Responsible for survival

Warning

BELLAMY'S POV:

"BELLAMY!" Monroe sees us first, and runs to us, red in the face and with terror brighter than a solar flare. "It's Atom. He's out of control." She pants. "It's not good. Millers... I don't know." She barely stops for breath. "One minute we were quietly hunting.. then, then.. this SCREAM. It's Atom... And Miller... he's in THAT!" she jabs a finger at the crazy crowd.
"MONROE!" A desperate wail comes from the mob. Monroe darts back into the throng, elbowing kids out the way. I look at Bellamy, before stepping forward.
"OI! OI! IDIOTS!" I scream, and scream and only the kids nearest stop fighting, bloody noses. Murphy screams when he sees Charlotte with blood dribbling down her wrist. And no wristband glitters as she slams it into the jaw of a tall 14 year old, who bleeds from six places. He hasn't got a wristband either.
"ATOM!" Bellamy yells. The fighting stops, and Miller is roughly pushed to the floor by Atom.
"Bellamy!" he calls jovially, as if the entire camp wasn't bleeding and in pain. "Didn't expect you back so soon!" Monroe runs for the first aid kit I'd left on the dropship step.
"The HELL are you doing?" I hiss.
"Taking off the wristbands, duh."He laughs, pointing at a small mountain of wristbands, some dribbled in blood. "32. The rest weren't so easily convinced." Oh. My. Gods.
"ARE YOU STUPID?!" I can't stop myself. My jaw clenches, fists ball and I scream every little anger out at him. "Genuinely, are you stupid? YOU BLOODY MUST BE!" Bell places a hand on my shoulder cautiously. I shake it off, and storm down the hill. Atom just smirks. "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?" I laugh, "WHAT'S GOING ON? THOSE WRISTBANDS? Those wristbands are our sole connection to the ark!" Atom just laughs, smirking as I stand there, willing myself to unclench my fists and throttle him.
"Exactly..." he laughs, like I'm the stupid one.
"You IDIOT! You utter, utter IDIOT! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING ON?!" He smirks.
"Aw, is the little spoiled princess going to tell us about the real world?" he coos. The crowd jeers. I throw my arm out to stop Bellamy hitting him.
"YEAH. I AM, ACTUALLY!" I step into his face "The arks dying." They stop laughing. "EVERYONE up there is going to die. Everyone." I turn to the group. "There's not enough air left for them." His jaw drops, and what he's done makes him sink to his knees. "EVERYONE IS DYING BECAUSE OF YOU." I spit at him. He swallows, not looking at me anymore. "These, these crappy little wristbands? These are the only hope the arks got left. Everyone up there? YOU'RE KILLING THEM." Silence. Just a long, long beat of silence.
"I'm sorry." He whispers. Too late.

I watch Bellamy tug the ropes into the tree, Atom attached. Tied, like Jasper, around the ankles and the arms. The same ropes. "We'll take you down tomorrow." I hiss, walking away with the only light. He screams. We do not look back.

Two days pass, sun rising and sinking over the trees, sun shining into bloodied puddles, peering over treetops. No one comes. The camp begins to take true shape, water butts being built, tents flapping in the breeze. I've spent each night buried in Bell's arm's, desperately trying for warmth. We don't even attempt Finn and Wells's technique.
Jasper's beginning to burn a fever. Stripped, and he's still burning. The others sit in a semi circle. Me, stressing over Jasper, Monty sitting next to me and his knee tapping violently, Wells and Finn clutching each other's hands, Murphy glaring at Finn as if he'd love to slit his throat. Bellamy stress walks back and forth, pausing every so often to squeeze my shoulder and look at Murphy and Monroe. "But we need food. That cat hasn't lasted long around 98..."
"There's nothing to hunt. THAT cat is the first meat we've seen. We searched everywhere in a miles radius. No birds nests, nor animal tracks. NOTHING." Monroe slams her palms open, then drums them on her lap.
"Then we'll need to go further out." Octavia points out.
"Yeah, and pay the grounders to kill us." Finn laughs.
"Plants?" Monty asks. "There are dozens of medicinal ones I've seen just in our walk to the river... And edible."
"I guess... For now we gather until we can find a meat source." Bellamy grunts.
"We need shelter." Wells points out.
"We have shelter."
"Better shelter. Tents that properly cover the kids and don't mean they have to sleep on mud."
"And a wall." Monroe adds, "I've got into the camp from every side." Bellamy nods, then stares at everyone for a while. Mine is most lingering. His shoulders sag.
"Murphy, Monroe? Build the wall. Get the older kids on it, cutting trees down, building a wall. And if we need better tents we need to build them, fix the parachutes, and then we'll build something that can get them off the floor, some sort of bed." He rubs his nose, running his tongue along his teeth. "Wells, Finn? Get the little kids on that." He sits down next to me, and looks at Monty. "Monty? I need as many descriptions of plants, medicinal and edible as you can provide. Then see if you can reverse engineer the bracelets into working... I'll take Miller, Drew... and Atom -because I'm not having him round camp- out meat hunting, and send John Mbege, Trina, Pascal and Alex foraging."
"What about Clarke?" Murphy questions, tearing his glaring eyes from Finn, and softening them to me. The look is still harsh.
"You think you can tend to Jasper? And someone is going to get hurt building. I don't think a ten year old wants YOU to pull out their splinter Murphy..." He scrunches his nose at me, before walking to the ladder, muttering about cheaters and Charlotte.
"Monroe!" he calls, poking his head through the opening. She rolls her eyes. I follow the others down the ladder. Everyone's getting explicit instructions this time. No more chances. Bellamy stands on the foot of the dropship. Monroe slams the side of it until all the kids look at us.
"We're going to grounder proof this camp. I want everyone over 14 to join Monroe and Murphy on the walls, everyone under to join Wells and Finn on the tents. Unless I've told you otherwise." He nods, and Trina and the others grin. "And under NO circumstances does ANYONE leave this camp and NO ONE goes into the woods alone."

OCTAVIA'S POV: (Earlier that morning)

A thin trail of silver mist floats behind the butterfly, glowing against the amber sky. It swoops and soars and I follow it, spinning round trees, not caring where I'm going. It's so beautiful. I reach a circle of trees an dthe shimmering blue lights, wings flapping, and I forget to breath. It's so beautiful. One floats down onto my arm. It tickles. Then another and another and my arm feels fuzzy but I don't care, it feels so nice. Then my arm begins to burn red, and it prickles, sharper and harder than before. My head begins to burn. I stumble sideways, into something soft and warm.

A thud. Splat, splat, splat go the pretty butterflies. A grounder, dark eyes and face mask, slams a hand over my mouth and hits my head.