Notes: This comes from a tumblr prompt that came to me by form of a quote that I'm actually very much a fan of. There was something so agonizing about it that I really wanted to just write a scene that would make a reader feel the same way that the quote makes me feel. I'm not quite satisfied with this. I may write another version someday. That said, I'd love to hear what you think. Please leave a review - or if you're so inclined, you can always leave me a message over on tumblr. The direct link is on my profile here, but my username is paradigmflaws.
If someone had asked him, Eric would say that his nightmare is be seeing her in step with the rest of Dauntless. The idea of her moving mechanically, in line with everyone else, her eyes glassy and sightless, has woken him up from sleep more than once. He would have thought that was his worst nightmare. The worst thing possible.
He did not realize how wrong he would have been. This, he thinks, was worse. This is his nightmare.
She is not glassy eyed. She is not a machine, a cog in a machine that created the army that Erudite needed. She is not one among many.
She is an individual. She is vibrant and unchanged except for the color of her skin which has drained of all color.
She is awake when it is the worst condemnation that anyone could receive.
Eric finds that he cannot swallow. She has sighted him, cuts through the mass of black and is making her way towards him. He doesn't move, and he waits to wake up. This is a dream. It has to be a nightmare.
When she stops in front of him, Eric speaks preemptively. "You weren't supposed to be here," he begins in a rush. "I tried to keep you out of this, but Max-"
As he speaks he watches her features. It is the only read he has on the situation. When they fall, it is like something in her has crumbled. Strident determination and strength has fled from her figure and she sags. Eric steps forward, reaches forward, but she fends him off with a hand.
She takes a step back, her knees steady. "You knew?"
It is a question but from the way she looks at him, Eric realizes that she already has an answer. "Yes," he replies, his heart pounding.
It serves as the final nail in the coffin.
"God," she gasps, her voice hoarse with emotion. "Fuck, Eric," she manages to say. It is like he is watching her come apart a piece at a time. "How could you?"
The worst thing of all, he thinks, is that she doesn't even wait for an answer. She shoves a hand against his chest (when had he gotten closer? He does not know.) and backs up again. Each movement she makes serves as a reminder, an agonizing goad that stabs deeper with every second. She puts distance between them again.
"Stop it, Eric."
"No."
His voice is steady and it does not betray the fact that he can feel himself falling through thin ice that he did not even know he was standing on. How had it gone so wrong, so quickly?
She is outraged at his answer but it is not an anger that burns hot, that is externalized. He can see it, now. He can see the way she draws it inside her and uses it to shore herself up. She draws herself tall and her gaze is level.
Her voice does not shake.
"Fuck you, Eric. If you won't do anything to stop this, then I will."
And she leaves, and this, he thinks, is his nightmare - but he is wrong again.
His nightmare is not watching her leave, watching her take off running through the compound. He could not catch her even if he wanted to, and when he goes to try Max comes through another door. For a moment, he thinks that he is lucky that Max did not see her.
But he is compelled to follow through. There are things that he must do, things that he cannot leave unattended to chase after her no matter how he wants to.
He will find her after, Eric tells himself. Even if she has left the compound, he will find her. There is nowhere she can go to hide from him, no place that she can take herself to where she is outside of his reach. He will find her and they will talk and he can explain.
Because this is his nightmare, he thinks that she might not forgive him but for all that she is Dauntless, she is kinder than he deserves. She is better than he deserves. It will be alright.
But because this is a nightmare, Eric is wrong.
And it is not even the nightmare that he thought it was, and everything else that he thought was his worst nightmare pale in comparison.
This is the real one.
He finds her. He was not wrong in that.
He can speak, this is true - but she cannot listen. Because she has found the place that he cannot reach her. She has gone where he cannot follow.
Eric is on his knees beside her body. The Dauntless black hides the blood but as he picks her up and holders her against his chest, he feels the warm damp that marks the end of her life. She is still warm.
He is cold.
He had been wrong.
This is his nightmare.
This had been his nightmare all along, and he had never realized it, and it is all his fault.