Ascende Superius | Book 3

13 | Join Or Die

Luna, Floukru, here we come.

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     The lighting is an odd, chaotically weird blue. It's a new memory, just like back in season one. We are all being lead through the corridors by guards to a room. In a flash, I quickly remember why we're here. The Earth Skills lessons.

     I'm right behind Octavia in the single file line passing through Alpha station's halls, queued behind, and in front of, the other ninety-eight teen prisoners. I make ninety-nine, and Wells would complete the group as prisoner one hundred. We have two weeks before we'd be sent to the ground, fourteen days left to learn everything we need to know that'll keep us alive.

     Looking in the line ahead of me, my eyes catch sight of a lanky stringbean boy with a pair of goggles on the top of his head. I also see Mbege, Murphy, Miller, so many faces not yet familiar with me, apart from those who knew about my rather public arrest.

     Many of the group stop in the doorway to glare at Jaha, Abby, and Kane. Octavia and I file into the rooms silently, successfully getting a seat beside Jasper since he had sat alone. Octavia notices, raising her eyebrows at me. She obviously recognises him from the dance that had gotten us both caught almost a year ago.

     People were not so subtly watching us as we pass, so she shuffles, sitting beside me in one of the plastic chairs since we really didn't know anybody else here apart from one another at this point.

     She keeps her head low, trying to ignore the obvious attention centered on the two of us. Jasper even leans away, his awkwardness as blatant as ever. Whispers pass over the crowd, echoing the words they'd called about us day one on the ground. "It's the girls from under the floor."

     "Welcome to Earth Skills," Pike begins. Everything goes white, and...

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     We're back to the present.

     Octavia is peering out of the dirtied window at the back of the rover, arms crossed across her chest. I'm sitting next to Jasper, watching the landscape roll by through the metal grate of the adjacent window. The boy beside me is watching the map, befuddled.

     "It's been an hour since we passed the airplane wreckage. Seeing as we're using a map any distances," he gives Lincoln a quick look. "It could be days before we reach Luna's village," he finishes, stressing his point. His fingers run over the page. Lincoln sighs, taking it from him.

     "We'll get there soon," he says simply, putting the journal into his jacket pocket. He sits forward, elbows on his knees, not saying anything else. Jasper rolls his eyes at me, making me snicker a little bit.

     "At least we know we're going the right direction," Bellamy reminds, trying to give us a silver lining.

     "We're running out of daylight," Jasper chides. "We should stop in the sun and recharge the battery." I bite my lip, watching the rain gathering on the glass.

     "What sun?" Clarke huffs, seeming almost annoyed. "We keep going until it dies," she mutters, her tone final.

     "We keep going until we get to Luna," Octavia corrects testily, moving back from the glass. Lincoln takes the journal back out of his pocket, flipping through to a drawing. He shows us the caricature of her.