The forest was a blur of jagged shadows and whipping branches.
Before the final, blinding incineration of the dropship's engines had wiped the battlefield clean, the camp had disintegrated into pure, unadulterated chaos. The sounds of the explosions, thundering booms that shook the very roots of the trees had sent a wave of primal terror through the survivors. Some had retreated toward the dropship, seeking the safety of the metal hull, but others had scattered.
Among them was a lone girl, her knuckles white as she gripped the handle of a makeshift axe, a heavy piece of scrap metal lashed to a sturdy branch.
She ran, the low-hanging limbs lashed across her face like whips, leaving stinging red welts on her already bloodied and soot-stained skin. Her breath came in ragged, burning hitches, her lungs feeling as though they were filled with the very ash that rained from the sky.
Every few seconds, she risked a glance over her shoulder. The image of the two grounders that had chased after them when they had fled camp haunted her vision. They had chased her group into the thicket before the screaming and the separation began. Now, she was alone, fleeing the memory of the massacre and chasing the only hope she had: the streak of fire she had seen a day or two ago, the piece of the Ark falling toward the horizon.
Fear dictated her movements. She was so focused on seeing if the shadows were still behind her that she didn't see the gnarled root protruding from the loam.
Her lead boot caught it and the world tilted violently. She went down hard, her momentum carrying her forward into a shallow, rocky ravine.
CRACK.
She slammed into a protruding stone, the impact centered squarely in her kidney region. The air was driven from her body in a silent, agonizing gasp. Dirt and dried pine needles sprayed into her eyes, stinging and blinding her. She lay there for a heartbeat, the world spinning in nauseating circles as a white-hot flare of pain shot up her side, radiating through her ribs.
She wanted to scream, to let out the terror and the hurt but she forced herself to swallow the sound. A scream was like a flare; a scream was a death sentence she was not willing to issue for herself.
Through gritted teeth, she blinked away the grit in her eyes, her vision swimming with tears of pain. She could hear the distant, rhythmic snapping of dry wood somewhere behind her. Grabbing a low-hanging branch, she hauled herself upward. Her side throbbed with every heartbeat, a dull, heavy ache that suggested internal bruising, she scrambled over a fallen cedar, her breath hitching in a sob she refused to let out. Every time she closed her eyes to blink away the sweat, the carnage flashed behind her eyelids like a strobe light.
She had been a student once, a daughter, a girl who followed the rules. Now, she was a butcher in a forest of barbarians.
She was part of a desperate gamble, one of the hundred young prisoners discarded by the Ark, that massive ring of cold steel and fading hope that had circled the poisoned Earth for nearly a century. After the fire of the nuclear apocalypse had scoured the world clean ninety-seven years ago, humanity's remnants had clung to the stars, praying for the soil to heal.
They hadn't been sent down as pioneers; they were an experiment. Lab rats dropped from the sky to see if the radiation would melt their bones or if the air would let them breathe.
In the beginning, it felt like a dream. They had traded the sterile, oxygen-starved corridors of the Ark for a world of emerald canopies, rushing water, and a terrifying, intoxicating freedom. No guards, no laws, no "flooting." Just the sun.
But the dream had curdled into a nightmare the moment the first group had left and returned back to camp and Jason had announced they weren't alone. The realization had been a physical blow: they weren't alone. The survivors of the old world, the grounders as they are now called never left. They were hardened, forged in the crucible of a dying planet, and they viewed the Sky People not as long-lost cousins, but as an infection to be purged.
Now, as she felt the searing pain in her side and the dampness of blood on her face, she realized the Ark hadn't sent them down to find a home. They had sent them down to start a war they were never meant to win.
The girl leaned against the rough bark of a cedar, her legs trembling with fatigue. It had been a day, maybe two days since the camp turned to fire. She had lost track of time in the green labyrinth of the woods, moving like a ghost through the shadows, and heading towards where the Ark had streaked across the atmosphere.
No one could blame their leaders for the carnage. Clarke had provided the will to survive; Bellamy had provided the steel. But it was Jason who had truly forged them into something more than scared children. He had beaten discipline into their ranks, teaching them how to hold a perimeter and how to think under pressure. He had even tried to bridge the gap with the Grounders, seeking a peace that seemed, in hindsight, destined to fail.
She remembered that final night, the weight of the assault rifle in her hands feeling alien and cold. She had been stationed on one of the gates beside friends who were shaking just as hard as she was, firing into the tree line at grounders who escaped the traps.
The fear had peaked when they realized Jason wasn't there. He'd been missing. Only Ryan, David, and John had made it back on horseback before their world exploded into violence. Without their strongest fighter, they felt naked.
The only reason they hadn't been slaughtered in the first ten minutes was the brutal ingenuity of the traps Jason had insisted they build. Deadfalls, punji pits, and trip-wires had claimed the first wave of Grounders, forcing the warriors into a temporary, snarling retreat. But the Grounders were fast learners. They came back smarter, using their numbers to probe for weaknesses.
Then, just as the perimeter was buckling, the "trick" happened and the line of fire that Clarke and Raven had engineered to buy them precious seconds. And in that window of chaos, Jason had returned.
But he hadn't come alone.
The girl shuddered as she recalled the moment her heart dropped. Jason had emerged from the woods driving a nightmare before him: The Reapers. Pale, cannibalistic monsters that even the Grounders apparently hated. For a moment, she had wanted to scream at Jason for bringing more death to their doorstep, but then the three-way slaughter began. Grounder fought Reaper; Reaper tore at Grounder; and the remaining of the 100 were caught in the eye of the storm.
It was a meat grinder. When the dropship engines began to whine with that high-pitched, terminal hum, she knew the "end" had arrived, she had turned and bolted.
Monroe pressed her back against the rough, cold bark of a redwood, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She froze, holding her breath until her lungs burned. There it was again, the unmistakable crunch of a boot on dry leaves. Someone was out there.
As she waited in the suffocating silence, her mind drifted back to the Ark. Up there, she had been a ghost in the machine. Born to a family of cleaners, her world had been one of grey corridors, industrial bleach, and the crushing weight of knowing she would never be more than a servant to the elite. The unfairness of it had curdled into rebellion. Why did the kids on Alpha Station get fresh fruit and silk while she scrubbed their floors?
She had started stealing, small things at first, then larger risks. She'd joined a crew of kids who felt the same way, but luck is a finite resource on a space station. They had timed a heist on a supply deck, but the guards had returned early. Caught red-handed, Monroe was branded a criminal and tossed into the Skybox.
When they were sent to Earth, she didn't feel like a lab rat. She felt like a queen. She loved the dirt, the wind, and the lawless beauty of it all. But the Grounders had turned her paradise into a slaughterhouse.
A sudden snap of a twig directly behind her shattered her trance.
Before she could scream, a heavy, calloused hand clamped over her mouth. She was jerked backward, her heels dragging in the dirt. She thrashed and tried to attack with her makeshift axe but the grounder punched her side which sent a bolt of pain and tears rushing from her and the axe slipped from her numb fingers as she looked up into the face of a nightmare.
It was a Grounder warrior, his face a mask of dried blood and black war paint. His eyes were wild with the same desperate bloodlust she'd seen at the dropship. He pressed a serrated bone knife against her throat and spoke in a low raspy voice.
"Heda loda noda... I will enjoy watching your life leak into the soil, Sky Girl," he hissed in broken English.
Monroe fought with the strength of the doomed, clawing at his eyes. The Grounder snarled and backhanded her with such bone-shaking force that her vision went white. Her ears rang with a deafening whine, and she slumped to her knees, the world tilting.
She waited for the cold bite of the blade. Instead, she heard a sickening thwack.
The Grounder's eyes went wide. A jagged, wooden spear burst through the front of his throat, the tip glistening with fresh gore. He let out a wet, gurgling sound and collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
Monroe looked up, gasping for air. Standing over the body was Sterling, breathing hard. Behind him, leaning against a tree with a look of pure irritation, was Murphy. He was covered in soot and dried blood, his face bruised, looking every bit the survivor he was.
Murphy snapped his fingers at her, his voice sharp and jagged. "What the hell are you still doing on the ground, Monroe? Get up! You want to wait for the rest of his friends to show up and finish the job?"
Sterling reached out, grabbing her arm and hoisting her to her feet. "Boy, am I glad to see a familiar face," he exhaled, his eyes darting around the dark woods.
"What... what are you doing here?" Monroe stammered, leaning on Sterling for support.
"I found Murphy wandering like a kicked dog a few miles back," Sterling explained. "I was heading for that streak we all saw in the sky, the Ark and well apparently he is going there as well. We figured that's the only place left to go. Then we spotted you being hunted."
"Correction," Murphy interjected, wiping blood from his forehead. "Hotshot here saw you and decided to play hero. I just didn't want to be left alone in the dark." He stepped closer to Monroe, his eyes cold. "Just don't slow us down."
A chorus of rustling leaves and distant, rhythmic whistles echoed from the ridge above them. "Shit," Murphy hissed, already turning to bolt into the underbrush. "They're on us!"
"Move, Monroe! Now!" Sterling shouted, grabbing her hand.
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