"Will we all die?" Nyah's question lingered.
The firelight cast shadows across her features. Her small hand was clasped to Zane. The mirrored fear glinted in his expression but he remained strong. Benson himself had lost his way to fear of the future.
Atlas lifted her head from her desk. "One day." She rested her arms on her desk as Benson crowded around the children, reminding Atlas that he was just hardly sixteen.
"But why?" Zane lost himself to his age. "Why do we all have to die?"
"That's the way it is." Atlas spoke gently. "We are born and for a brief time imprint our souls on the generations to come, and then we die."
"I don't want to die." Benson spoke numbly.
He could still see Charlotte falling from the cliff, could hear Atlas's desperate scream. She had gotten so close to the edge, Benson feared he'd lose her. Losing Atlas and even Nyah and Zane would be the death of Benson.
"I don't either." Atlas was honest. She pushed herself to stand and joined them on the bed. She pulled Nyah onto her lap and wound her arms around the boy's shoulders.
"No one really wants to die but you know something?"
Their quizzical expressions waited.
"My father use to say that death was never the end. It's just a different road we take when the time is right. That one day, the two roads will unite and we'll never be alone."
"Will we see Wells, Atom and Charlotte again?" Nyah felt hope blossom once more.
"And our parents?" Zane found a smile dancing along his lips.
"We'll be able to be together without being torn apart?" Benson bought into the earnest words and hope of his siblings.
Atlas smiled gingerly. "We'll see all those who've gone before us and we'll always be together."
"I like the sound of that." Nyah rested her head against Atlas's chest.
"Yeah, it sounds really cool." Zane rested against her shoulder. Their eyes fluttered closed and in the passing minutes, they had both fallen asleep.
"You should get some rest." Atlas whispered, resting her hand on Benson's forearm after tucking Nyah and Zane into bed.
Benson shook his head. "I-I." He stammered, tears welling his eyes as he flung himself into Atlas who held him tightly. His body quaked as he sobbed into her ear and stained her shirt with tears.
"I know." Atlas held onto Benson. "It's alright to cry and to be angry. You can even hate the world if you want and that'll be okay." Pulling backward slightly she brushed his tears away.
"Because one day, how you feel will change. And it'll be okay, everything will be okay." Atlas spoke with conviction. For her sake, for the ghosts that haunted her or the crying, broken boy before her; she wasn't certain.
"I don't want to go to sleep." Benson whimpered. "What if, what if I see her?"
He clung to Atlas's arms, as if they kept him tethered to that very moment; it nearly worked. Inside his head he could still hear their screaming, hear Murphy crying for Atlas and Bellamy beat him.
Atlas offered a tender smile before pressing a kiss to his cheek. "You don't have to sleep right now. As a matter of fact." She trailed off, leaving him to retreat to her desk. After a moment of silent digging, she returned to him and offered him a book.
"When I lost my parents and felt like I had no one, not even Clarke or Wells," Atlas explained her eyes downcast to the worn cover.
"This was book helped, so maybe it'll help you now." She lifted her gaze and offered him the book. With trembling hands he reached outward and grasped the book, taking it from her as if she had handed him everything she was and maybe, just maybe, she had.
YOU ARE READING
Genesis ➳ Bellamy
Romance"We are tragically hopeful, we are Arkinson." In which the great grandchild of the creator of the Ark, is sent hurtling to where half of her family was left behind.
