If I Could Change Your Mind, I Would Hit the Ground Running
Echo ending up on the Ring was chance, the universe sparring her life from certain doom, leaving her with people who ranged from hatred to total indifference towards her.
But slowly, with time, and with work, she starts to feel like maybe this group could be her family.
Echo Positivity Week Day 3 - Favourite Relationship (Space Sisters!)
The air rattling through the grates on the wall was loud.
Echo wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to the fact that there was no silence. The air rattled. The walls and floor creaked. The electricity hummed through the lights and the walls. The noise meant they were going to live.
So much noise. So overwhelming.
She was sitting on the floor, on the wall. It had been almost 4 days, and she had helped as much as she could, searching through rooms and under floorboards and in every nook and cranny to find anything they could use. She wasn’t sure she was even sure what would be useful, there was a good chance half of the stuff she had brought into the main room would be useless.
Her ears were ringing. The noise never stopped.
She also hadn’t showered. Monty, the nice boy who was with the pretty blonde girl, who’s hands were burned and raw and swollen, was in charge of getting the water running. Raven had promised she would help when she could but she had so much else to do. Monty was directing people, and it was taking very long.
She was parched. They were rationing the water they had brought with them, and it wasn’t much.
It helped that she hadn’t spoken much. She had no one to talk to anyway.
Raven was so busy she wasn’t sure she even noticed anyone, so focused on the ship. Monty too.
Bellamy had been fine, but he was busy, and certainly wasn’t going to go out of his way to talk to her.
The joke about throwing her overboard rang in her ears.
The frikdre- Emori, she mentally corrected, kept a wide berth, her eyes flaming anytime they were close.
Murphy, the boy she was with, was so protective, Echo didn’t dare step close to either of them.
She slept with her sword next to her in bed, just in case one of them had the idea that taking her out would make Emori safer.
They all had someone. It looked like Emori and Murphy were a little bit separate, but Murphy seemed to be part of the fold, and the other four were already a well oiled machine.
A yell broke her out of her mind.
“I DID IT!” A male voice echoed through the ship.
“We can shower?!” A girls voice called back.
“I mean yeah, and we can you know… drink water and start growing the algae.” Monty. Of course.
“Yeah yeah yeah. I wanna wash my hair.” Harper, she finally placed the voice.
The war paint on her skin was still caked on. She wanted to wash it away. To start fresh, to feel clean, and forget the pain that it brought up.
As if she could ever forget.
The blood from her hand was still caked on her stomach.
The cut on her hand was still throbbing, she hadn’t asked anyone to care for it, using small amounts of her water rations to rinse it every day and hiding it.
Not that anyone was really paying attention.
Good thing that loneliness was something she had long ago learned to live with.
She stayed sitting while the rest of them ran towards bathrooms, and listened as the water started hitting the floor, and the smell of shampoo wafted through the halls.
She stayed sitting while they all whooped and hollered, excited to be clean, cheering and chanting Monty’s name.
She stayed in her spot while they all got clean, while they found towels, while they all got redressed, and grouped up in the common space, sounding happier and more relaxed.
She waited until they all sounded settled, and then quietly stood and found her way too the closest shower.
The knobs were different than she was used too, but she twisted and turned until the water was scalding, almost too hot to touch, and pulled her sticky dirty clothes off her her skin, and stepped under the hot stream. She washed her hair first, pulling it back into a knot behind her head, and then turned and started to try to scrub away the paint and blood, but it proved difficult, like it had become one with her skin. She kept scrubbing, so hard her skin started to feel raw, but it wouldn’t come off.
The memories of the small candle, the knife to her gut, the despair, came rushing back, until she couldn’t contain it anymore, and sat on the ground under the stream and sobbed, curled into a ball.
She didn’t know how long she had been there crying when the cool touch of someones hand startled her, and she kept back.
Harper’s face was soft, and sad, and full of understanding.
