silence and sound → the 100 ²

[ 001 ] three months after.

— CHAPTER ONE,
three months after.

FOR A LONG TIME, RUBY CARSON BELIEVED HER LIFE WAS OVER. She lost her best friend, she lost her mother and her father, then she found out that the man that raised wasn't truly her biological father. Her biological father was a man already dead and her brother was the same boy that shot her in the thigh and tried to kill her boyfriend out of revenge.

It's been three long months since the events at Mount Weather; since Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake pulled a lever that irradiated Level 5 of the Mountain, committing mass genocide.

It's been three months since Cage Wallace kidnapped Ruby and drug her outside where he eventually stuck her with a needle that contained a super Reaper drug.

It's been three months since Ruby's heart stopped for the second time, since Abby Griffin did chest compressions on the young woman until she was gasping for air. In severe, excruciating pain but alive nonetheless.

Over the course of the three months, Ruby has been locked in the bunker that Finn discovered all those months ago, when they first landed on this horrible, beautiful planet. Lincoln and another Grounder by the name of Luca have been hell ikr her through the process of being a Reaper. Luca is one of the Reapers that her people saved after the attack on Mount Weather.

For three months, Ruby has been locked away in the darkness, slowing losing her mind.

In her first three weeks locked away in the bunker, her madness got the best of her. She took a knife and she pressed it to her wrist. As a result of her attempt, Lincoln and Luca took every sharp object from the bunker and it hid them away.

She would punch the walls around her, splattering her blood. It dried on the walls, forever staining them. She would scream at the top of her lungs in a blind rage. She would tug at her hair, sometimes even pulling it out. She would curse at Lincoln and Luca, damming them to hell for helping her.

She only saw red.

She didn't sleep much at all.

She never got more than three hours of sleep per night. She's been left with intense anxiety and insomnia as a result.

Ruby is also plagued with nightmares of the past. Lincoln told her that it was post traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as PTSD. She didn't fully comprehend it. But after she attacked Luca one day because she didn't recognize him, she understood her illness better.

In her time inside the bunker, she couldn't do much of anything but rage. She would sit in the corner of the dark bunker and think. She would think about the brutal death of River Bailey. She would think about the death of the man who wasn't truly her father. She'd think of the death of her mother.

But after two months of solitude, insanity, and episodes, Lincoln and Luca decided that it was time they would test Ruby. They brought her outside, they both had a tight grip on her arms. Her still red eyes squinted up at the shining sun. She looked around her, seeing the green leaves and grass.

She heard the crunch of leaves under her boots. She felt the way the the gentle breeze swept her brown hair over her shoulder. She smelled the sweet air she'd grown so used to. It was like her first time on Earth.

But she felt like she was on trial.

Two weeks after she stepped outside for the first time in months, she slowly started to get better. Luca and Lincoln discussed the idea of bringing Bellamy to see her but decided if they had it would be dangerous for both Ruby and himself. She wasn't ready to see him again. Not yet.