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It is 79AD. Herculaneum is the holiday destination of the rich and wealthy Roman. It is a jewel in the crown of the Bay of Naples. Beautiful cliffs, the warm summer combated by the cooling breezes of the ocean. Dormant Vesuvius, the home of fertile soil and ‘the best wine this side of the world’.
Bellomo works in one of the local drinking houses. He serves alcohol to the rich and powerful of Rome; politicians, lawmakers, business owners, and on one occasion, the sister of emperor Augustus himself, Octavia.
Clarkea, the daughter of the Griffins, advisors to the emperor, turns up in his bar one night in August (TK). It is sticky hot in the city, the breezes blocked by the masses of buildings between them and the ocean. She is dressed a little too fine for the establishment, and Bellomo picks her as a member of the elite within a few minutes. Flavius’ tavern is good, but it’s not the kind of place you dress up for.
He serves her a reasonably good wine. She smiles brightly at him in thanks, before turning back to continue her conversation with her companion.
Three days later, Herculaneum is buried under thirty metres of ash. Bellomo’s body is in the second boathouse, Clarkea’s is beside her parents, curled in the street, running to escape the surge that killed in a breath.
It is the year 1834. The fledgling colony of Australia is booming. Bellamy Blake and his sister Octavia, after five months on the continent at the bottom of the world, have settled on their land. They have been given six convicts by the government, and Bellamy works them hard, clearing brush and trees to make farmable land area. Octavia has been helping the women of the nearby parish, working in the school they have set up to educate the children of the settlers. She returns home at night with stories of the children, the sisters of the parish, and another young woman, who works in the school and the hospital the nuns have set up.
Bellamy has had a very long day (like every other day since he got here), trading home made grain alcohol for a horse with a neighbour. He doesn’t mean to nod off at the table, but he’s tired, and his shoulder hurts from the tree trimming they did today. The fact he slumps back on his chair, head tilted to the side, wild curls covering his eyes, just as Octavia is about to ask if she can have her new friend, Charlotte? Caroline? Clarissa? (he knows it starts with a C), over for tea the following week and Octavia snaps at him, proves that this is the end to a fantastic day.
He grabs his dust covered hat from the table, and leaves for bed without another word.
The following week it is too hot to work outside by midday, and Bellamy is sitting at the table with a cup of tea and a piece of buttered bread. Settled with its spine cracked open on the table is a battered copy of Winceforth’s Mythology Compendium. He’s only read it a hundred or so times, but it’s one of three books they own, and Bellamy’s favourite.
“This is our house. Bellamy built most of it the first two months we were out here. Don’t judge too harshly, we’re still living a little rough.” Bellamy can hear Octavia on the porch, but she’s speaking to someone. Bellamy is very sure she isn’t close with any of their neighbours.
He lifts his eyes to the door as it opens, and Octavia comes in first, with another woman behind her. The stranger was about Octavia’s height, but with fair skin, blonde ringlets and the bluest eyes Bellamy had seen since that fancy cat of their neighbours back in England.
“Oh, Bellamy. I didn’t know you’d be in. This is Clarke. I told you she’d be coming over for tea?”
“Ahh. Of course.” He stands, and offers a hand, before remembering his manners. You took women’s hands to kiss them, not offer to shake hands. He wasn’t quick enough for Clarke though, who grabbed his hand and shook it several times.
“I tend not to stand on ceremony, unless I’m in the city for something.” Clarke had a wide smile, and looked like there was no place she’d rather be than the Blake’s kitchen.
Several months later, Bellamy and Clarke walk down the aisle of the recently built church. They are married for twenty-two years, have five children, and leave a legacy in the horse-taming business that runs in their family for three generations.
It is July 2nd 1973. Clarke Griffin has just finished an evening shift at the Fordmond General Hospital. It’s only a small hospital, and Clarke is one of five nurses that were on this evening. It hasn’t been a busy night, and Clarke has leftovers waiting for her in the fridge at home. She’s got a little box of an apartment, just out of the city centre, but she’s taken the long way home.
Clarke really likes driving. It calms her down, settles her mind.
Bellamy Blake is two and a half hours from the end of his shift. He’s given out three traffic violations this evening, pulled one man over for speeding, and one drunk driver. Nothing particularly huge.
He is just turning down Grail Road when he gets the call. Car crash. Single vehicle.
He flicks on his lights and gets moving.
It’s a red Datsun coupe, bonnet smashed in, passenger’s door dented by the tree it’s slammed into.
Bellamy bolts out of his vehicle, door left open, lights flashing, illuminating the scene in blue and red. He heads for the driver’s side. It’s a woman, blonde hair pulled back off her face, blood smears on her forehead, and at the edge of her mouth. She’d be pretty, if not for the possible broken nose, and the dislocated shoulder. Bellamy is not enthusiastic about her chances. He feels for a pulse at her neck. Nothing. Reaches to check her wrist. Nothing. Slips his fingers under the neck of her blouse, presses against the skin just above her left breast, a last hope.
Nothing.
He calls it in. Another officer responds that he’s five minutes from the scene.
Given a minute to himself, Bellamy leans his elbows on the roof of his car, presses his face into his palms for a few seconds. It’s such a waste of life. But, put volatile, emotional beings in control of a tonne of fast moving metal, what are you going to get?
Lifting his head, he spots a smear of bloody fur on the road. Walking over, it appears to be the remains of a rabbit. Recently deceased rabbit. He’d bet the price of two beers that this is what the driver swerved to miss.
Among everything, Bellamy hates, hates, delivering news to families. He pulls up in front of a nice, reasonably sized house. It’s 11:23pm. The family will remember this, down to the minute, for the rest of their lives. He turns off the car, walks up to the door. It’s opened by a serious looking woman in a floral dressing gown.
“Evening. Is this the Griffin residence?”
“Yes. I’m Abby Griffin. What happened?”
She seems very calm, which is unusual. Normally, when the police turn up late at night on your doorstep, people tend to be the opposite of calm.
“I’m very sorry to inform you, but Clarke Griffin was in a car accident this evening. She passed away before the police arrived.”
“Clarke. Oh dear god.” The woman crumples into the doorway. Bellamy reaches out a hand but she waves him off. “Thank you officer. Is there anything I need to do?”
“Not right now. If you could come to the station tomorrow, we can sort everything out then. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
He leaves.
Four years later, Detective Bellamy Blake is shot and killed in the line of duty while attempting to take down a shooter targeting a high school.
It is the 11th of September, 2001. Bellamy is in a coffee shop, waiting for his tall soy cappuccino when the television screen in the corner, showing some far-too-happy pair of early morning reporters talking about celebrity news, switches channels.
Clarke is also in a coffee shop, ordering her tall, to-go caramel latte. The man in front of her is tall, tan skinned with curly hair, and has just paid for his tall cappuccino on soy when the television, blaring some early morning news show, switches to a new channel.
Everyone freezes, the baristas, the couple in the corner, the mother with a new baby. Clarke’s change drops out of her hand, misses the cashier’s hand, spins across the counter and clinks to the floor. It is the only noise in the store.
The twin towers of the world trade centre are in flames. As they watch, a plane, travelling full speed, smashes into the second tower. The newscasters face is ashen, tears pouring from her eyes as she narrates the impossible happening just behind her.
“Oh my god. Oh my god.” Clarke isn’t sure who is speaking for a minute, but she realises that the terrified, cracking voice is her own. Her father is in that building. Her father is in that building. Her father is in that building. Her father is on the 82nd floor of the South Tower. She spoke to him fifteen minutes ago. He was just about to get into a meeting with a possible investor for his new clean water project in Africa.
Her father is in that building.
Clarke drops to the floor, bag sliding off her shoulder as she crumples. The tall curly haired man ahead of her in the line drops to his knees, blocking her view of the screen. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her into him, and her suddenly wet face hits the soft fabric of his cardigan.
“Shh shh. You’re ok.”
“My father is in that building. I talked to him just a minute ago. He’s on the 82nd floor.” Clarke has her hands fisted in the man’s black cardigan. “I’m sorry.” She lets go, and pushes back a little. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know you.”
“My name is Bellamy.” His smile is apologetic. “You look like you needed a hug.”
“I do.” Clarke pulls him back in. This complete stranger is helping to hold her together on the worst day of her life.
The newscaster is still crying on the screen as she reports, sirens screaming behind her as fire and ambulance vehicles rush to the scene.
Clarke’s father’s body is never identified. He was in a floor of the tower that was destroyed immediately on impact.
Clarke sobs on the floor of the coffee shop for fifteen minutes in the arms of a man named Bellamy. He calls her a cab, puts her in it and pays the driver to take her home. They never see each other again, but she thinks of him sometimes, when she thinks of that terrible day, the only bit of not-so-dark in a very dark day.
It is the summer of 2024. Clarke and Bellamy, neighbours, best friends, and basically family, are twenty-one, newly minted legal to drink and have decided they are going to save money to travel after they get their degrees (Art History, with a minor in sculpture for Clarke and History History, with a minor in education for Bellamy), and so, work this summer.
Clarke works part time in the The Bunker Bernard Museum (referred to by locals as ‘the bunker’) café and occasionally at the library. Bellamy, the lucky son of a bitch, managed to get a position helping the head of Arkel University’s history department on sorting artefacts for display at the museum.
Barring shitty customers, Clarke really likes her job. Bellamy is having the time of his life sorting dusty relics, the nerd.
Three weeks in, Clarke and her girlfriend Lexa break up. It’s not unforseen. Lexa is studying overseas for the next two years, and they’ve been slowly drifting apart for a little while. Clarke is still sad about it though. Bellamy calls her ‘muffin’, and pats her head and they go out for a night on the town.
Clarke is so, so incredibly glad she has a friend like Bellamy. They are soulmates, but the kind of soul-mates that aren’t romantic. They tried that, and no. Just, no. It was a little like dating a sibling. Eww.
Clarke knows what Bellamy’s hands look like on the steering wheel, late at night, lit up in the flashes of illumination of passing street lights. Bellamy knows that Clarke always sleeps on her left side, and she always has a hand under her face, and she wakes up with little creases on her cheek because of it.
They know each other inside out and back to front.
They’re sharing an apartment, have been since second year. It’s a shitty apartment, and the bathtub has weird stains that look like blood, but the owner promised weren’t. The walls are paper thin, and, as they learn one night, so are the ceilings.
It’s about nine pm. Bellamy and Clarke are on the couch, watching a Netflix ‘documentary’ about the lost city of Atlantis, mermaids, and the upcoming ‘end of the world’. They’re not sure how these things actually have anything to do with each other, but, hey, it’s stupid, and they’ve made it into a drinking game.
“He said ‘fascinating new discovery’ again. Drink up.” Clarke has her head on the armrest of one end of the couch, her knees bent, and feet shoved under Bellamy’s thigh at the other end of the couch. Bellamy sighs, and takes a sip from his beer. Thank god this show only has an hour left.
“The dipstick lady said, ‘real hard truthful fact’. Drink for the death of proper sentence structure.” Bellamy bumps his beer bottle against one of Clarke’s knees, and she sips from her bottle of apple cider.
Fifteen minutes later, and the moans from upstairs are getting really hard to ignore. Whenever they hear a particularly loud one, they lock eyes and try very hard not to giggle.
“I’m really struggling to hear this thing. Seriously. Are they filming porn up there?” Bellamy has his head in the fridge hunting for another beer and a dip to go with the crackers he’s grabbed. They were getting peckish.
“Have you seen the building we live in? I hope it’s porn, and not people violently killing each other.”
From above them, they hear ‘fuck me harderrr’. It trails off into another moan.
“So, yes, it’s probably porn.” Clarke looks at Bellamy across the back of the couch as her face transforms into a dangerously cheeky smile.
“No. No. I know that face, Clarke. Don’t do it. Don’t.” Bellamy is cut off by Clarke’s outrageously loud and very much faked groan.
He rolls his eyes and returns to the couch with his new beer and the snacks.
“You are such a child sometimes.” Clarke jabs him in the ribs with her foot. “Fine.”
Bellamy pauses for a few seconds, closing his eyes and doing the very stereotypical ‘fake concentration hand’ of the E-Level actor.
“Yeah baby, fuck yeah baby, fuck yeah, baby yeah.” Bellamy yells, the noise echoing through the apartment. He opens his eyes, looks at Clarke with a faux sensuous gaze, and moans loudly.
They both giggle as the noises from upstairs stop.
“Shh. We can’t stop now.” Clarke waves a hand at him. “Um. Deeper, yeah. Fuck. Love you. Deeper, yesss.”
The back and forth continues for several minutes, until they stop for a few minutes to hear no corresponding noise from upstairs. They high-five and continue with the mysteries of Atlantean mermaids that predict the end of the world.
January 16th, 2143. Earth is in flames. The nuclear war started only a month earlier has already destroyed the only home humanity has ever known.
They will be the first generation to die in space. They will be the first for many things to come.
Clarke Griffin is thirty-two, divorced, and with one child. She is also an accomplished medical researcher, specialising in the developing field of genetic diversification and specialisation. In layman’s terms, she can make cells do what she wants, and build stuff in people using their own genetic code. It’s fancy and possibly life changing and that’s why she’s still alive.
Her ex-husband, Bellamy Blake, works with solar radiation mechanics. In layman’s terms, he makes the power of the sun make stuff work. He is also alive because of it.
Octavia Griffin-Blake is alive because her parents are important. She is also three, and therefore has no idea what is going on.
Lucky for little O, her parents still like each other. The reason they divorced was basically, ‘we were friends, and we both know that if we keep trying to do this, we won’t be friends anymore’. This reason is very important, because of the one hundred and fifteen (and a half, because someone is pregnant) people on this space station, most of them don’t know each other. Clarke and Bellamy do, and that’s why they aren’t going crazy or sobbing about what they left behind, because they didn’t leave anything critically important behind. They’ve got their kid, their kid’s toy rabbit, because neither of them would be sleeping otherwise, and they’ve got each other. Also, Bellamy’s actual book-with-pages copies of ‘The Rise and Fall of Rome’, and ‘Winceforth’s Mythology Compendium’.
This generation will be the last one to see the ground for a very long time. But they don’t know that yet.
On his deathbed, Bellamy Blake swears to his daughter that one day, humans will return to the ground, that they will walk in the forests of his childhood, breath air crisp with morning dew and the tang of salt from the ocean.
Octavia Griffin-Blake is not a member of the generation that makes it to the ground.
They’ll get there someday.
“Do you ever think you’ve met someone before, but you don’t know why?” Clarke stands at the front of her medical clinic, rough-hewn door closed for the minute, no patients demanding her attention right now. She looks out over the growing village of people; ex-delinquents, their families, the odd member of the Ark, the occasional grounder mixed in. It has been a long time coming, this swell of joy in her chest. They’ve made it. A functioning, growing community. They’re no longer just surviving. They’re learning to live.
“What, like reincarnation or something?” Bellamy flicks his head, tossing too long curls out of his eyes. He’s leaning against the wall beside her, watching people come and go. They’ve got a trading party in from the Lunla tribe, an oceangoing people, wagons full of salt, fish and sealskins. “Not really, no. Why, do you?”
“Nah, not really either. But, I don’t know, I just feel.” She pauses, and Bellamy looks at her and shrugs. He’s not going to judge her. “Like maybe we’ve met before, you know, ‘in a past life’.” She waves her hands around, “It sounds all mystical and shit, but I feel like we’ve done this before.”
“You think past Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin created a functioning society out of blood, sweat, tears and a lot of talking shit?” He shakes his head, huffs a laugh at the thought. “Probably.”
Clarke laughs, “Yeah, you’re right. We’ve definitely met before in a past life. No doubt about it.”