Chapter 14

Hi everyone.

I've been trying to survive in The Zone, around some shady bandit camp filled with mutants because some weird Stalker wanted a piece of radioactive loaf from there, it must have been an artifact. There are bad internet signals in The Zone with all the anomalies, so because of that, I couldn't update a new chapter. Besides that, one needs to be always looking around if some stalker or bandit suddenly appears wanting to take my stuff.

Jokes aside, I haven't updated lately because I've been playing Stalker 2; that game has had me hooked up all the time these days. I will try to update more chapters soon.

I don't even remember how I wanted this thing to proceed, just that we needed to kill Finn, Wells, and take an active leadership role with the 100. But I don't remember how I was about to do that, hehe. So I will improvise on the go as I didn't take note of what I wanted to do a week ago.

Oh, another thing I almost forgot, you wanted the little girl, what was his name? Charlie? No, Cha-something. Charlotte! to be the little follower that calls daddy the MC, well, I think we will go back to the past to ancient China with that one, where morals were of a different breed altogether. Why would we want the girl if it's not for what everyone knows? She can call daddy while doing stuff.

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[Inside the automobile]

After a while, Jasper and Alaric clean off the car window and see the fog outside.

"It's still out there," Jasper says, worried.

"Yeah, what the hell is this thing?" Alaric pondered.

"Look, we should just make a run for it. Finn can't wait much longer." Clarke comments as she rests against one side of the overturned car. "We've wasted a lot of time already."

"Well, he can die for all I care, we can't leave this place." Alaric reasoned with his sister. "We don't know what that fog is capable of. For starters, it's dangerous as hell; it burned my throat, eyes, and skin even with the little contact I had with it."

"He's right. It's dangerous leaving now." Wells supported the idea of staying in this place until the fog dissipated. "We could die if we leave."

Alaric rested against the car walls beside his sister and Octavia and continued. "If it's not something produced naturally by the environment, it means that it's a chemical weapon, and that would mean trouble and high danger. That tells us that it was artificially produced and dropped around the place by someone or some group that has the capability of making it."

Alaric was worried that it would be the second option most likely, as the fog acted like mustard gas was described on the internet in his past life. So this must be a man-made weapon of great impact area, but still, it was crazy how fast it propagated and the amount of gas that needs to be released in the air for it to look like a fucking big desert storm.

"It must be the environment, something releasing that fog around the place." Wells pondered.

"How? It must spit the fog like a bloody volcano to release a fog like that with that intensity." Alaric didn't believe it.

"It could be a storm moving radioactive residues from somewhere around the place." Wells continued. "Or a radioactive storm."

"Wells... This is not something like that." Alaric said with a smile. "But let's not dwell on this as we can't know what it is, and thinking that someone could produce a thing like this is... troublesome. If they are not friendly."

"Let's take a rest." Octavia suddenly said. "We've been walking non-stop looking for the red thing for Finn. At least we got it."

*Crack* Suddenly there was a noise of plastic breaking.

"Finally." Jasper exclaimed happily as he stored his knife while taking something from the car's glove compartment.

"Guys, look what I found." Jasper said as he examined the bottle in hand while removing its dust. Then he uncorked the bottle and smelled it. "Uff, this is strong, good stuff."

"Is that…" Clarke said, looking at the bottle in Jasper's hand.

Jasper took a sip from it. "Yep, it is. Some kind of booze."

"Well, careful, Jasper. It could be…" Clarke tried to persuade him not to drink further from that stuff.

"There's no problem with it. I think." Jasper took another sip. "At least it's better than the moonshine on the agro station."

"Someone wants a drink?" Jasper asked, smiling at everyone.

"I do." Alaric smiled as he extended his hand.

Jasper smiled and passed the bottle to him.

Alaric looked at it and smelled it for a second, almost burning off his little nose hairs. Then he took a sip from it and felt how it burned his throat. "This thing is a throat burner, hehe. It's strong but doesn't taste bad. I have no idea what it is."

"Let me take a sip." Octavia said excitedly as she asked for it.

"Here." Alaric said as he passed her the drink. "Take a little sip first, just in case you don't like it."

"Alcohol is toxic." Wells said as he observed Jasper and Alaric drink from it.

"Yes, it is." Alaric nodded with a smile. "Yet humanity has used it with pleasure for thousands of years. Come on, Wells. Take a sip and enjoy it."

"This is Earth. Everything's toxic." Jasper laughed. "Plus, it's a time-honored rite of passage."

Octavia took a sip from it and exhaled loudly with a smile. "Uff, it burned all the way down!!!"

"Hehe, I told you." Alaric smiled cheerfully. "How was it?"

"It was good!" Octavia said as she took another sip. "Wuhuu!!! Clarke, take it and have a drink." She said as she extended the bottle to her.

"I think I'll pass." Wells commented as he saw them drink and Octavia offering the bottle to Clarke.

"Wells, if we can't leave for the time being, what better way to enjoy our stay than drinking some of it." Clarke said as she reaches over and grabs the bottle from Octavia.

Clarke drinks the booze and coughs. "It's too strong," she said and then she sighs.

....

The group continued drinking sip by sip from the bottle, doing a round between Jasper, Alaric, Clarke, and Octavia for a long while as they awaited patiently for the fog to pass.

Clarke drinks the booze.

"It's been hours," Clarke said, a little dizzy. "Finn…"

"He's in good hands." Octavia said nonchalantly. "Monty will take care of him."

"While we're on the subject, why is it that everyone thinks me wanting Finn to not die is a bad thing? Like I'm such a downer." Clarke asked, already tipsy. Then she looked at her brother. "I can be fun. Yeah. You think I'm fun, right?"

"Oh, yeah. You're fun, sister." Alaric smiled at her as he embraced her even tighter while caressing her arm. "Among other things."

Wells looked at the pair of siblings being so close, and he still couldn't believe that all his life these two that were a couple were actually siblings.

"Hey... We haven't talked about it yet. How come that you two... are siblings?" Wells asked quietly.

"What?" Jasper asked incredulously, already hammered. "Siblings? But they have different last names. Isn't Clarke a Griffin and Alaric a Cartwig?"

"Yeah. Well... It is as you see it." Alaric looked at Wells and smiled. "We're brother and sister actually, Wells."

Then Alaric looked at Jasper. "About that, we've kept it a secret all our lives because, you know... only one child per family is the policy back in The Ark.

"My biological mother, Abby, was pregnant with two children, and she decided to have us both even if it went against The Ark's policy. Fortunately, my second mother, Kelly, is the best friend of Abby and she decided to take one of us at birth. She faked being pregnant when my mother told her that she would have twins, and Kelly opted to raise one of us. She took me with her while Clarke was with our mom and dad."

"Then, how did you know about this?" Wells asked, doubting.

"It wasn't a secret between us. I was raised knowing my parents and sister, having two moms and one dad." Alaric chuckled.

"Then... how did you two come to be... in a relationship?" Jasper inquired, still feeling amazed.

Wells also perked up his ears as he was jealous of Alaric all his life because of being the boyfriend of Clarke, but now it comes that they were siblings and lovers all the time.

"Well... to make it seem normal for me to spend time with Clarke's family all the time and pass the controls, I started a relationship with Clarke." Alaric explained.

"A relationship that ended up being more than a facade." Clarke chuckled as she looked into Alaric's eyes. Then she kissed his lips.

"That's how it came to be us being together." Alaric laughed. "Abby and Jake didn't comment on it eventually and accepted it. So here we are now."

After a moment of silence, Octavia sighed. "How I wish my mom would have had a best friend like Kelly."

"Octavia..." Clarke embraced her and caressed her back emotionally as support, knowing about her past.

"It's all in the past, baby. We need to look forward to the future." Alaric tried to appease her. "Now we are on Earth."

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This is a short chapter that I whipped up to let you guys know that this story ain't being dropped. I'm currently entertained in 'The Zone' and will be back later, as there are still mutants to blast and artifacts to discover. Next chapter [I don't know when] the juice part will come [I think].