Kass Morgan - Day 21

“I’m fine,” Clarke whispered, but she didn’t let go of him yet. “It’s just… it drops off here.” The stone floor had given way to steep metal stairs.

They made their way down slowly, following the stairs as they twisted sharply downward. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but it seemed like they were spiraling into an enormous cavern. The walls were damp and made of stone, and the farther they went, the colder the air became.

As they descended the stairs, Bellamy thought about what Clarke had told him about Mount Weather. He tried to imagine what it would’ve been like, running blindly for the safety of an underground bunker, saying good-bye to the sun and sky and the world you knew as you hurried into the darkness. What had gone through the minds of the first people who clambered down these steps? Were they overcome with relief at their good fortune, or sorrow for all those they’d left behind?

“Do they have to go up and down these stairs every time they leave?” Clarke whispered.

“There might be another entrance,” Bellamy said. “Otherwise, why haven’t we seen anyone yet?” As they reached the bottom, Clarke and Bellamy fell silent, the lonely echo of their footsteps far more eloquent than any chatter.

The stairs ended in a vast, empty space that seemed more like a cave than somewhere humans could’ve lived for centuries. Bellamy froze and grabbed Clarke’s arm as an echo bounced through the darkness. “What was that?” he whispered, jerking his head from side to side. “Is someone coming?”

Clarke gently shook his hand off and took a step forward. “No…” Her voice contained more wonder than fear. “It’s water. Look at the stalactites,” she said, pointing at the craggy rocks above them. “The condensation collects on the rock and then drips down into some kind of reservoir. I guess that’s where they got their drinking water during the nuclear winter.”

“Let’s keep moving,” Bellamy said, grabbing hold of her hand. He pulled Clarke through an opening in the rock and into a hallway with dull metallic walls, similar to the old corridors on Walden. Long strips of lights ran along the ceiling, wires spilling out from cracks in the plastic cover.

“Bellamy,” Clarke said breathlessly. “ Look .”

There was a plastic case on the wall, similar to the locked boxes on the Colony that housed control panels. But instead of a screen or buttons, there was a sign. At the very top was an eagle inside a circle, holding a plant in one claw and a bunch of arrows in the other. The words ORDER OF SUCCESSION ran above it in two columns. The column on the left contained a long list of titles: President of the United States, Vice President of the United States, Speaker of the House, and so on.

Next to each title were the words SECURE, MISSING… and DEAD.

Someone had circled the word dead in black ink for the first six titles. Secretary of the Interior had been marked as SECURE at first, but then someone had crossed that out and circled DEAD in blue ink.

“You think someone might’ve taken this down by now,” Bellamy said, tracing a finger across the plastic case.

Clarke turned to him. “Would you have taken this down?” she asked quietly.

Bellamy shook his head with a sigh. “No. I wouldn’t have.”

They continued down the hall in silence until they reached an intersection. There was another large sign, except that this one had no plastic cover.

→ HOSPITAL

← SEWAGE TREATMENT

← COMMUNICATIONS

→ CABINET ROOM

→ GENERATORS

→ CREMATORIUM

“Crematorium?” Bellamy read aloud, suppressing a shudder.

“I guess it makes sense. You can’t float people on Earth, and you certainly can’t bury them in solid rock.”

“But where do they live ?” Bellamy asked. “How come we haven’t seen anyone yet?”

“Maybe they’re all sleeping?”

“Where? The crematorium?”

“Let’s keep moving,” Clarke said, ignoring his quip.

To the right, a red light began flashing. “That’s probably not good,” Bellamy said, tightening his grip around Clarke’s hand, ready to pull her into a run.

“It’s fine,” Clarke said, though she’d already begun to move away from the light. “I bet it’s on a timer or something.”

The sound of echoing footsteps made them both freeze. “I think someone’s coming,” Clarke said, her eyes darting from Bellamy to the end of the long hall.

He pulled Clarke behind him, slid his bow off his shoulder, and reached for one of his arrows.

“ Stop it ,” Clarke hissed, stepping to the side. “We need to make it clear that we’ve come peacefully.”

The footsteps grew louder. “I’m not taking any chances,” Bellamy said, stepping in front of her again.

Four figures appeared at the end of the hall. Two men, and two women. They were dressed similarly to Sasha, all in black and gray, except that they weren’t wearing fur.

And they were holding guns.

For one excruciatingly long moment, they stared at Clarke and Bellamy, seemingly bewildered.

Then they shouted something and began running toward them.

“Clarke, go ,” Bellamy ordered as he drew back the bow and took aim. “I’ll hold them off.”

“No!” she gasped. “You can’t. Don’t shoot at them!”

“Clarke! Move it! ” Bellamy shouted, trying to give her a shove with his shoulder.

“Bellamy, drop the bow .” Her voice was frantic now. “Please. You need to trust me.”

He hesitated, just long enough for Clarke to slip under his arm and stand in front of him, her hands raised in the air. “We have a message from Sasha,” Clarke shouted. Her voice was loud and firm, though her whole body was trembling. “She sent us here.”

There wasn’t even time to see whether the name registered on the Earthborns’ faces. A strange whooshing sound filled the air, and Bellamy felt something sting his upper arm.

Then everything went black.

Hundreds of bodies were packed onto the launch deck, with hundreds more pushing against them from the ramp. In total, there were more than a thousand people shoved into the bottom of the ship, filling the air with a choking mix of sweat, blood, and fear.

Glass and Sonja had made it onto the deck, but just barely. They were standing all the way in the back, pressed up against the ramp. Sonja couldn’t put any weight on her ankle, so Glass had her arm around her, although it was hardly necessary. The crowd was so dense, Sonja could lose her balance and she still wouldn’t fall.

Every few moments, the sea of bodies would surge in one direction or the other until the anxious Phoenicians, Arcadians, and Waldenites seemed like nothing more than a tide of flesh.

Rising up onto her toes, Glass could see people trying to force their way into one of the six remaining dropships. They were already crammed far beyond capacity, and bodies kept spilling back out.

Glass tried to blink away the tears obscuring her vision to count again. Six. There were supposed to be seven dropships. The one she’d escaped from, that had supposedly carried Wells and the other prisoners to Earth, was gone, of course. But what had happened to the seventh?

Even if there were a dozen dropships, Glass and her mother wouldn’t make it off the Colony unless they kept pushing their way toward the front. But Glass felt weak and immobile. Every time she moved, pain ripped through her as she thought of the look of disgust on Luke’s face, and the pieces of her heart she was trying so hard to hold together would slip from her grasp.