but they wouldn't move. I couldn't breath. Eventually, there wasn't enough oxygen in my blood. I passed out.

When I woke up, we were all in a disorganized pile. Bellamy was no longer trying to kill me. I was the first to wake up.

I glanced across the ground to a gas capsule. Clarke had knocked us all out so we could wait through the eclipse without trying to kill each other.

Shaking the others awake, I felt to my throat, which was a little bruised on top of the burn scars from the shock collar, but I was breathing.

Clarke looked at me, "It worked?"

"I assume you mean the gas capsule?" She nodded, "Yeah, I'd already passed out, but I think it worked."

Bellamy sat upright, "I am so sorry."

"Okay, note for the future, let's just stay chained up through the next eclipse with no weapons within reach," I said.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

I nodded, but before I could say anything, Clarke shrieked, "Murphy, come on!"

He wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing. His heart stopped, "No."

A commotion on the steps caught our attention. Children were flooding into the village, skipping and hopping and shouting, "The eclipse is over!"

"Of course it is," an older one said, "Otherwise we'd have gone crazy and tried to kill each other already."

"They'd never let us out if it wasn't over," another one said.

The girl in the front pulled her hair out of her face. She wore a long, soft pink dress that flowed in the wind as she ran up to us.

"Have you come to take us back to Earth?"