It was slow going and eventually the group had worked up quite the sweat. Jasper, Monty and I were becoming good friends. For the first time in a long time, I was having fun. Our misgivings about the deer were soon locked away in the back of our minds. We could worry about it later.

Eventually, Clarke fell behind the group. She didn't really say much. The rest of us however, would not shut up.

"Hey, you know what I want to know?" I spoke up, disrupting one of Finn's stories. Jasper and Monty turned their attention to me.

"What?" Jasper asked.

"Why they dropped us down here? I mean, why today? I thought there was supposed to be another three or four generations before mankind are, or were, supposed to come down here..." I trailed off, biting my lip.

"Who cares? This morning, I was rotting in a cell and look at me now. I'm spinning in a forest," Octavia answered, spinning around a tree. Her flirty smile fell when Finn walked straight by her without a second glance. I had to stifle my giggles.

"Maybe they found an old satellite that was still working?" Jasper suggested.

"Yeah, like a weather satellite," I added, nodding at him with a smile.

"Its not a satellite. The Ark is dying," Clarke said from the back of the group. Most of us stopped to look at her, which allowed her to catch up.

"What?..." No, that couldn't be. Surely the Council wouldn't keep something that big from us.

"With the current population, the Ark has roughly three months of life support left. Maybe four now that we're gone," she said, huffing. We were all silent now, taking in the new news.

"Thats the secret they locked you up to keep?" Finn asked, catching up to the girl. She sighed.

"My father was the engineer that discovered the flaw. He wanted to go public when..." she trailed off. "When Wells turned him in. The guards got there before we could," she seemed to go completely stiff, muscles tight and voice firm and unwavering. Obviously her and Wells had more history than I thought.

"They floated my dad and then locked me up so I couldn't tell anyone."

We fell into an uncomfortable silence, the quietest we'd been on the entire trip.

"They're going to kill more people..." I realised, blood running cold.

"They'll do whatever it takes to survive, bring it down to a cosmic Adam and Eve if they have to," Clarke agreed, not looking back. Shit, thats not good.

"Good. I say, for what they did to me, float 'em all," Octavia said, ignoring the glare I sent her.

She ran ahead and Jasper followed like a love-sick puppy. I grinned, shook my head and keep walking.

I turned back to look at Clarke, Finn and Monty for one second and my chest slammed into something. I whipped my head back and saw that Jasper had stopped walking.

"Oh, man, I love Earth," he said, goofy grin in place. Unsure of what the hell he was talking about, I looked forward and saw Octavia taking her clothes off?

"What the hell are you doing?!" I yelled to her, mouth agape. She merely winked at me and then threw herself over the ledge she was standing on. I shrieked and ran forward, nearly falling over an overturned root in the process. The group were right behind me, worried for the safety of the reckless teen.

I reached the ledge and peered over, heart beating heavily. Octavia was swimming in the water. I grinned.

"Octavia, we can't swim," Monty stressed.

"No, but we can stand," she replied, standing up and giggling.

"Wait, guys, there shouldn't be a river here," Clarke said. I looked to her. She looked extremely concerned.

"Well, there is, so take off your clothes," Finn said. I then noticed that everyone aside from Monty, Clarke and I were taking off their clothes. I hugged myself. No way was I taking my clothes off.

I looked over Octavia at the water. It was so surreal to see a body of water so big. On the Ark, the only large amounts of water that we had were our showers or water from the tap. Seeing something this big awed me.

Over the water, getting closer, I saw a ripple. It steadily got bigger as it got closer and Jasper must have seen it too because the next thing I knew, he was urging her out of the water, eyes wide. There was a long, slithery shape shifting through the water and I rushed to the edge.

"Octavia, get out of the water!" I yelled, reaching my hand out for her to take. She turned around and before she could say or scream anything, she was under the water. Whatever was down there had taken her.

We were all yelling now, trying to find her. We saw her come up. She was being dragged viciously by whatever had her and she was screaming. I looked around for anything I could use to help.

"Here, push this in, it might distract it and let her go," I said, pushing at a boulder on the edge of the rocky wall. Finn and Clarke helped me push it and together we managed to get the rock to fall into the water. I landed with a splash and I looked up to see that the thing had let go of her.

Before I could go down to help her, Jasper beat me to it. He took off his jacket and rushed down to where she was. He jumped in and helped her swim to the nearest rocky ledge. The rest of us helped them up. The snake-like creature swam away once it realised that its next meal wouldn't be on the menu after all.

"You saved me," Octavia said.

We all huffed, letting out nervous chuckles. Jasper's hand was on Octavia and I grinned.

"Note to self: next time, save the girl," Monty grinned, huffing. We all laughed. Octavia smiled at Jasper.

I noticed then that Octavia had a rather serious looking bite on her leg so I ripped a section of Jaspers shirt and tied it around it, like a bandage.

"I don't know about you guys... but I think I've had enough swimming," I laughed breathily, standing up. The group agreed.

~~~~

The next morning, we got up early and began our trek again. Last night, we had found a reasonably flat area to spend the night. We had figured that it would be better for Octavia to get some rest before we went too much farther.

"Octavia, are you sure you don't want to go back to camp? I can take you back," I asked her for the millionth time.

"No, I'm fine, I swear," she assured me, patting my shoulder. I sighed and stood next to her, helping her stand up.

"Its about six miles to Mount Weather so if we keep going without any more stops, we should get there a bit before midday," Clarke said, looking over her map.

"What are we waiting for then? Lets go," I said, leading the way.

And so we walked. Finn and Clarke walked together, and so did Jasper, Monty and Octavia. Jasper had insisted that he could help her walk so I gave her over to him. It was slow going and it seemed to take a millennia to get there.

But when we had walked those damn six miles, it was so relieving. There was a river separating us from the next part of our path and after the incident yesterday, none of us were very keen on going into the water. Especially not Octavia.

I saw a conveniently placed vine and I grabbed onto it, calling out to our group.

"Guys, could we use this to get across?"

"Yes, good find," Clarke said. The rest of the group gathered and I handed over the vine to Finn, who wanted to go first.

I jumped down and stood with the rest of the group and watched as Finn and Jasper had a short conversation. After a moment, Finn handed the rope to Jasper.

I grinned, shielding the sun from my face.

"Whoo, go Jasper!" I yelled, laughing. He glanced down at us and smiled at Octavia, who smiled back.

"You've got this," she called up to him.

"See you on the other side," he said with a laugh. We all smiled up at him and watched as he jumped, gripping the rope tight in his hands. He sailed over the river and fell onto the other side. I laughed, pumping my hand in the air.

Jasper stood up and stumbled for a moment, then he grinned wider then I had ever seen. I raised his hands into the air.

"We are apogee!" He yelled. We all hollered loudly, cheering and laughing. We made it. We made it to Mount Weather.

Finn passed the rope to Clarke and she smiled at him. Jasper was still yelling and cheering over on the other side.

"Apogee!"

I laughed, watching him.

Just as Clarke was about to jump and sail to join our ecstatic friend, I heard a whistling sound.

I was about to turn around and see what was making it when I heard a loud "oof." I heard Octavia scream and I swivelled around to see Jasper was gone. What? Then I saw him. He was against one of the trees, eyes wide and looking down at his chest.

"Jasper!" I screamed upon seeing the large spear jutting from his chest.

The rest of us sprinted and ducked behind a large rock wall. We looked at each other, hearts beating wildly and adrenaline pumping.

We aren't alone out here.