❝you know what it's like to be unmade?❞

-clint barton, the avengers

♛

LINCOLN HAD MADE IT sound like a walk in the park compared to what actually happens after the intake doors.

I don't even have the thoughts left to feel embarrassed about them removing all of my clothes. All I can feel is pain. The agony is so fierce that it feels like I'm being dunked in lava. It's all happening at once- the burning, the stretching, choking, feeling like my skin is being peeled off. My entire body is so rigid it feels sore.

A person in a suit and gas mask blasts me with a white powder that makes my cells practically fry themselves. I have to turn away from it and shut my eyes so it doesn't get into them. However, I can't move much beyond that- the shackles on my neck, wrists, and ankles prevent that from happening.

The water brings no relief. If anything, it makes me feel even worse until my knees start to buckle. I cry out when I realize that the water is boiling hot, steaming against my skin. My breaths come out in shuddering gasps as I sputter the water that's going into my mouth.

And then it's over, but it doesn't feel like it. My entire body is still on fire when I'm dried off and a syringe is injected in my arm. And another. And another.

And then they take out an injector made of metal. It has a long barrel and it's about as wide as that of a rifle. They insert some sort of circular pill before pushing it into my mouth, stopping just before it would activate my gag reflex. After the doctor presses a trigger, the pill shoots into my throat and causes me to choke until I'm gasping for breath.

More boiling water. It's so hot that it's cold, soaking me in anguish that only intensifies when they start scrubbing me down with a brush. I can hear the gurgled screams of the other's ringing in my ears over the roar of the faucets.

The person holding the brush is anything but gentle. They scrub my skin with ruthless endeavor, ridding it of every speck of dirt they can. It cuts through layers of sweat and blood. I find myself wincing when they go over bruises and cuts and scrapes that litter my body. And it hurts so badly that I don't know if I can take the pain any longer.

And just when that thought passes through my head, I black out.

I come to my senses to find my skin still tinged with a slight burn. And the fact that I'm curled up in a cage.

I jump, then wince when my head hits the top. The cage is just big enough for me to sit in normally, even bigger if I were to scrunch in a ball. Everything is tined a strange blue haze. My fingers latch onto the sides, only to retract in surprise when they touch someone's skin.

"Du yu hod daun?" a girl to the left of me questions snarkily. Her voice is weak as if she's been drained of energy. When I try to look at her, I discover her head is leaning against the wall of the cage that separates mine from hers. A curtain of hair obscures her face.

"Biyo moba," I reply, thankful that Lincoln at least taught me the basics.

The girl lifts her head and eyes me suspiciously. Her irises appear black in the lack of bright lighting, and her face is covered in cuts and bruises. I can see white patches on her frail body that have blood showing through them.

But my eyes drift past her and land on the crumpled shape of Bellamy in the next cage over. He's unconscious, it seems, with his body curled around itself on the bottom of his cage. It's impossible if he's alright from so far away. I feel my face fall in worry, my fingers loosening around the bars. My stomach twists uncomfortably.

The girl looks at him and back at me with a blank expression. "Du yu get in em?"

I struggle with the middle of the question, but get what she means. I'm pretty sure she's asking if I know him.

"Sha," I respond with a nod. Up close, the girl appears to be a few years older than me, maybe Bellamy's age. Her hair could be blonde normally, but it's damp and hard to tell.

She nestles back into her spot, so I try to do the same and calm the thudding of my heart. I barely get myself as comfortable as I can before a doctor in a white uniform walks down the aisle of cages. I notice more people in various ones, all glaring with contempt at him as he walks.

But he moves past them to the end, where he stops at me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the girl lift her head to watch as he unlocks my cage and swings it open.

"We were hoping you'd still be asleep," he says. He seizes me by the legs and pulls me out so I nearly fall to the floor. "But we'll make do. Come on."

The doctor yanks me up by my arms and forces me to walk. I find myself looking back toward Bellamy's cage, just barely twisting my back before I'm yanked forward.

"Do that again and I'll have to taze you," the doctor sneers, then takes out a tiny syringe with a yellowish liquid inside of it. "You'll just have to sleep a little longer."

I barely feel the prick on my shoulder until I pass out again.

When I wake up, I'm not in a cage anymore, but I'm strung upside down by the ankles. The gasp of air I suck in makes me swing a little, and I feel light-headed and weak. My body seems heavy like my blood has doubled its weight.

The first thing I do is assess my surroundings. I'm still in the blue-tinted room, covered in patches with tubes sticking out of them. A panel that displays two monitors is to my immediate right. On the bottom one, I can see a line moving up and down in time with my heartbeat. And through the space between that and the floor is Bellamy, his eyes closed and body unmoving.

A girl kneels down in front of me, causing my gaze to switch to her instead. Her face is covered in both awe and a little bit of fear when she asks, "Who are you?"

I barely manage to get my name out in a slightly incoherent mumble.

The girl's eyebrow creases. "Felon?"

"Fall - on." My name comes out in two syllables that takes nearly all my strength to say.

"Fallon," she repeats thoughtfully. "You're from the Ark, right?" I nod numbly. "Do you know Jasper?"

His name makes me jolt, causing my forehead to almost smack into hers. She holds me still with a gentle touch and chuckles.

"Guess so. I'm Maya."

I glance at Bellamy again, noticing with dismay that he's still unresponsive. It feels weird to swallow upside down, but I somehow manage. Maya bites her lip upon noticing how my eyebrows crease in concern.

"Do you want me to wake up him, too?" she asks, already starting to stand. I nod again and close my eyes to prevent my vision from turning.

I open them just in time to see Maya jab something in his leg that causes him to immediately suck in a gasp. His eyes shoot open and his head turns wildly in alarm.

"What - the hell?" I manage to demand through my shortage of breath. It doesn't seem like a coincidence that both Bellamy and I are strung up at the same time on the same machine.

"I'm just...hanging out," Bellamy responds in a weak voice. I would hit him if a) we weren't upside down and b) I had any energy left.

"Maya, can you get us down?" I question. She nods before standing up and getting to work on removing our patches. But just after she rips one off of my chest, the door opens with a buzz, causing her to jump up.

"Lovejoy. Francis," she greets as she twiddles her thumbs nervously. "Hey."

"What are you doing in here?" One of them asks - a deep, male voice. "You're not cleared for this facility."

"I know," she replies stiffly. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to see what was so special about them. But...the girl...she's dead."

What?

I carefully crane my neck up toward the monitor beside me to see that the lines are now flat. And then I slowly move it back down, praying that the guards didn't notice. My eyes shut just as I hear footsteps walking toward me.

"Huh," a different, slightly higher voice muses. "She is."

Then, I'm being lowered onto the ground slowly with a grating sound filling my ears. My head touches the floor first before the rest of my body until I'm laying flat on the cold concrete. I feel the shackles begin to loosen. My stomach fills with nerves as I prepare myself.

And then, just as the restraints pop off, I rear my foot back and kick the guard in the face. He stumbles away, giving me just enough time to scramble to my feet. He trips over the leg of the stand holding Bellamy up and crashes to the floor with a smack of his head hitting the ground.

"Hey!" the other shouts, but Bellamy swings himself back and hits him before he can continue. Maya quickly jams a needle in his neck. He gasps and wobbles unsteadily on his feet.

"Don't move!" A gun is pointed at me by the first guy. On instinct, I raise my arms in surrender, purposely moving around slowly so he's walking toward Maya without realizing. Right on cue, she sticks a different needle into his neck and causes the gun to fall from his hands. I dive forward and grab it. Just as he reaches for me, I roll onto my back and aim the gun up.

I've clearly caught him by surprise. I'm not stupid enough to fire it in case anyone else hears, so I swipe my legs under his and hit him in the head with the gun. Blood splatters the concrete.

Maya has been slowly lowering Bellamy down this whole time. Once he's halfway there, she releases his restraints and drops him onto the floor. He springs up in one jump and tackles the other guard, who's woozy from his own injection.

I barely have time to make sure he has that one covered before the man below me grips onto my wrist so tightly that I cry out. He shouldn't have much strength left, but he has an iron grip on the hand that's holding the gun. With a growl, I lean most of my weight onto my left side so I roll off of him. Along the way, I bite his arm hard, causing him to gasp and release me. I place both hands on the gun before smashing it into his head once again with almost ruthless endeavor. And then it's just his blank eyes staring at me and a small pool of blood is spreading slowly and I don't have time to contemplate what I've done.

I glance up and move my hair out of my face - they must have taken the Grounder braids out after the shower - to see that Bellamy definitely has the other guard covered. His hands are around his neck while the girl in the cage next to mine has hold of the man's wrist so he can't move. Bellamy's arms tighten and tighten until his muscles are taut; soon the man is lying on the ground with his empty eyes staring at nothing.

I get to my feet albeit a bit unsteadily. The gun clatters out of my hands and hits the floor. I walk toward Maya, discovering I can actually see her correctly for the first time. She's shorter than me, with dark and frizzy hair that ends just at her shoulders. Her eyebrows are thick, lips full, and nose pointed downward. She looks like she might be sick.

"Are you okay?" I ask her gently, afraid to touch her in case she flinches away.

She looks up at me with tearful eyes and gives a slight nod. "I'm fine."

I bite my lip anxiously and turn toward Bellamy, only to discover he's already walking toward me. Slowly. Unsurely. So I have to crash into his arms instead, holding him so tightly I can feel the heat radiating from his body. My face buries itself in the crook between his shoulder and neck with the smell of antiseptic stinging my nose. I pull back and wipe the blood from his chin, giving him a small, halfhearted grin that I don't really mean. He barely lifts his lips in response.

Bellamy turns and looks toward the unmoving guard on the ground by the cages. There's no evidence of his death, but the smear of blood on the floor from the other might be a problem if they can do a DNA test on it.

"Bleach," Maya whispers so softly I almost don't hear her. "There should be some in here."

She disappears, presumably off to find it.

"Help me get him undressed," Bellamy says to me, motioning toward the guard to his right. His voice cracks when he speaks. "We need to get rid of the bodies."

With shaking hands, I manage to remove his clothes with Bellamy's help. My stomach twists when I touch the guard's skin- it's still warm. His unblinking eyes seem to watch me as I move.

"Okay," I say quietly once all of his clothes are off, more to myself than anyone. "Now, the other one."

Maya has finished cleaning the floor by the time I go over there. The blood splatter has faded to an inconspicuous mark. She assists me in undressing him as well, undressing him with both of our hands trembling. I stop halfway upon realizing something, my heart constricting in fear. Shit.

"Wait," I say in dismay. "There's no way these will fit."

"You're right," Maya agrees solemnly. "I can go see what I can find, if you want. It'll only take ten minutes tops."

I nod, figuring ten minutes will also be enough time for Bellamy and I to discard the bodies. Maya stands up and hurries out of the room. The door swings shut behind her with an echoing boom.

"I think we can dump them here," Bellamy informs me, pointing to a heavy-looking rusted door that reads "END CONTAINMENT AREA" in bold letters across the front. I nod again and grab the guard by the straps of his tan vest to heave him toward the door. Bellamy grabs the other by his arms.

Once we discard Lovejoy - it says his name on the uniform in Bellamy's hands - we take the rest of Franics' clothes off for good measure and dump them inside the chute as well. A shudder goes down my spine at the sound of their bodies hitting the cart at the bottom.

"So what's the plan?" I ask as Bellamy starts to put on Lovejoy's clothes.

"Our first move should be to turn off the acid fog," he replies as he hikes the khaki pants up and secures them with a brown belt. "Once we do that, it'll be easier for the armies to get inside."

I nod and look at the ground in order to resist the urge to stare as he puts on the clothes. Normally, I'd tease him, but now seems hardly like the time to do so.

My eyes catch sight of what I'm wearing for the first time. It's not even clothes- they're white bandages that have been wrapped many times around my chest and lower half, the bottom part ending at the middle of my thighs. My arms cross over my chest in slight embarrassment.

"And contacting camp," I add without looking at him. "Seeing the others for even a few seconds would be nice, too. I'd at least like for them to know we're here."

Bellamy nods as he shrugs the vest over his head. "Alright. So: acid fog, the radio, and our friends our are main priorities."

I pull my lips into a line and glance at the chute to my left. A gulp goes painfully down my throat at the image of Francis' slightly bashed-in skull that's imprinted into my mind. The thing I dislike the most is seeing their empty eyes, once seeing and now no longer functioning.

"Hey," Bellamy says, causing my line of vision to direct to him again. His expression is gentle. I notice a bruise forming around his left eye from his fight. "We'll get through this, alright?"

"Yeah," I reply halfheartedly, running my hands along my arms as another chill pricks my skin.

When Bellamy is fully dressed, we walk out and close the door behind us. Maya stands near it with a bundle of clothes and a vest in her hands. I sigh in relief and take them from her. "Thank you so much."

She nods in response. "Won't be a perfect fit, but it's enough to prevent suspicion."

I dress as quickly as humanly possible, aware of my cage buddy staring at us along with everyone else. The top is an airy, white button-down that's more like a dress shirt than anything. Over it goes the tan vest that matches the khakis. The black shoes feel foreign on my feet; I miss my perfectly good boots that are now with Octavia.

Maya hands me a hair tie that I use to pull my hair into a low enough ponytail that the hat will still fit over. It's a ridiculous uniform, but at least the cap will help cover my face.

"There...aren't many female guards, but you could kinda pass for this one who already exists," Maya informs me.

I don't know if that's good a or bad factor. On one hand, I won't have to worry about someone realizing I'm not anyone they know, but if I were to run into her...

"You've done enough," Bellamy tells her gently as he fiddles with the hat in his hands. "You should walk away."

"You don't know where you're going," she responds. I remember with dismay that Clarke's detailed map had been in my Grounder clothes, lost forever. It makes my heart sink.

"You can draw us a map," I find myself saying before I realize it.

Maya smiles for a second before shaking her head. "No." She holds out her hands, passing us the guns. "I'm in."

I take mine before Bellamy takes his, but when he does, his voice is quiet. "Okay. We need get to the radio so we can contact Clarke. We heard Jasper's S.O.S--"

"I heped him set that up," Maya cuts in with a nod. "I know where it is."

I feel slightly guilty for involving Maya in this mess, but she seems determined and not likely to back down anytime soon. I have to give her credit for her bravery.

"Bellamy, Fallon..." Maya trails off heavily, "...your people are disappearing. Two so far. Monty and Harper. I thought they'd be in here, but--"

"I want to see the others now," Bellamy interrupts in a slightly harsh tone. I would scold him for it if I didn't know he only said it like that because he's scared.

First Harper and now Monty. Who's next- Miller?

"The dorm's on the way to the radio," Maya replies.

"Okay," I say, about to head toward the door, but Maya stops me.

"Wait." She reaches forward and rips a nametag off of my vest, then Lovejoy's off of Bellamy's. "Everyone here knows everyone. Fallon, be prepared for people to mistaken you as a girl named Victoria Chen, okay? She's a bit taller than you, though, so stand up straighter. Roll up your sleeves."

Bellamy pushes back his curls with one hand and puts his hat on with the other. I roll up my left sleeve, where I faintly remember them injecting a tracking chip in me before the vicious scrub-down.

Maya grabs two bandages and a scalpel from a nearby cart before standing in front of me. "Your tracking chips will trip alarms once we start moving. We have to take them out."

I nod, balling my hand into a fist so I can squeeze it. "Okay."

She takes a worried glance at my face before cutting a straight line in the middle of my arm, partially below my elbow. I tense at the sharp pain that it brings about as she continues until there's an inch and a half-long cut. I bite my lip to keep from wimpering as she extracts a tiny device that looks like a pill. Just as a drop of blood starts to roll down my wrist, she presses one of the circular bandages on the cut.

"Ow," I say through gritted teeth.

"Sorry," Maya replies sheepishly before dropping the tracker in my hand. She then starts on removing Bellamy's, and he doesn't even flinch or show any signs of pain. I study his face carefully to see him purposely avoiding my gaze. After she hands him his chip, she instructs, "Put them in your cages."

I head toward my cage, placing the tracking device on a thicker edge of the metal so it won't fall through. I catch sight of the Grounder girl staring at us through her bars.

"We'll come back for you," Bellamy tells her. "I promise."

Once he turns away, I step up to her and ask quietly, "Chin yu bilaik?"

"Echo," she responds unsurely. Her dark eyes study me carefully as if she's staring into my soul.

"May we meet again, Echo," I say to her before pivoting on my feet and walking briskly toward Bellamy. "Okay, Maya. Take us to our friends."

-----

SO INTENSE

-kristyn

TRANSLATIONS:

Du yu hod daun?: Do you mind?

Biyo moba: I'm sorry

Sha: Yes