Restart

Tris

It's time.

Uriah is being unplugged.

Marlene waits, ready to welcome Uriah, and I stand to the side.

Hana and Zeke are mouthing something- a dauntless prayer, and then they spring apart, letting him go. I focus on Uriah, and not on my killer standing off to the side.

The doctor flips some switches, and I watch the heart monitor flatline.

He's here.

"Marlene! I- I missed you!"

"I missed you too." They embrace, and I can see tears in her eyes.

"So… I'm dead…"

"Yes…"

I decide to walk- no, float, in.

"Tris? When did you get here?"
"A few days before you. I was activating memory serum- David was trying to reset Chicago. I survived death serum, but David was there, and he… shot me."
He doesn't answer.

A few minutes later, Mom comes up to me.

"Beatrice. I've found something that allows us all to… restart. Go back to your aptitude test, and stop the war. I found a note, too, telling us that the war was never meant to happen, and that we could stop it. I'm going."

"I will, too." I say, hugging her.

The rest come to us, and we fill them in.

"Wait, can this thing be used on the living, too?"

"Seems so." Fernando says.

We walk down to the atrium, where they all are, mourning us. Suddenly, we… just appear. It is like the universe knows that we need visibility.

They jump, startled.

"You're dead-why are you…"

Everyone turns, to see us standing there. Tobias's gaze travels to mine, and he has a hungry look in his eyes, absorbing me before another horrific nightmare plagues him. I've seen them, and my heart ached every time.

"Why are you here?"

"To offer you a choice. We found something that allows us to go back in time, to the aptitude test. We can change the future."

Fernando then goes on an extremely long rant about how the time travel seems to work- until Tori slaps him.

"No one really wants to hear that."
They all laugh, and all say yes.

When Amar and George come in, they add their voices- two more yeses.

"Alright…"

I stare into a grey mirror.

Mom stops mid-cut.

"It worked." She breathes, and hugs me, leaving my hair half cut.

Then she resumes cutting my hair, talking as we go.

"It really worked. We have a chance to change everything." I say.

She doesn't look surprised, but I can tell she is.

We finish, and I thank her- we both know it is so much more than her simply cutting my hair.

This could go really well- or catastrophically wrong.

How do you like it?