she's just a kid || the 100

1 || the ground

I STARE AT THE SAME SPOT ON THE WALL I STARE AT EVERY DAY WHILE MY CELLMATE BRAIDS MY HAIR. It's the same thing every day; wake up, stare at the wall, go to lunch and recreation time, go to bed. Every day that I've been locked up in this hell-hole has been filled with boredom. 

On the Ark, any and every crime, no matter how severe, is punishable by death. But there is one exception. Juvenile offenders under the age of 18 get put in lockup until their 18th birthday. Lockup. Or as we call it, the 'Sky Box'. It sucks. 

When kids turn 18, they get reviewed to see if they get floated or not, which in most cases, they do. I can't remember the last time I actually heard of someone getting appealed. I guess the council figures 'why waste oxygen for ourselves when we can just kill a kid?'. 'Getting floated' is when they put you in an airlock chamber with two doors, shut the one that goes to the Ark and open the other one to suck you into space. Scary, I know.

I'm only seven, so I still have 11 years of sitting in my cell, waiting for the day I get floated. I was arrested for stealing medicine for my addict mother when I was six, whom I later found out got floated for possession of illegal substances a few weeks later, anyways. She figured that they wouldn't arrest a kid, and of course I didn't want my mom to get floated, so I did it for her, and got caught. 

Of course I was upset when I found out my mother got floated, but I was less upset than I probably should've been. She was never much of a mother to me. I grew up on Mecha Station, where it was just my father and I, alone in our apartment. My father was constantly working, and wouldn't get home until I was asleep, and would leave before I woke up. I would hang out in his workshop with the other mechanics when I could, tinkering with whatever scraps they had. On his days off, I was usually in school, but overall, he was a good dad.

My father was floated when I was five years old for trespassing and tampering with restricted resources. He was trying to build an escape pod to Earth, I later found out from Sinclair. I was forced to move to Factory Station with my mother, who was an addict. She would disappear for days on end, leaving me to fend for myself most of the time.

After about a month of living with my mother, our next-door-neighbour, Bellamy, found out I was practically living alone at five years old, and would bring me things like food, toys and books. When I got arrested, he made sure to be the guard that was assigned to my cell, continuing to bring me books and toys and anything he could. 

While I was in lockup, he would tell me stories of his little sister and how I reminded him of her when she was my age. Then one day, he suddenly stopped coming. I haven't seen him in almost a year. Since then, I had gotten two cellmates and was no longer alone.

There's no one even close to my age in the Sky Box. The only friends I have are way older than me. And I'm sure none of them consider me as friends, just the cute little girl that they feel sorry for. My cellmates, Harper and Jess, a couple people my dad used to work with, Raven and Sinclair. Harper and Jess are like my big sisters. They're so nice to me.

It was Jess' seventeenth birthday. No one really cares about birthdays in the Sky Box, though, unless it's your eighteenth, because that's when you get reviewed to see if you get floated. 

We just woke up and Harper was braiding my straight, blonde hair that went down to my shoulder blades when two guards barged into our room. It was odd because it isn't meal time or recreational time yet, and that's the only time guards come into our room. 

"Prisoner 186, 180 and 174 against the wall." One of the guards demanded.

The other guard was holding a black metal box, he opened it, revealing a few silver bracelet things. Are they going to float us? I looked to Harper, scared.