death era.
part six of n/a.
ricky rocks. i’m running out of death era drafts 😔😔
good people. they were good people, something athena was surprised by. they were helpful and cared for one another despite the constant bickering and insults that filled the air. even to athena, they were attentive and made sure she was doing fine with simple offers of water, asking her if her weapon was loaded, whether she needed a break—and it wasn’t just octavia.
it was as if athena was a fragile package, but she didn’t understand why. no one had ever been so kind to her before and it was almost repulsing.
they’re just using you.
“how did you hear about terminus?”
athena glanced to raven who fell into step with her. her voice was curious and light, but athena still found the question interrogating, like raven wasn’t trusting of her, like none of them were.
“how did you?”
raven raised a brow, a light smirk nerving her face, “that’s defensive of you, isn’t it little goddess?”
“forgive me,” she mumbles, swiping her bottom lip with the knuckle of her thumb. “i’m not used to people questioning just to question. there’s always a deeper reasoning behind it.”
raven laughs, “i’d get used to the unreasonable questioning. you’re like fresh meat, you know? we’ve been with each other for god knows how long; know everything about one another to point it’s sickening to look at each other’s faces,” she smiles again, but it drops once she sees athena’s face doesn’t shift at all. “you’re a new book to people who have been reading the same thing over and over. i promise, not every question is interrogation.”
there’s something about ravens words that fill her with slight ease. her voice is reassuring and filled with intentions of comfort, “so, can i ask you how you found out about terminus?”
athena thinks, wondering truly when the first time she heard about that place. word got around a lot—surprisingly—especially when jumping from place to place. even though athena didn’t trust people, she met a lot of them, nice ones. they were rare, but they came up every once and awhile offering advice and warnings when she wouldn’t stay with them.
she heard a lot about terminus in those offers of words. good and bad. she had spent over a year dancing around the idea of it, but something in her gut prevented her from going anywhere near.
“a woman who i used to come across every now and then. used to always be in the same area i was. sometimes we’d talk; she’d bring terminus up, said she always wanted to go but never did, and then she’d stop showing up…” her voice goes low slowly, almost suspicious of the last part as she thinks of the days without that woman who was her first and practically only friend of the apocalypse.
“you think she went?”
“no,” athena shook her head, “she was like me, didn’t go too far, always coming back to the place you know best. she was paranoid and the unknown is dangerous, hope can be dangerous.”
“how come you never moved too far?”
“no where to go,” athena mumbles.
“well, athena, i’m glad we found you because your life sounded down right near depressing,” murphy’s voice cuts in, making the two of them glance behind them. he strolls by himself at a lazy pace, watching his feet kick up dirt and rocks between the rotting tracks of wood.
“you’re so nice murphy,” raven answers for her, facing forward once more.
“just a thought.”
“your snide comments don’t help anybody, murphy,” bellamy’s low voice catches them all off guard. he hadn’t said a word since that morning and it was only short and gruff like always. “come to think of it, nothing you do helps.”
“looks like we’re one in the same, because neither do yours.”
it ends at that. when a pair butt heads, it’s always murphy and bellamy, but it ends fast even as a little tension still looms after. they couldn’t have been friends from before, athena just knows it. they’re always bickering, always keeping everyone on their toes with their useless disagreements.
it had only been two days, but it already felt like she had known them for eternity.
**
“so you were a military brat, huh?”
athena looked up, staring at murphy with narrowed eyebrows as he chewed away at the last piece of rabbit meat on a small bone he had in his fingers, “how’d you know?”
he almost naturally grinned, but it turned into a smug smirk, throwing the now bare bone behind him, “by the way you hold yourself and that gun you carry. fucking expensive. my dad had one.”
she looks to the rifle that was snug by her side before looking back up to him, “you were a military kid too?” her face was pinched up in slight confusion, staring at murphy with a gaze that almost said i don't believe you.
“yeah, that’s how i met your pal bellamy,” he emphasized bellamy’s name, while motioning to bellamy who sat a little further from the campfire, keeping guard, his gaze switching between the forest floor then into the beyond of the memorizing darkness, “we had a club.”
“no we didn't,” bellamy was quick to say, glancing back at the group, his eyes lingering on athena for a split second with her already staring back before looking to murphy with a short glare. “murphy didn’t have friends.”
“oh shut up,” he waves him off, “anyways, kind of surprised you didn't know that about bellamy.”
“why?”
“’cause you’re hardcore, i’m sure you have eyes for our kind of people.”
she stares at the fire with pursed lips before looking up at murphy, then looking away before looking back up at him, eyes up, down, up. her anxiety getting the best of her in that moment and she knew why.
“i stopped looking for other military people a long time ago,” she mumbled, “i stopped looking for people in general... a long time ago.”
“you gave up.”
“oh shut up murphy, you’d be in the same position just like she’s in if you didn’t have us,” raven gave him a knowing look, continuing to scrape and carve away at the piece of wood she had in hand, “we all would.”
but what’s so bad about the position she’s in?
it’s silent for the longest that it makes athena think they’re all complete strangers to each other just as she is to them.
but the silence isn’t presented as awkward, it’s calming with the crackling of fire as a background noise, something that athena could fall asleep to, but the stupid rave of anxiety was still serging through her veins as she thought of him.
him being the reason she had any remote military knowledge and that stupid, stupid gun.
she looks up further on only to meet bellamy’s eyes again, still closely speculated on her. she looks away, focusing on the fire once more, a sudden strange fulfillment entering into her chest, something that took over the feeling of her anxiousness, the warming feeling of finally not being alone for the first time in a long time.
it felt so right, yet so wrong.
she didn’t find herself being a people person. she wasn’t good with starting conversation nor showing any interest when a person spoke. that’s why when the sun set and the fire died out, athena found it real difficult to react when octavia begun to claw in deep to her emotions and pull out the memories from before.
“there was a huge lockdown,” octavia mumbled, her eyes still settled on the dark sky while athena stared at the side of her face, “i got shoved into a room with murphy and some other kids we’ve lost along the way and i swear those were some of the longest hours of my life.”
they both sat side by side, keeping watch, as the rest of the group slept. octavia’s voice became quiet as there was something that came over her usual optimism. she randomly begun to speak with her voice dunked in a low, dark tone, making athena question if this was the same girl.
she wasn’t prepared for this. athena hadn’t said a word to the warm body next to her, and she still didn’t—she only allowed her to speak.
octavia seemed out of breath, like she had just been punched in the gut causing her to be winded. athena could tell it hurt her, the beginning, it was always painful—for everyone. to only think about the time it had all gone wrong; the beginning of the end. wondering… if you could have ever done something to prevent it all from happening.
but the answer was always no.
“just sitting there in complete silence,” she paused, inhaling deeply with a slight shake, “until it begun; the take over. we were in the green room, it was one of the only low security rooms that people forgot about, mostly because it was used for storage and laid at the edge of the base, but it still didn’t stop them from finding us.”
octavia went on to explain how a scavenging group had broke into the military base, rounding up all those of the living that they could find, shoving them into a 30 feet deep pit where the military base had burned the dead after the virus took over.
“they pushed people in and if you died, you were left to be a walker, but if you survived, you were left to be eaten by one because there was no way in hell you’d survive that fall then get back up fast enough to run and defend,” she shook her head, still not looking at athena’s gaze.
but athena didn't have to see octavia’s full face for her to be able to tell how much anger and sadness and fear filled those eyes of hers.
“they killed my people, athena,” she finally looks at her, her eyes bright with importance, “that’s why i can’t let you hurt my brother even if he deserves it. he’s the reason i wasn’t in that pit. he’s the reason i’m still breathing, and i am forever in debt to him just for that.”
bellamy was one of the oldest left. all the adults were killed off the minute the scavenging group had found the rec room—and there wasn’t much to begin with due to the virus killing anything it could get it’s hands on.
bellamy played it smart—well not totally due the fact he wasn’t even at base when the raid took place but rather collecting fire wood—or in other words, playing hooky with a girl who was also long gone and dead.
that was one of the first times bellamy had felt real fear. watching people fall to their deaths one by one without a fight and seeing his sister next in line. it balled up in his chest causing immense pain that turned into anger. he hated it—that feeling. he wanted to tear at his chest until it would stop but the only thing he could do was act.
bellamy thinks that’s the first time he met raven. she was the real reason it all went well. she had spotted him from his hiding spot by a building holding a rifle tightly and anxiously looking for an opening. and she gave him one.
she had kicked a scavenger into the pit, grabbing his gun before anyone else could get it, aiming quickly to the five other scavs who held weapons with wide eyes. it was made obvious they were new to this by the way they didn’t just shoot her on the spot—but instead, listened to murphy.
“i wouldn’t shoot her, man,” he shook his head, “she could shoot three of you before any one of you could get a simple bullet out of your gun.”
a lie. but they didn’t need to know that.
“shut up, boy.”
“i’m just saying,” murphy shrugged, keeping his eyes straight forward, watching the rest of the scavs burn down buildings in the distance. “anyone here can tell you she was at the top of class before the apocalypse, could hit a target from thirty feet away and she kills walkers like no fuckin’ tomorrow.”
another lie, raven hated killing walkers more than anything.
but it still faltered their confidence as they uneasily eyed raven who clutched the rifle close with her finger over the trigger, afraid to push it, even though she wanted to. taking a human life was far different from hitting a target—even if they deserved it.
lucky for her, bellamy had impeccable aim—hitting down two men—and he had no problem killing. he swung the butt of his gun on another causing raven to unfreeze and shoot the other in the leg. the last scav was shoved into the pit where the other four soon followed.
“you’re lucky for that,” athena’s voice was barely above a whisper as she thought about it harder, imagining bellamy taking that risk and having the bravery and suddenly admiring him a lot more than she wanted to. “a lot of people are selfish. they don’t give a second thought to another person who breathes the same air they do. a lot of people would have left you to die.”
her. she was selfish. she would have left. she did leave.
octavia’s eyes are soft and they almost twinkle like stars with the soft smile that comes on her face, “that’s because the only reason a lot of people are living now, is so others don’t. a lot of people are selfish and want the world to themselves.”
and what makes bellamy different from any of those people?
the only thing that kept bellamy from falling into that group of people was octavia, but even then she wasn’t that good of a defense—because he kept octavia alive for himself. she made him think he wasn’t a bad guy, that everything remotely wrong that he did was for her safety.
“you forgot the best part,” murphy’s voice sounded out of no where causing the both of them to look behind where he was sat up, grinning. “right after those scavs got pushed into the pit, echo slammed the butt of her gun into bellamy’s head.”
athena glanced to bellamy, now positioned to face the group. the boy didn’t look one bit amused like murphy and the rest of them did. that’s what made it funnier.
“hey, i was just trying to survive,” echo hummed with a slight curve in her lips, mocking bellamy’s words that he says so often.
“echo decided that she’d play it safe and act like the enemy, which in hindsight caused a lot more trouble than it should have.”
“oh, please, murphy, you all wouldn’t have made it through the front gate without me."
"I'd like to think in retrospect that everything could have gone perfectly fine even if she didn't hit me in the first place."
"probably," she smirked at bellamy, to which he rolled his eyes. "but face it, me acting like a scav did more help than harm for your pretty little head. i got us all out of there."
octavia had been cradling bellamy's head in her lap as the rest of the surviving group from the pit was rounded up in one of the many rec rooms on the base. two of the scavengers were left to keep watch over them all, one of them being echo.
echo paced back and forth, eyeing each of them, trying her best to keep her composure and allow anxiety not to break her down like the current cold sweat she was going through was attempting to do. she didn't have a plan, that was her problem. masking up and keeping her posture straight and full of conviction was as far as it went—and so far, it was just barely working.
murphy eyed echo from where he sat. the facade she was trying to keep up wasn't working for her in his eyes, and he didn't know whether or not to pose her as a threat. even though she kept a bandana tied around half her face, he could still recognize those hard, piercing eyes from anywhere. essentially due to the fact that they had been combat partners in defense class for the past five months and each morning he had to see her cold face.
"hey, echo, since when did sarg clear you to carry a gun."
she cringed at his voice. echo should have known it'd be him to blow her cover and that there'd be no way to play this off, especially when the other scavenger left to keep guard was eyeing her—leaving her no choice.
she pulled the handgun from her back pocket before shooting the man without another thought. she pulled the front of her mask down, now looking to murphy with an annoyed glare, "way to go, john."
he grinned, now getting to his feet, "didn't think you'd be the one to hold a gun first out of the two of us."
"you're a fool if you didn't," she handed him the handgun with a tight look on her face. john murphy would have been the last person she would have trusted with a gun, but it looked like her options were getting slim.
"what's the plan?"
"i don't know, you kind of blew mine out of the water when exposing my identity."
"that's the most i have ever seen you guys get along," raven speaks her thoughts aloud, looking between the two.
"yeah, well, things change. and i didn't think john murphy would have gone from my combat partner to my bunk mate."
"i'm offended."
"that's when we were all still together."
it suddenly gets silent and the previous humored filled air was replaced with a solum atmosphere as they all begun to think about the beginning and what once was a ten person group, is now five.
"that's why we're here, to get back what we lost."
lexa, monty, jasper, clarke, miller.
the names repeat over and over in each of their heads as the silence becomes permanent and finally, they sleep but with the same grievances as every day since separation.
navigation.
@thecraziestcrayon @mynewnamedoesnotmatter @cc13723things @black-rose-29 @reality-runaway @let-love-bleeds-red @rudypankowisdaddy @the-anxious-youth @kitkat-mini @deadbeatbarb @phantompogues @rowena-ravenclaws-diadem @ritz-hell-hotel @fruitiseavey @kayalect @strnqer @mystic-writings @moonlighy @straightzoinked @thelaststraw3 @alexxavicry @esposadomd @lupinsluvbot
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