We Are Grounders

Violets lungs burned as she ran through the woods, her knees aching and her sides cramping up as she slid down a hill carefully, one foot in front of the other as she landed in front of the entrance to the tunnel, leading away from the camp.

She leaned up against the wall, breathing heavily, the light of day beginning to fade.

Something moving far in the woods echoed, startling her as she began running farther into the tunnel, the tunnels widening more as she ran farther and farther.

The tunnels reeked of sulfur and terrible fumes of sweat and mildew, both things that made Violet terribly nauseous. It was too dark to see more than ten feet in front of her, her mind making her hear and see things that weren't ever there, looking back every few minutes. The air grew colder and more damp the farther she ran, and her knees wanting more and more to just give out beneath her.

The sound of footsteps, screaming and hooting began to draw closer to her, from both behind and in front of  her as she began to panic, seeing no way to escape whatever was ahead of her for a long while, until, somewhere the floor changed from dirt and stone to rail tracks, old cart tracks.

A fork in the tunnel widened, a section diverting both left and right.

"OOH, OOOH, OOT!"

Violet covered her mouth with her hand, dropping down against a wall as what seemed like dozens of grounders started running by her right.

She waited a few moments, hearing a grounder shouting, and then a loud thump.

She turned her head out towards the left, seeing it clear as she stood up, and ran out into the tunnel.

"OUHF!"

She ran into somebody, whom had also been running, knocking Violet onto the ground, her back hitting the cold dirt.

"AAAAAH!" She choked, her head suddenly throbbing as she came face to face with whatever thing was on top of her.

It had to be a grounder, its face distorted yet covered in piercings and scars like any normal grounder she had come into contact with. The grounder practically growled at her, it's hands over her neck, screaming at her with the worst possible breath ever. She could feel her blood practically getting hotter and hotter, yet her body felt cold.

"AAUGH!" Violet threw her hand in the air, grasping her knife tight enough to turn her tiny knuckles white, bringing it down as fast and as many times as she could on the grounder, unable to tell if she had even hit it, until blood started sputtering out of the side of its head.

"V-Violet? VIOLET!" Violet let out a muffled cry, as the grounder practically collapsed into her, a boulder being cracked into the side of its ugly head.

"VIOLET!"

She shoved the grounder off of her, rolling over off of her back as she coughed, wheezing as she caught her breath, and looked up.

"Finn? FINN!" She stood up, grabbing him into a hug as she began sobbing. "You're okay, you're okay!" Finn whispered, hugging her as he looked over at Clarke. "I messed up!" Violet exhaled, holding onto Finn. "Violet, what happened?"

"I saw-"

"Shut up!"

Voices echoed down the hallways once again.

"They're coming back, we need to run."

"It's this way! Come on!" Violet wiped her tears with her hands and grabbed one of Clarke's hands, as well as Finn's, pulling them into the tunnel she had been running out of, letting go of their hands as soon as she was leading them in the right direction.

"Murphy shot Lorie." 

"Lorie? Who the hell is that?" Finn exhaled.

"That girl, black hair, green eyes. The one who wouldn't get away from me? I bashed my head into hers and she was pissed off about it?"

"Why?"

"Murphy killed somebody, Lorie saw.""Who else did he kill?"

"Connor."

"Oh god, why?" "I don't know, but she was screaming at me like she was my mother."

The light at the end of the tunnel reappeared, as she and the others came back into the woods. Violet stopped short as she looked around, the bright light of the sun blinding her as she squinted.

"I don't know what way I came from."

"This way, just come on!" Clarke grabbed Violets hand, pulling her through the woods as Finn followed behind.

"Clarke, stop!"

"Come on!"

"This doesn't look right!" Finn spoke, stopping the three of them as they all looked around.

"What the hell was that back there? Why, why would they keep them alive?"

"I swear to god, the more we learn about this place, the less we know."

Violet sat down against the trunk of a tree, her knees tucked into her chest, as she began crying.

Finn had found a small stream, furiously scrubbing his fingers with the opposite hand, trying to get as much blood off of his hands as possible.

"Hey, hey, hey." Clarke knelt down next to him, holding his hand as he stopped scratching them.

"He would of killed her. You did what you had to do."

Murphy had suffocated Connor in front of her, and then killed Lorie, and let Violet get away. Why?

She picked at the healing scabs on her hands, spacing out everything around her, barely listening to Finn and Clarke's conversation.

"We all have, even Violet."  "I should have fought for you." "Finn, don't.""Clarke. I love you. I'm in love, with you!""You broke my heart. I'm sorry. I-I just can't, you basically have a kid now too. I'm not cut out to be a mom."

"What the hell?" Violet jumped, a loud explosion echoing, and rolling out as she stood up.

"That came from the camp." "We're too late." Clarke groaned, standing up as she turned around, looking at Violet."Vi! Come on, we have to go. Why are you crying?" Violet wiped her tears with her sleeves as she held onto Clarke's hand.

"I'm not crying." She said sternly.

"Look, you didn't see anything. Finn and I? We never heard you."

Violet nodded, running with the two of them as the front gates to the camp came into view.

"HOLD YOUR FIRE! ITS FINN AND CLARKE! THEY HAVE THE LITTLE ONE WITH THEM!" 

The front gate opened as the three of them ran in, the others working quickly to close the gate once again.

"We heard an explosion, what happened?" "Murphy happened." "Thank god." Jasper sighed, hugging Clarke as he saw Violet standing behind her.

"Where have you been? Where's Monty?""Monty's gone?"

"Clarke, we need to leave, now! All of us do." Finn spoke, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"There's an army of grounders, unlike anything we've ever seen, coming for us right now. We need to pack what we can, and run!" "Like hell we do! We knew this was coming.""Bellamy, we're not prepared." Octavia interrupted. "And they're not here yet! We still have time to get ready! Besides, where would we go? Where would be safer, then behind these walls?" "There's an ocean, to the east. People there will help us!" Finn argued. "You saw Lincoln." Octavia nodded, knowing that knowledge was true. "You expect us to trust a grounder? This is our home now!" Bellamy raised his voice, "we built this from nothing, with our bare hands! Our dead are buried behind that wall, in this ground! Our ground!"

Violet looked up, realizing Jasper was staring at her. "I'm sorry." She mouthed, as he nodded and stuck a finger against his lips, shushing her without creating any noise. "The grounders may think they can take that away from us! They think that because we came from the sky, that we don't belong here! But they're yet to realize one very important fact; we are on the ground now, and that means we, are grounders!"

"Yeah!""Grounders with guns!""Damn right! I say let 'em come!" Bellamy argued.

"Bellamy's right, if we leave, we may never find a place as safe as this! And God knows, in this world we could be faced with something even worse tomorrow. But that doesn't change the fact that if we stay here, we will die tonight. So pack your things, just take what you can carry, now!"

Overlapping chatter echoed, as people began scrambling, gathering whatever they could.

"Help me!" A voice echoed from the woods."Raven!" "Murphy shot her!" "Get her into the dropship, now!"

"Clarke! Leaving here is a mistake."The decisions been made!""Crowds make bad decisions! Just ask Murphy! Leaders do what they think is right.""I am!"