From The Ashes | The 100 S5 [Bellarke]

|5| Hope

8 months after Praimfaya

The Earth was in ruins.

The once-thick forests were now a collection of charred kindling, slowly blowing away in the fierce storms that built up with little warning to batter the wounded ground with lightning and torrential, boiling-hot rain. The irradiated air stung Clarke's lungs if she breathed too deeply, but her Nightblood had prevailed.

It had been two months since she had left the laboratory bunker, packing her remaining supplies into the rover which she had adopted as her new, mobile home. There was still nothing but silence from the portable radio she'd cobbled together in those first few weeks after her survival, but she refused to abandon her hope.

Silence didn't mean death. Not this time.

Clarke parked the rover and set the solar panels to charge before she exited through the rear doors, radio in hand. Ash coated her boots in a fine, chalky layer of gray, swirling up from the ground with every step. Flakes of sooty snow danced in the air, and her breath gusted out in small clouds.

So far, the biggest change that Praimfaya had brought was the irregular weather, with the violent storms and ever-changing temperature. The earth was still in shock, and Clarke wondered if it would be able to heal from nuclear destruction a second time.

When she was a few feet from the rover, she set the small signal dish down and adjusted the antenna so that it was pointing straight up at the sky. Once it was in position, she glanced up at the swirling, flame-colored atmosphere which still blocked her view of the stars and the bright speck of the orbiting Ring.

Maybe today her daily messages would be answered.

"Bellamy," she said, lifting the wireless receiver to her mouth and speaking slowly, wishing her voice to carry on the wings of data up to the one person who still centered her even his absence. "It's been seven months of this now – me radioing with nothing in return. I don't want to think that means you're dead, not after everything we did to survive, and so I won't. I'm going to keep on hoping that, one day, you'll hear me. You'll know I'm alive."

Clarke took a deep breath, tears stinging at her eyes. She knew that there was no reason for him to hope that she had survived; even she had thought her fate was sealed when she'd stayed behind. The sooner that grief could be lifted from his shoulders, the better.

They'd lost each other too many times already.

"Anyways," she continued. "I'm not giving up on you, Bellamy. I believe in you, in all of you. I know there's still a lot of time left between now and when it's safe enough for you to come back, but I'll be here. We will meet again."

6 years and 7 days after Praimfaya

The wrong ship had landed an hour ago.

Clarke lay on her stomach at the edge of the ridge which overlooked the green stretch of land she had watched spring back to life after Praimfaya. Through the cross-hairs of her rifle scope, she inspected the faded title of the ship again – Prisoner Transport. It reminded her of her own journey to the ground, back when she had carried the title of prisoner on her shoulders.

But what prison was so large to warrant a ship this size to transport its inhabitants?

Madi crawled back after slipping away to the rover for food a few minutes ago, and offered a strip of jerky to Clarke, who took it with a murmured word of gratitude.