BEFORE

"We might have seen each other, you know before all this."

Winnie asked the wall behind her, she started plaiting a strand of her hair from the back, trying to get it as tight as possible.

She had her back on the wall. It was her favourite place to sit, she could sense everything. She could sense vibrations from John, she knew it was probably nothing, something everybody else couldn't hear, but it was annoying her.

John had been hitting the floor with his knuckles, as if it was ice; the more he hit it in one place, the weaker it would get. The metal felt cool to the touch on his knuckles, he didn't notice, but he stopped when he heard Winnie. He moved over from his spot next to his bead and slid down the connecting wall, unintentionally sitting right where the girl was.

"What about that masked ball?"

John replied, he began tracing out words and phrases on his arm with his finger, his hands were slightly sticky, from sweat and the sensation on his skin was as if thousands of pins were pricking him. John found that since being put into the cell, he was anxious and had to do something with his hands. He traced the word masked.

"That was a shit party after the Guard turned up." Winnie reminisced about that, she can remember seeing Octavia outside for the first time and knowing that Bellamy had made to big a mistake to come back from.

"Let me guess then, you wore a mask. Black probably."

"White actually, it was- ." Winnie was about to mention her mother but stopped herself. She didn't want to talk about her family.

She still hadn't told him her last name, they hadn't known each other for that long, only started talking after they found out about the thin wall the week before.

"It was what? A present from an ex-boyfriend, a fashion disaster, what was it Winnie?"

"You said it, it was a fashion disaster my friend. Should have worn my balaclava."

It took her a moment to recognise that she had said the word friend.

"Who are you Winnie? Who is this mystery girl behind my cell wall?" John Murphy asked her, he liked how she had called him that even if it was just casually and he convinced himself that she couldn't possibly have meant it.

"Well, if you really want to know I'm five foot six."

She didn't want to give away too much, there wasn't that much point anyway. She'd be dead within two years and he would then forget about her. A friendship would just complicate things too much. The only thing she could hope for was the chance that maybe her corpse would be five foot seven, but with the rations she was getting in here she highly doubted that.

"Okay, good to know because I'm five ten, it's a good height difference," Was John Murphy flirting, he didn't know, he just felt like saying that, "Could have grown though, that's just what they told me when they locked me up."

"Ah yes, did they give you the whole speech about your rights and how you can't actually be floated, so you have absolutely nothing to worry about."

"Best part of my year. It so made it worth punching that Guard to wipe the smile off his face."

"Sounds like somebody's got an anger problem." Winnie liked someone who was willing to stand up for themselves but she could already see him being hot tempered. Winnie wouldn't have done that but then again maybe he had no reason to think about the future.

"I prefer 'feisty' myself," John replied and Winnie couldn't contain her laughter fasts enough and she let out a short burst before covering her mouth.

John was caught out by the laugh, he hadn't heard if before but what concerned him more was it's harsh cut off.

"Why did you do that?"

"Do what?" Winnie didn't want to talk about forbidden laughter.

Something about Winnie's tone made Murphy stop his line of questioning.

"Anyway I've got just under two years left of seeing the very same guard, sometimes it feels like he is living just as shit a life as I am."

Now it was Murphy turn for an awkward laugh.

"So you're sixteen, young and sweet." She stated as she pulled tighter on her plait, it was almost finished now.

"Well done you can do math, at least I know I'm with somebody who paid attention in high school."

"Straight B student right here." Winnie told him. She realised just how many little details she was telling him about herself. She should stop but then she realised they really weren't anything of great importance.

"Thats a shame, I was more like a C- person myself. But care to reveal one secret? How old is my mysterious friend?"

The word friend hit her right in the pit of her gut, maybe he was a friend. And then her logic came up with a solution. Give him a couple more days, then you can call him your friend.

She started a new plait at the back, she didn't plan on taking these out.

"I'm seventeen." She said. In fact she just turned it, her birthday had been last week.

John didn't know what to do with this information, he still couldn't picture her. He couldn't imagine this girl around an inch away from him and he desperately wanted to.

"Good to know," He replied, "But let's not talk about age, it's only a number."

"A number that kept us alive." She would be dead if it wasn't for her age, it was more than a number to her, it had to be.

"And a number that is going to get us both floated." John replied, he hated being sixteen, some part of him wishes his eighteenth birthday was tomorrow,
"But I don't want to think about that."

"It's reality, we can't avoid it." She replied.

"We can not talk about it. That would avoid the subject all together." He said, he has seen enough death for the rest of his life.

He traced the word escape on the wall behind him.

"Escape." Winnie felt the word in her, she could sense the word flowing into her mind, the letters dancing in blackness with the echo of a typewriter writing them.

She had no idea where it came from, but Winnie said it and she felt the meaning behind the word. It wasn't her anxiousness to escape - she knew she would never be free - and strangely that didn't bother her, but she felt the meaning of a meaningless word.

John's finger stopped dead at the end of the word, he lifted his head and stared straight ahead, "What did you just say?"

"Escape, I said escape." She stopped.

She curse to herself, she had freaked him out. For a split second she hated her gift but it was part of her soul and she banished the thought from her head quicker than it had came.

She had finished her second plait, she tugged at it, taking her buzzing mind off the word and focusing on her messy hair.

There was silence, a throat drying silence that left them both struggling for oxygen. Winnie's heartbeat increased as her head wurled, words and sentences went spiralling around her mind and drowned out everything in the process. She had to think about breathing, she had to will her heart to beat.

On the other side of the wall John's own heart slowed down until all he could feel was the occasional thump. He had to stop himself from holding his breath, stop his hands from quivering slightly. It was his first encounter with magic, it does that to people sometimes.

"Winnie? Why did you say that?" His voice came out like he hadn't had water in a week, dry and musty.

"The only way for me to survive would be to escape, doubt it would be helpful in the end."

Winnie lied through her teeth, adding her nervous laugh at the end, she willed him to believe it. The lie flowed like honey off her tongue, so naturally.

"Probably wouldn't, but I'd like to see you try." John said, he took the sticky sweet offering and loved it. He believed her. And his fingers stopped shaking and his pulse increased.

"Jaha would like to see it as well."

There was an edge to her voice and John tried to understand what it was. It was probably past history or just hatred of living on the Ark in general. John couldn't blame her, he loathed the man with an icy passion.

"There you go, two reasons to escape." Murphy smiled, escape would be sweet but impossible and they both knew it.

"John, I'm never going to escape death. You're never going to escape death. We all die, we all end up a memory, our life is rushing in front of us and when I turn eighteen, I'm falling down that waterfall. And all that will be left is the urban legend that the girl in cell 410 backflipped into hell."

"You can backflip?" John asked curiously.

"Is that all you got from my little speech?" Winnie found herself liking the mystery John more and more.

"No," John would dwell on the dark details in his own time and try to make sense of the death imagery which he hoped wouldn't be common conversation, "Anyway I bet you wouldn't last two minutes in hell."

He personally felt like he was already living in it, and some thing in the back of his mind - the survival instinct in him from millions of years ago - knew he was challenging the devil to survive in hell.

"Well, when you turn eighteen we will find out." She suggested.

"Sounds like a plan, can't wait." He replied.

"Pick you up at eight? I want to avoid the space traffic, you know so many people driving spaceship these days." Winnie kept it going for a little longer because she had never been able to joke like this before.

"I'll wear my tux." Murphy added and despite the somber topic, both of them mustered a smile.

John smiled in defeat as he knew he was going to die and Winnie smiled but she was thinking about the prospect of hell.