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In the wake of the storm, Althea's mind was calm, settled. Almost too quiet. The fact that it was so, so quiet made her uneasy, jumpy. It granted her a lot of nervous energy, which rocketed through her body at every waking moment; kept her awake in the darkness of the night.

There were many nights she would sit outside the cave, knees pulled to her chest and blade on the ground beside her, just in case. And she would lean her back against the cold stone and stare at the stars.

They moved and yet were unmoved. Trembled in the light of a bigger star and yet shone brighter and brighter and brighter with no fear of their end.

Althea didn't fear the end itself. She feared the finite end of death. It marked the point where your life no longer mattered. Where you could no longer have an impact, make a change. She realised that in her time on the ground. It was what encouraged her to bite the bullet and pick up a sword.

What made her choose fight over death.

Althea would sit beneath the stars until someone, usually Jaya, came out and told her to come inside.

Sometimes Jaya would sit with her for a while, in silence, but still let her have a few minutes more before making her come inside once more.

On this feeble night, Jaya sits down beside Althea and leans back against the rock of their home with a tremendous sigh. The sky girl looks over her shoulder, offering a slight smile.

"Will there ever be a night you won't come out here?" She questions, and Althea's starry smile only grows wider.

"We are creatures of habit," She replies, stretching her legs out and pushing the toes of her boots into the soil, churning it.

"Why can't you sleep? We train for hours every single day, we hunt, we run, we are up at the crack of dawn, and yet you still can't sleep. I can't understand why not." Jaya had been thinking about it for days in the wake of the battle. The girl was no warrior. She got tired quickly when they sparred.

"I just can't," Althea responds shortly, her jaw clenching and her eyes turning back to the sky. "My mind doesn't sleep." Her fingers dig into the supple skin of her legs, nails cutting into the fabric.

"Then work harder. Fatigue exceeds whatever's crawling around in your head," Jaya insists, her temper flaring.

"I would know, I've tried." She closes her eyes, breathing in slowly. "Just because I need you to train me, doesn't mean I've never harmed another before." Her head bows in the memory, in shame.

-

-

The first day in the sky box wasn't as bad as it should have been. Maybe it was because Althea didn't think she'd be spending close to two years locked in there, or maybe it was because she didn't mind being alone to begin with.

It wasn't so bad. It gave her time to think. Before, she didn't have that kind of time. Between Clarke, her mother, her father getting sick and the dreams, Althea didn't have much time to think about anything else.

But now all she had to think about was the dreams and what they meant. Were they all the future? Set in stone, moulded from steel and shaped into brash iron helms that bashed against her skull with every heartbeat.

No one visited her.

Not now her mother and her father were gone. Not now that Clarke didn't care.

Two months into her isolation, the loneliness struck like a bullet. Rapid, tearing, jarring and most definitely quick. It ripped through her heart and shattered her spine.

She wasn't allowed to be around the other prisoners because she was a supposed assistant to attempted murder. Branded too dangerous, despite her fear of death and having to kill.

But in those two months of loneliness, she yearned for the human touch. She cried out for the embrace of her mother, of her father and screamed her lungs raw for release and tore herself apart from the inside out as the nightmares worsened, wrapping themselves around her limbs and pulled her down into their depths.

Drowning, drowning, drowned.

Five months on the dot, the guard walked in with her food and she didn't react. It was normal for her to at least smile and thank them, but that day she did not. The guard wasn't one of the nicer ones. He bent down and dropped the tray onto the floor from a small distance up, but even that distance created a clattering noise.

And that noise ticked something in Althea's brain, something that had never been touched before. Sensitive and now shaken up and up and up.

She bolted up from her meditative state on the floor and ran at him, her eyes wild, and shoved the unexpecting guard backwards onto his back. With tears streaming down her face and wails roaring up her throat, she launched kick after kick into his side. Never relenting, only stopping when she was pulled off him and taken away.

After that, she was locked in higher security and things only got worse. She was never aggressive again, but that didn't mean the spiralling in her mind dulled.

No, it got worse. It felt like a whirlpool in her brain, swirling everything around and sucking her into the depths of the void.

There wasn't a day that went by where her cheeks were not soaked by tears of agony as the image of her father, her mother and everyone she'd ever known dying played over and over in her mind every time she tried to sleep.

Eventually, sleep was too painful. She would stay awake for as long as she could, avoiding sleep, until her eyelids were too heavy to hold open.

There were days where she wouldn't move for hours. Althea would sit, legs crossed, and eyes closed in a meditative state. It was in those moments that she remembered all the good things in her past. Her loving father with his kind eyes and big smile, her mother with the biggest heart of anyone who had ever lived, Clarke with her intelligence and jokes.

It was all that kept her afloat as she counted down the days to her floating.

After all, the floating would be the ultimate release.

Death: the release from all bad blood and the world's toxic claims to the heart.

Escape, that's all she ever wanted, but now she was on the ground and death is exactly what she was trying to escape. You're useless when you're dead.

-

-

It didn't take long for Lincoln to realise Octavia had been poisoned.

The news rang like alarm bells in Althea's mind and the prospect of losing the one, new-found consistency in her life struck hard. If Octavia died, she didn't know who she would become. Sometimes she wondered if the Blake girl was the only tether she had left to herself, her morals.

Only a few days since the ring of fire, Althea found herself trailing behind her three companions through the ever-watching forest. At last, fatigue was catching up with her. Every inch of her body ached now the adrenaline had worn off. Bones creaked with every step she forced herself to take, throat dry and eyes heavy, weighing her down.

There was a split second of consideration to let the others leave without her as she lay down upon the soft soil to slip into a deep sleep.

Althea couldn't remember the last time she'd had a good night's rest.

Even the night she'd spent wrapped up with Murphy had been disturbed by her horrid vision of his hanging. Curses like hers ruined moments like that. Moments that were supposed to be beautiful and filled with joy. A memory she would cherish, never forgetting the feel of his warmth against her back, his fingertips running up her arm. But the crows had scavenged all the wonder from that memory with their sharp beaks and beady eyes, greed for more and more and more. Never ceasing to ring Althea clean of all hope.

But, one thing she would never forget was the way he looked right into her eyes as he told her she was okay and that he was going to try to stay out of trouble.

Now, trouble was a complete and utter understatement.

She felt like a dead girl walking and he was just a flickering ghost in her mind, giving her that smirk she liked, never letting himself slip through her fingers.

It had been during their migration towards safety, which Lincoln assured them was secure with an old friend, when Lincoln had realised Octavia had been poisoned by the arrow.

A sick curse. Althea was beginning to think the universe was out to ruin her life. Tear every star from her fists and fling it into the black hole known as death.

Octavia was a bright star, but she was fading with every breath she took. With every pulse of her heart, the very life force of her body took the poison to every inch of her. From her fingertips, to her toes, to the very heart that loved the grounder who so desperately strove to keep her alive, no matter how many times she found herself staring death in the face.

Jaya and Althea left Lincoln with her to find some food. A chance to practice foraging even in the direst circumstances, but Jaya was a woman with focus and Althea couldn't help but admire that about her. Not distracted by love or hate, just driven by the sheer need to survive.

Not just survive, thrive.

Althea picks through a bush, searching for anything that could be considered food and to please Jaya, proving that she was, in fact, capable.

A mud-covered hand clamps around her wrist. "Don't touch that one, unless you're looking to lose that hand," She says sternly.

Althea's fingers curl away from the fungi, the hand releases her.

"You need to focus," Jaya tells her, storming ahead. If they'd wanted to hunt the wildlife, they had no chance now.

Her heavy footing was deliberate, but Althea still felt a swell of disappointment. Not that she wanted to see Jaya cut the throat of another forest creature, but she was anxious to learn this for herself. If she couldn't learn with one of the best, she never would.

"I am focused," Althea grumbles, following behind her, pushing branches out of the way with a delicate touch. Even now, the feel of the tree beneath her fingers didn't feel real. "I really am trying, Jaya, I promise."

The soft tone to her voice was unavoidable for Jaya to catch and that was what made her blood bubble beneath her thick skin.

The grounder woman stopped in her tracks and whirled around on Althea. "A promise isn't going to stop you from starving. A promise counts for nothing if you're dead. So, get whoever is in your head out and get focused."

"If it were that simple, I would've gotten them out days ago, trust me." A wry smile twists across her face in the place of her usually placid mouth. Unfamiliar, she was surprised to feel her muscles ever-so-slightly ached from the expression.

Jaya's earthy eyes run all over her face, wanting to grip the girl by the shoulders and shake her into survival mode. Maybe this was her survival mode. Either way, seeing the strange smile on her lips was a change that she wasn't sure she liked. It wasn't a pretty smile. It was warped by a darkness that she wasn't fully in understanding of, leaving it unpredictable as it coiled itself like a cobra, ready to strike.

"Well," Jaya swallows, attempting to push the image from her mind to draw herself back into concentration, "try again."

It was as she turns away from Althea that they heard that scream. A scream of terror coming from where they'd left Octavia.

She didn't even need to look to Jaya for confirmation before she takes off running through the trees, praying she wouldn't need to see her friend die today as she scrabbled back up the hill, heart thumping in her chest.

-

2081 words
republished: 25.8.18