Chapter 1: The 101st Seat
The last thing Julian remembered was the smell of gasoline and the screech of tires. Then, a void.
Now, there was only the roar.
Julian's eyes snapped open, and the first thing he felt was a violent, bone-shaking vibration. He wasn't in a car. He was strapped into a rigid metal chair, surrounded by the screaming of nearly a hundred teenagers. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and old sweat.
I died, he thought, panic clawing at his throat. I know I died.
But his heart was beating, not just beating, it was thundering with a heavy, powerful rhythm that felt different. His senses were dialed up to a terrifying degree. He could hear the individual rivets in the hull straining under the pressure. He could smell the fear in the room like it was a physical thing.
"We're all gonna die! We're gonna die!" a boy a few seats down was hysterical, his voice cracking.
Julian tried to move his arms, but they were pinned by heavy industrial restraints. He looked down at his hands. They were younger, the skin unblemished, but beneath the surface, his veins looked... darker. A deep, bruised purple that shouldn't be there.
He felt a strange, cold pressure at the base of his brain. It wasn't a thought; it was a sensation. Like a compass needle swinging north.
The Ark. The Dropship. The 100.
The memories hit him, not his own, but memories of a TV show he'd watched years ago in another life. A story about kids sent to a radiated Earth to die.
I'm in the show, Julian realized, his stomach dropping. I'm a sacrifice.
"Hey."
The voice came from his left. He turned his head, his neck popping with a loud crack.
A girl was watching him. She had wide, dark eyes and a face that looked like it had been carved from porcelain, though it was currently pale with terror. He knew that face. Octavia Blake. The girl under the floor.
She wasn't a warrior yet. She wasn't the "Blodreina" of the later seasons. She was just a girl who had spent sixteen years in a crawlspace and was now watching the world end.
"You were shaking," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the screaming metal. "Your eyes... they went completely black for a second."
Julian didn't answer. He didn't know how to. He didn't know her, and he didn't care about the plot right now. He cared about the fact that the ship was tilting at a forty-five-degree angle and the heat shield was starting to glow orange through the viewports.
"Stay back," Julian rasped. His voice sounded like it had been dragged over gravel.
"I'm strapped in, I can't go anywhere," Octavia said, a flash of her natural fire peeking through the fear. "What's wrong with you? Are you sick?"
Julian ignored her. He was focusing on the sensation in his blood. It felt like liquid lead, heavy and hot. He gripped the metal armrests of his chair, and to his horror, the steel began to deform under his fingers. He wasn't even trying.
What did they do to this body?
Suddenly, the ship jolted. Two boys, he recognized them as the ones who die in the first ten minutes of the pilot, unbuckled their seats to float in the zero-G.
"Idiots," Julian muttered.
"They're just having fun," Octavia said, though she looked unsure.
"They're going to be paste when the parachutes hit," Julian said coldly. He didn't look at her. He didn't feel a spark of romance or a need to be a hero. He just felt an overwhelming, cold calculation.
The cold pressure at the base of his skull spiked.
Brace.
He didn't know why he knew, but he didn't question it. He slammed his back against the seat and tucked his chin.
"Hold on!" he barked at Octavia.
A split second later, the atmosphere hit the ship like a physical wall. The two boys in the air were slammed into the ceiling with a sickening crunch. The lights failed.
Julian felt a massive weight crush his chest. Any normal person would have passed out. He didn't. He watched through the darkness as a loose piece of debris—a heavy oxygen canister—tore free from its mountings and flew straight toward the girl next to him.
His body moved before he could think. His right hand, still bound by the restraint, lunged outward. There was a sound of snapping nylon and shrieking metal as Julian's sheer strength tore the restraint clean off the chair's frame.
He swiped the canister out of the air, his hand denting the thick metal of the tank like it was a soda can. He tossed it aside, his breath coming in heavy, jagged gasps.
Octavia stared at him, her mouth hanging open. She had seen the canister coming. She had seen him tear through a two-inch thick industrial strap with one hand.
"How..." she started.
"Don't," Julian said, his eyes fixed on the hatch.
The ship slammed into the ground.
The impact was enough to shatter bone. Julian felt his ribs crack, but before he could even cry out, he felt a strange, tingling warmth wash over his chest. The pain receded instantly. The bones knit back together in seconds.
He sat in the silence that followed, his hand still gripping the torn restraint. He wasn't a normal human. He was something else.
"Julian?" Octavia's voice was trembling. "Are you... are you alive?"
He unbuckled his remaining straps with a steady hand. He stood up, his boots heavy on the metal floor. He felt stronger than he ever had in his previous life—faster, sharper, and dangerously powerful.
He looked at Octavia. She was still strapped in, looking at him like he was a ghost.
"I'm alive," Julian said. He didn't offer her a hand. He didn't give her a smile. He just turned toward the ladder, his mind already calculating how to survive the Grounders, the mountain, and the girl who was currently staring at his back.
"Welcome to Earth," he whispered to himself.