Conflate | Bellamy Blake ¹ ✓

✯ | chapter nine

❝what? no 'thank you' for saving your life?❞

-jace herondale, the mortal instruments

♛

I DREAM OF OUR first day on earth. But, as they usually are in dreams, the images are distorted and nothing looks the same. When the doors of the dropship hiss open, nothing but barren wasteland lies ahead of us. Dead grass and twigs for trees stretch for miles beyond my sight. Octavia barely breathes in and takes a step outside before she's seized with a choking spell. She claws at her throat and sinks to her knees while strangled gasps escape her lips, face slowly turning a dark red that matches the hazy sky above.

Bellamy barely rushes toward her before collapsing as well. His hands fly to his neck as he struggles to breathe, eyes bugging wide until they eventually roll into the back of his head. I take a step back and crash into someone; I whirl around to see Clarke. Except only the whites of her eyes are visible and blood is dripping from their sockets, running down her pale face like tears. She seizes my shoulders with a vice grip, her fingers digging into my skin until they leave finger-shaped bruises. Her head tilts to the side mechanically as if she's studying me with unseeing eyes.

"It's all your fault, Fallon," she sneers in a monotonous voice. "All of it. You killed us. And for that, you'll pay."

People are dropping like flies all around me. I stand, frozen in horror, as even Clarke falls to the floor and breathes her last. There's nothing I can do to help these people except watch as they choke to death on the acrid air. Some have blisters tearing their skin and turning it a sickly red-white color.

Nothing is happening to me. I lift my hands up to my face and discover no boils on my skin, no trouble with my breathing. Panic flares in my chest until it's so intense that my heart is pounding so hard it hurts. I start wheezing and cry out in terror upon noticing that everyone is immobile around me. Not so much as a finger twitches.

They're all dead. And I'm the only one left.

My eyes snap open to reveal the blurry figure of Clarke Griffin kneeling in front of me. I blink to let my eyes adjust, finding relief in noticing they aren't burning anymore. Her image eventually clears and I can now see the worry etched on her face. One of her hands is on my shoulder, just like in my dream. I have to remind myself that I'm awake now, Clarke isn't going to hurt me, and I'm not alone.

"Fallon," she mutters slowly with an incredulous expression, "did you fall asleep?"

"She's been out for an hour," Octavia informs her from across the dropship. "How she slept through that, I don't know."

One of her fingers lazily points at a tied-up Lincoln, who glares sharply at everyone in the room. His Reaper outfit is gone. He now wears a loose-fitting, torn sweater from our spare set down on the lower level. A chain is looped around his neck as well as either of his hands and legs. He looks extremely different- dangerous, tattered, and unkempt.

The image of him in the very same position when Bellamy had captured him flashes into my mind. Oh, how things have changed.

Clarke helps me up and keeps a hand on my arm. Her light eyes watch Lincoln carefully. "Have you been able to do anything?"

"Not with him thrashing like that," I respond with a huff. "I would knock him out, but I'm afraid of giving him brain damage. He's...had a rough day."

Clarke nods with her eyebrows pinched together in thought. She takes a step toward Lincoln, only for it to cause a screaming fit. Something snaps inside of him until he's pulling and straining against his restraints, yelling with his mouth wide open. The dim lighting inside the ship reveals his blackened teeth and fuzzy beard. But then he stops and begins shaking uncontrollably. Gurgled choking sounds rise from his throat as the chains threaten to snap from his constant pulling.