Chapter 1:

Nothing.

After three days of wondering through the vast woods inhabited by the brutal grounders, she found nothing. She felt nothing.

She wasn't looking for anything, or anyone for that matter and yet she found herself feeling emptier than usual.

Every day she tried to convince herself that she did what she had to do to save her people, to save her friends, to save her mum. Yet every time she said it she felt deep regret and the dead clump of bodies embodied her mind. She was responsible for the death of all those people. She was.

Before her arrival on earth she only ever lost one person in her life: her father. Now she knew more about death then she ever had wished too. She witnessed death right in the face and it changed her. It changed all of them.

Finn.

Unwillingly his name popped into her head. She closed her eyes forcefully trying to block out the memory of his blood stained face, she couldn't deal with him too.

Yet she had to, every night he inhabited what little sleep she could obtain. The pain did do nothing to absolve her of her weakness. She tried to see his death as something she could grieve later on, but she did not deserve grief. She was guilty. She killed him.

She killed the one person she loved, and that would forever haunt her. She could do nothing about the impending doom that would rattle her mind, she could do nothing about the haunting thoughts that taunted her every waking hour. She had no control over anything in her life anymore, not even her thoughts.

She couldn't be emotionless. She couldn't see love as weakness. She tried to, and yet her empathy and compassion has taken up all of the peace in her mind. She couldn't be like Lexa.

She winced at even the thought of her name.

Lexa.

Anger bubbled up inside her veins every time her name was mentioned. Lexa, in Clarke's mind was the source of everything that had gone wrong that night. She was the betrayer in Clarke's story. The traitor.

What else could she expect from the ruthless commander? Every time she searched for any sign of feeling in that woman's face all she got back was the eerie cold glance that shook Clarke's very sense of being. How could she expect anything less from someone so detached?

She knew why. She knew exactly why.

She had felt it growing from the start, even though she knew that Lexa was ruthless and unfeeling, Clarke unconsciously worked to unravel that hard core. She knew what she was feeling and no matter how much she wanted to stop it, she couldn't.

The night before they went to attack the mountain men, she and Lexa shared something special, something innocent.

A kiss that was so soft and full of feeling that it beat all Lexa's attempts to be the emotionless person she had appeared to be. Clarke pulled away knowing that anything more than that would break her. It was too quick, too soon after the death of someone she loved dearly.

Clarke felt like she had broken through Lexa's hard demeanour and began to trust her, she felt like she had finally unlocked the frigid persona Lexa adopted. For that reason, her betrayal brought out more hurt than anger.

I do care, Clarke.

Maybe it would have been easier for Clarke to hate her if she hadn't said those four words. Maybe it wouldn't have made her feel so helpless. Maybe she wouldn't have killed all those people. All those children.

A flash of images of all the blotches of lifeless bodies contaminated her thoughts once again, leaving her to feel guilty once more, just like a viscous cycle.

Through the murder of those people, Clarke got to save her own. She wished she could feel happy about it, she really did, but nothing about killing innocent people to save her own made her feel better. She wasn't ruthless. She couldn't be.

She had to bare the pain so that her people wouldn't have to. So that Jasper could hate Clarke and not himself for the death of Maya, so that Bellamy could keep his sister secure without having to worry about the guilt he would have to deal with, so that everyone could be safe.

She was alone. She walked away from everyone: her people, her friends, and her mother- anyone who ever loved her and cared for her were now miles away in a direction that Clarke knew she wouldn't be able to return to sooner.

She did what she had to do and left. She put herself first because she knew she had to, and now walking aimlessly into a forest full of danger makes her feel absolutely nothing.

As if every emotion was sucked out of her, leaving her as a soulless person, just wandering the earth with no ambition. That's all she was. She had seen and done too much to return to the person she was before all this happened. She was someone different now, someone she didn't want to be.

She found a dry patch of land close to a tree and decided to settle there for the night, with the little bit of strength she had left she hauled her bag onto the floor, rummaging for any ration she could find inside it.

If she wanted to survive this forest alone, she would need to start hunting.

Did she even want to survive?

Whilst trying to isolate the torturous thoughts stuck in her mind, she laid her head down on the cold dry land and shuddered at the hard surface. Knowing that her sleep would be very short lived she didn't bother to find any suitable cover. She couldn't care less.

She let the wafting exhaustion finally take over her and shut her eyes.

May we meet again.