❝i don't want to be a man. i want to be an angst-ridden teenager who can't confront his own inner demons and takes it out verbally on other people instead.❞

-jace herondale, the mortal instruments

♛

THE PENCIL LIGHTLY SCRATCHES against the paper while I walk, purposely exaggerating my steps so I'm less likely to trip. My hands have begun to ache from how long I've been holding my notebook, but I can't care less. It's ingrained in my mind that I have to finish this drawing.

I've never been much of an artist - that was always Clarke's forté and not mine - but when inspiration comes to me, I'm not terrible at drawing. However, realistic pictures never work in my favor and that's why I've taken to cartoons. The shape of the girl's jaw is round, light eyes wide and a smile on her face. Her fair hair is kept out of her face by a pin holding sections on either side of her face back.

I pull my lips into a line, concentrating more on the picture than where I'm walking. This is not the first time I've drawn Clarke, but it is the first that I've drawn her when I have no idea where she is. My heart feels like a weight has been placed in it as I draw.

I feel a hand on my arm and glance up to see Bellamy staring at the picture in my notebook. Sympathy shines in his eyes when he looks back up at me, noticing the obvious pain on my face.

"Might want to keep your eyes peeled, Amazon," he suggests lightly. "We're in Grounder territory." He turns his head to shout to the others behind us, "That goes for everyone else, too!"

I sigh and immediately slip the notebook and pencil into my pocket once again. Behind me, Murphy is panting heavily with sweat shining on his face. The air seems to have grown hotter even in the protection of the trees completely surrounding us. My mouth is dry, though I don't dare drink from our canteen until completely necessary. 

"Everything is Grounder territory, alright?" Murphy complains through his pained breaths. "I can't keep moving like this. We don't even know if the guy Finn killed is telling the truth."

With slight reluctance, I nod in agreement. That factor has been on my mind ever since Finn shot him, but I've held out hope anyway because it's the only lead we've had so far. It's better than nothing. But Grounders have never proven themselves to be very truthful. Maybe he'd just said the first thing that came to his mind with a gun to his head. 

Finn comes forward and grabs Murphy's shoulder, pulling him forward impatiently. "Keep moving."

"Give them a minute," Bellamy orders as he holds out a hand to stop Finn. His gaze is filled with annoyance- he's been apprehensive ever since Finn pulled the trigger without blinking. Without hesitation. Without remorse. 

"No, we can't!" Finn exclaims, voice hoarse as well.  "You heard what the Grounder said: 'They'll outlive their usefulness.'"

"I heard what he said when you had a gun to his head," Bellamy argues.

I roll my eyes, knowing that this will take a while, and turn to the other three companions. "Anyone up for a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors?"

Murphy shakes his head with his eyes to the ground. "I don't understand you."

With the argument still ongoing, I shift my weight onto one foot and cross my arms over my chest, tapping my fingers against the gun strapped over my shoulder. Sweat has accumulated onto my face and neck from our constant movements and the heat of the sun. My skin feels sticky; I want nothing more than to take a shower at this point.

"You guys," Monroe interrupts Finn and Bellamy's heated argument apprehensively. Her handgun is raised at something behind them.

Confused, I step beside Murphy to see what has caught Monroe's attention. My eyebrows pinch together at the sight of a single black shoe in our path. Upon stepping a little bit closer, I realize that there's something in the tall grass right beside it, and my eyes widen in horror at the sight of a human body lying on the ground. It's unmistakable that the black jacket belongs to someone from the Ark.

"Fall in," Bellamy commands with an edge of fear in his voice. We automatically step into a single line, me behind Murphy with my rifle now resting in my hands. Bellamy begins taking slow and careful steps forward along the trail that leads us further into a graveyard.

The smell is rancid. It's something like rotting flesh and the coppery scent of blood, as well as insects that are buzzing everywhere. Nausea washes over me when I catch sight of several bodies dropped along the path. Some pieces of metal litter the dirt from what I assume is a crash landing. I force myself to tear my eyes away from the dark red stains of blood on the grass, blinking hard to clear my watering vision.

"Where the hell did they come from?" Murphy questions, eyeing a male's body that we pass. A shiver shoots down my spine.

"The Ark," I reply in a thin voice. I wet my lips. "You can tell by their clothes. No Grounders would dress like that."

With our hearts heavy and a strong sense of despondence stifling the air, we continue along the winding path. A few more pieces of scrap metal catch my eye as they shine in the sunlight. I have to bat away a few flies that swarm around the decaying bodies.

The trail leads us directly to a dead end- literally. The landscape drops down hundreds of feet, monumental rocks jutting out from the cliff that we stand on. But the thing that makes it so much worse is the sight of one of the Sectors from the Ark has crash-landed at the base of a much larger cliff about a thousand yards beyond. The metal is smoking still, completely destroyed with probably no survivors.

"That's a rough landing," Murphy comments blankly, though I can tell that the sight has made him slightly sick to his stomach as well. He swallows thickly.

"There's nothing we can do for these people," Bellamy tells us after a few moments of silence for the fallen. "We gotta go."

He starts to turn away with Finn, heading back toward the trail that curves away from the cliff. Just as I start to follow, I hear a female's voice come from below and stop in my tracks. My heart seems to freeze in my chest as I turn around and bend slightly forward to see down the rocks.

I notice someone clinging onto the rocks for dear life, but I can't make out her facial features from where I stand. I can only see a tanned forearm and a blue jacket with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows.

"Hey, guys," I call out to stop them. "Look, someone's down there!"

Immediately, the others join me and peer down the cliff at the girl struggling to hang on. My heart is beating faster now. How can we help her without dying ourselves?

"Hey!" Bellamy shouts down to her. "Up here."

The girl looks up, and now I can see that she has dark, curly hair that's pulled back in a messy bun at the nape of her neck. One of her arms is looped around a feeble branch. Her feet are luckily standing on a ledge, but she obviously can't climb up on her own.

"Please help me!" she cries desperately, voice heavy like she's crying. It makes sense for her to be- I'd be pretty damn terrified if I were her.

"Mel?" Sterling calls, light eyebrows pinched in confusion.

"Help me!" the girl - Mel - pleads again. Her face seems to be badly scratched from the crash.

"You know her?" Murphy asks quietly.

"Shut up Murphy she's my friend we have to do something." Sterling speaks so quickly that his words almost blend together into a single sentence. I feel sympathetic towards him, knowing that if this was Clarke, I'd gladly risk everything to save her. 

Finn pulls Bellamy and I aside to discuss what's happening. I can already see it in his eyes that he doesn't want to stop, and I prepare myself to knock some sense into him. My jaw clenches before he even starts speaking.

"We can't stop," he whispers. I scoff and roll my eyes at him, cringing at the sound of Mel's desperate begging from below.

"This isn't a Grounder, Finn," Bellamy reminds him firmly. "We have a rope."

Finn shakes his head. "You saw her. She'd never be able to hold onto it."

"Look, if this was Clarke, what would you do?" I ask him somewhat harshly, narrowing my eyes. I seem to have caught him off guard because he takes a step back and shakes his head.

"This isn't the same thing," he replies.

"For Sterling, it is," I assert, pointing toward where I think he's standing. "For Sterling, this is his one chance to save his friend and you're just going to walk on by because it doesn't concern you?"

Finn pauses and breathes heavily, eyes directed toward the ground before flickering between Bellamy and I. "We'll come back for her."

I almost laugh - almost - because he can't possibly think that she can hold on any longer than she already has. "You can't be serious."

But to my horror, Bellamy nods and announces, "We're moving out!"

"Bell--" I try to say as I turn toward him, but I catch sight of something behind him instead and feel my eyes go wide. "Sterling, wait!"

The boy has the rope tied to a tree stump and wrapped the rest around his body, already starting to climb down the cliff. Mel cries out for him with her chin wobbling. I can tell just how much they mean to each other if he's willing to do this for her.

"Yeah, well, it looks like we're taking that break after all, huh?" Murphy asks, watching as Sterling scales down the cliff before glancing smugly at Bellamy.

A few minutes later, I can barely see Sterling anymore. It turns out that Mel is a lot farther down than I initially thought. However, a tiny amount of relief replaces the anticipation I feel when I hear him inform us that he's almost there.

"I'd say he's heard one too many of your motivational speeches," Murphy says to Bellamy. I send him a glare out of the corner of my eye and shift my weight once again- a nervous habit of mine.

"Shut up, Murphy," Bellamy retorts in an exasperated tone.

Suddenly, I'm scared out of my wits and jump in surprise at the loud shrieks of both Sterling and Mel. My feet start to slide on the fragile foundation at the edge of the cliff. My heart completely stops in my chest. For a second I'm suspended in the air, and then Monroe screams and wraps her arms completely around me. Murphy grabs onto the backs of our jackets and yanks so hard that we both fly backwards and hit the hard dirt with a grunt.

My eyes don't move from the sky as I lie on the ground, heart pounding so fast I think it will burst and sheer terror blocking anything else out. Breaths are falling from my lips rapidly; my chest feels compressed as if someone is sitting on it. Controlling my breathing is impossible. My eyes want to water but I don't feel anything except numb.

"Hey, you're okay!" Monroe assures me upon noticing that I seem to be having a breakdown of some sort. "You're okay!"

But I'm not. Colors are swirling together and I have to close my eyes to make them stop. Something sounds like it's tearing, but maybe it's just my brain making me imagine things due to the intense fear. Someone picks me off of the ground and hauls me into their arms. I'm encased in the outdoorsy scent of Bellamy as he presses several kisses to my forehead, voice cracking as he whispers, "God damnit, please be careful."

My ears pick up on that same tearing sound again. My eyes go wide in sudden realization, and then I'm pushing away from Bellamy and diving to my left instantly, fingers just barely missing the rope as it slides down the cliff. My tear-filled eyes watch in horror as it slips down the edge and Sterling's screams ring in my ears as he plummets to his death.

That's what breaks me. My lips form soundless words as my throat begins to close. My face turns from the cliff toward the packed dirt beneath me, fists clenching tightly as hot tears cascade from my eyes and down my cheeks. My body shakes with silent sobs. There's too much shock in me for my brain to want to function properly. Again I want to throw something, to grip onto a rock so tightly that I crush it to powder. The whirlwind inside of me is aching to destroy.

"Mel!" Bellamy calls to her. "Mel, focus on me. You can do this."

"No!" she wails in reply, nearly breaking my heart with the amount of sadness in her voice.

"Yes, you can," Bellamy assures her. "You're strong."

"I'm not strong! Stubborn, maybe."

"So be stubborn a little longer. I'm not gonna let you die. You hear me?"

I block out the rest, only focusing on trying to regain my breathing. My head is beginning to clear and I can feel less terror in my veins as long seconds pass. The tears are beginning to dry, so I sniffle and let out a shaking breath. In, out. We can still save Mel.

I feel Bellamy's hand on my back as he crouches beside me, saying gently, "Fallon, baby, you alright?"

I nod and look up at him, biting my lip because my eyes sting from the slight breeze. He helps get to my feet so I'm not propping myself up on my now skinned elbows.

One look at his face is all I need to know about what's going to happen. I feel a kick to my gut, but at this point there is almost nothing that can make me feel any number than I already am. "You're going down to get her, aren't you?"

Bellamy looks away and then sighs as if he didn't want me to figure it out so soon. He wets his lips. "Yeah."

Fear strikes me again, and I feel my heart clench. My fingers lightly come up to touch his jaw and move his chin upward so he's looking at me. My voice trembles slightly as I say, "God damnit, please be careful."

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this chapter was a rollercoaster ride wow

!!!!also!!! thank you guys so much for 100k?? that's a LOT and i'm so happy and excited! your comments make me so happy and i appreciate how much you all care about fallon

updates will be slow because i'm on a lil semi writing hiatus so i can get my crap together and focus on school for a while. that's why updates have been taking a while!

-kristyn