The One Who's Fallen

Chapter 25

"Clarke."

I groan and snuggle further into the furs, pulling one over my head. It's too early to be awake. I hear a chuckle and squirm, just wanting to fall back asleep.

"Clarke. Come on, it is time to get up."

That voice sounds familiar, but it's not Anya. "Five more minutes." I plead, hoping they're not as cruel as Anya is when I don't wake up when she wants me to.

"Clarke." The voice is stern, but I can hear the amusement. A hand starts lightly shaking my shoulder and I sigh, knowing I won't be able to fall asleep again.

The person stops when my head emerges from the furs. The sudden rush of cold air makes me shiver, but the fresh air is a welcome change. It takes me a few tries to successfully open my eyes, and even then everything's blurry. I yawn and move a hand from under the furs to rub my eyes.

My eyesight focuses in on Lexa, who's crouched in front of me. Judging by the amused smile on her face and her closeness to me that's kind of short circuiting my brain, she's the one that woke me up.

"I'm awake." I let out, wincing when I hear the raspiness.

"Barely." Lexa says jokingly. "I went out briefly and caught us breakfast." The thought of food makes my stomach rumble and motivates me to get out from underneath the furs. "I will go cook it while you get dressed."

I stand and stretch out my limbs, ridding my muscles of most of the rigidness from sleep. I glance at Lexa and note that her back is to me, probably to give me privacy as I change. Well, as much privacy as one could get in a giant open cave.

I take off the pajamas and quickly put on my armor, not wanting to expose my skin to the cold morning air for longer than necessary. It's not freezing, I'm just used to there only being one temperature on the Ark, and it was warmer than this. Even after more than a month, I'm still adjusting to the differences of Earth. I walk over to Lexa and sit next to her, yawning.

"After breakfast, we can try to track Pauna." Lexa says, glancing at me when I sit. "From the sound of it, it must have been close to us last night. All we need to do is figure out where it was and follow its tracks."

"You make it sound so simple." I say teasingly, knowing it will be anything but.

There's a small smile on her face as she leans closer to the fire, checking the meat from whatever animal she killed to see if it's cooked enough. Apparently satisfied with it, she pulls the stick with the meat on it out. Lexa reaches into a sheathe I haven't noticed until now attached to her hips and pulls out a dagger. Lexa cuts the meat from the bone and puts the pieces on the plates she brought. She divides them relatively evenly between the two of us, though I'm pretty sure she's giving me a little bit more. Once the bones are cleaned of meat, she tosses them to the wall away from our things.

I thank her when she passes me my plate. We eat in near silence, the only sound being the horses eating the grass and the sound of the forest coming from the entrance.

"We should be going if we are going to track it today." Lexa states when we're both finished.

"Alright."

I go through my mental checklist twice, making sure I have everything I might need while fighting a giant mutant gorilla. Yeah, this might not have been the brightest idea. Lexa and I leave soon after that, both of us on our guard.

Lexa has one of her swords drawn and my hands are ready to grab either my bow or my sword, depending on what I need. There's not much noise and the further we move from the cave, the fewer the sounds there are. It's eerie. Usually the forest is an absolutely stunning mixture of beautiful scenery and the sounds of animals. We must be pretty close to it, which isn't comforting in the least.

I follow Lexa, keeping an eye on the trees and our surroundings as she follows the trail the Pauna left us. Usually it's snapped trees and alarmingly huge footsteps (I dread to think what it might actually look like), but a few times there've been a small animal in the footprint (yes, in. As in completely squished) and even a skeleton from a deer. There's still little a bit of meat on it, from which Lexa determines it wasn't killed too long ago, a day at most.

When Lexa stops, I'm still making sure there's nothing and no one following us and such, so I don't notice until I bump into her back. At the contact, she unintentionally lets out a quiet grunt and steps forward.

I'm about to ask what's wrong, but Lexa shushes me and whispers. "I believe we have discovered it's camp. It does not appear to be here right now, so lets look around."

"That sounds like a really bad idea." I murmur, eyeing the clearing in front of us that's mostly hidden by trees.

"It probably is. Come on." With that, Lexa begins silently moving through the trees and toward the clearing.

"And she told me not to do stupid things." I grumble before following her.

Oh crap. The clearing is definitely our Pauna's. The dusty ground is red, which I'd guess means it's soaked with blood. There are bones lining the clearing (and some are human) so I have to climb over them to follow her, nearly tripping over a foot. An actual foot from a person, unattached. With the skin still- ugh. I'm a healer, I've seen bad things. But this makes me sick to my stomach.

Lexa gestures for me to come to her, so I rush over.

"Clarke, look."

I glance down into the hole in the ground she's pointing at and float me, that's a person. It's keeping a living person here. Why?

There's an extremely loud roar (it sounds really pissed off about something) and without turning around I know it's too close for Lexa and I to make it to safety. We exchange a look. Lexa draws her other sword and I pull out my bow, hoping I can get in a few shots before it gets too close.

Cliffhanger... Mwahahaha.

RIP to the fifty killed in Orlando, and I hope the families affected are doing as okay as they can.

Thank you for your support and for reading! Stay awesome (and safe)!!