Chapter 34 - Blood Stains

~Bellamys POV~

It's just like Mount Weather. Having another weight on my chest, not knowing where she is or what is happening. Not knowing whether she is dead or lying in the sand face down, or with Madi sleeping under the stars.

I look to the Grounders up ahead, their foots prints in the sand marking the way as I keep my head down, my face away from the sun and the collar of my jacket pressed against the back of my neck, keeping it from burning and scorching like the earth itself.

It's when I feel a cool breeze rush up against me that I look up. The normal plain orange and sandy yellow of the world seeming to blur as my eyes focus on the green trim of a hillside. Our plan to originally go back to the bunker, but now seeing this, I dont think we want to travel the extra day.

The Grounders seeming to walk faster as the sight of small green bushes come into view, small desert plans littering the sand as we approach the hillside up ahead. I take a closer look at the top of the hill and see small funnels of smoke floating up into the air.

The bunker must have travelled there overnight, or maybe just important personnel, just the people they need. Builders and engineers to build living quarters for the rest of the earths population.

Every pair of hands needed to rebuild the world we are now on, even if new threats are now here with us, we will get through it. I know we will, or I might as well die trying.

Within a matter of hours we reach the top of the hill side, my last few steps testing my legs true strength as I pull myself to the top of the ledge, my hands scratched and sore.

I look up and catch the eyes or several Arkadian's sitting by fires and talking to one another. I nod to a fellow guardsman and walk over to a larger fire at the end of the line of burning piles of wood, Octavias back facing me and her body guards around her.

I clear my throat rather loudly making sure the sound is not carried away with the crack of the fire. She spins around in an instant and looks at me wide eyed.

"Never do that again." She says as she slams into my chest, her arms wrapping around my neck and her head next to mine.

"I promise." I say wrapping my arms around her, the marks on my arm starting to fade from the needles and my skin burnt red.

"What happened?" She asks confused yet almost scared, like she doesnt want to know what has happened over the past few days I havent seen her.

"I will tell everyone later, for now we need to find Kane and Jaha." I say, wanting to tell them all. I watch as she nods understandingly, until her face turns worried again and her eyes flicker desperately to each fire.

"Where's Clarke?" She asks, like shes afraid she has lost her again. I reach out and grab her shoulders and turn her to face me.

"She's safe, she has gone to get Madi and bring her here." I say giving her shoulders a quick squeeze. I watch her shoulders relax and her breaths become deeper.

"Should we go find the others?" I ask wanting to see Monty and Raven. She nods and walks off down a small incline to the left of us, into the trees. I watch as she disappears into the green undergrowth and I have to force my feet to move, I didnt notice the trees grew taller here.

I follow her through the dense layers of trees, some growing taller than others and small ferns covering the ground. I watch where she steps and try to follow, not stepping on any major plants or moss. Small birds flying through the branches and bugs crawling across tree bark.

Soon we open up into a large clearing, the grass evening out and the sun blinding me for a few precious seconds. Its when I see the glint of metal that I walk ahead blind until the structure blocks out the sun.

The dropship standing tall and strong in the middle of this forest. The looks of burnt wood in a crooked circle surrounding the metal death trap that brought us down to this beautiful planet.

"Welcome home." Says Octavia ahead of me, I give her a week smile and walk over a burnt piece of wood before entering the camp, pieces of old metal laying scattered in the grass, spear tips and pans broken and forgotten laying lonely alongside each other.

The memories of skinning rabbits and throwing axes against trees flooding back. The sickness that killed many, that made you bleed form the mouth and eyes. Lincolns blood being dripped slowly onto the metal panels inside the dropship, his hands bound and his legs chained.

Raven being shot and Murphy being hanged.

Where we fought the grounders for what we thought would be the final time, where I thought I had lost my sister and Clarke, their lives chosen to be taken, their hearts stopped and saved for later, the cruel worlds works.

Where we protected each other yet fought daily, where my first breaths on earth were taken, my first step onto the soil, the first time I saw my footprint imbedded in the rich soil. The rich and life-giving soil that covers this beautiful planet.

The soil that we have buried our friends in, the soil that now has the bones and blood of our enemies in it, coated and fixed in the red poison. The red poison that runs through my veins and forever will.

"Home." I whisper to myself. I have never had one, I would'nt consider the Ark my home, or Arkadia. The bunker was never my home, or Mount Weather.

I glance over to the dropship and watch as the tarp that would usually sway in a morning breeze is nowhere to be found, but instead burnt away and scorched. Turned into ash to be carried away with the rest of the deadly death wave, taking and claiming everything in its path.

It's when I hear the thumb of a limb leg echo on the metal panels of the dropship that I snap out of my small dream and lock eyes with Raven. I watch her face turn relieved yet angry as she hobbles over to me and wraps her arms around me.

"Thank god you're ok." She says, squeezing my insides and filling them with needed warmth, but not enough that only she can provide.

"I'm Happy to see you too." I say squeezing her back tightly, liking the feeling of having her arms around me just like back on the Ark. Cold nights on the Ark turned into nights full of poker and drinking what was left of the illegal moonshine aboard.

Having the only blankets, we had covering our skinny shoulders and the bags under our eyes only growing. The never-ending doubt that we could die at any moment in time, an open air lock. A small leek or rupture in the ring, anything could kill us at any second.

"Where are the others?" I ask Raven letting go and letting my arms cross over my chest. She gives me an all knowing look of mockery and gestures me to follow her. She limps across the grass and into the dropship, her foot sliding on the ramp slightly before we enter the darkness of the metal home.

"Murphy is down there." She says pointing to a lifted panel in the floor, shuffling and clangs coming from bellow us. What sounds like the shifting of metal and the clang of footsteps on rotting metal.

"Monty is down there as well, and the others. There around here somewhere." Says Raven moving over to a panel ripped out of the wall. I watch as she picks up a small pair of tweezers and pulls at wires and circuits inside the panel. The colours reminding me of the wires and circuit boards we left on the Ark, unfinished space suits and flashlights.

"I was expecting everything to be gone." I say walking over to the basically untouched wires in front of me. The reds and greens standing out among the slivers and crusted blacks.

"This metal bucket survived re-entry to earth which was basically the same as the death wave hitting it, only radioactive." She says, her face a brick wall of concentration as she picks at more wires. Connecting each one carefully and grouping them together.

I look behind me and away from the wires and walk over to the open panel in the floor and loom down, darkness filling the space. I watch carefully as Murphys head peeks up through the gap with an electric torch in his hand, the light blinding me as I stare at it.

"Bellamy, your back." He says in a way I didnt expect him to, almost relieved, not frustrated but relieved. Like he is glad to see me instead of hearing the news that I was finally killed.

"Yeah, seems that way." I say as I watch him give a small smirk then look back down into the darkness around him.

"Want to come down?" Theres a lot more down here than you would think. He says tapping the floor I am standing on, looking down at him. I nod and he moves away slightly giving me room to jump down. The metal crunches when my feet hit it, the sound echoing and running through my bones.

I watch as light fills the bottom of the dropship, the yellow light bouncing off pieces of metal and small cups and pans. I move over to a crate and pull off the piece of tarp, most of the camps supplies that we couldnt carry on the day we put down here.

If any of us were to return, we would have supplies. I thought it would be all long gone, taken by Grounders or the Mountain Men, but obviously not.

Dust fills the air as I rip away the cloth, and weapons are revealed, the gleam of the metal reflecting off the light now hanging in the middle of the compartment under the floor. I run my hands over the small knives and axes until one catches my eye. I pull it out of the bottom of the crate, the yellow and black warning paint of the handle and the blade blended around as if to protect the knuckles.

I place in in my other hand and run my finger on the underside of the knife and a shiver runs down my spine, the feeling of the initials J.M carved into the metal bringing back guilt and memories I buried with bodies I wanted to forget but knew I never would.

I place the knife in my hand and turn around and place it under the light, the blade slightly blunt but mostly clean, like someone had tried to scrape off all the blood off, trying to undo the things they had killed, skinned, cut with the knife.

I slip it into my back pocket and turn back around to the crate, all of a sudden seeming darker, knowing and realizing that more that one of these weapons have killed a person or thing. I dig to the bottom of the crate and stop again when my fingers rake over the handle of an axe, the axe head itself sharpened perfectly and the handle slightly bent. I pull it up through the other knives and spear tips and rest it in both my hands.

The axe I had built on my second day on earth, the one I threw at trees for days and broke Grounder traps with, kept at my belt at all times, and somehow it is now here, in my hands once again.

I take a deep breath and place it back in the box, moving on is a new way of healing, a new way of mending and I new way of discovering what else can help with the never ending, crushing pain that comes in waves of guilt and fear.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOO SORRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG, I SUCK REALLY BAD GUYS I KNOW!!!! Just read the chapter, its shitty I know but I will try harder I promise :)

BTW I KNOW ITS NOT EDITED, THIS STUFF HAPPENS WHEN YOU FORGET YOU NEED TO POST AND WANT TO GET A CHAPTER OUT!!!!!!!!!!

-RFRC