Chapter one
Tris
I wake with my eyes sealed shut, as if a weight rests upon them, forcing them closed. My chest is tight, and I can only just breathe to keep me stable. My hands are curled into fists, so tight, I cannot move them. My knees are locked like everything else in my body and I am still.
Still. Unmoving. Unable to move.
His name rests in my mouth, my throat, my chest.
Tobias.
Where is he? Does he know I'm not dead? Does anyone? My throat tightens as the thought tears its way through me… am I actually alive? Or is this just a fragment of my imagination, a side effect of dying? The thought plays in my mind, over and over again until I can't bear it any longer, someone must know I'm alive.
I hear what I believe to be a faint shuffle not far from me, but push the thought aside. It must be my imagination, a side effect, it must be. I here distant voices speaking in a hushed monotone not far from where I remain unmoving.
Stop.
A voice says in my head.
Stop.
It's not true, you're dead. Dead.
He shot you, he shot you in the head, the chest. You're dead.
But there's something in me, something stronger than any pain, any relief, something hopeful, telling me I'm alive. I'm alive.
It can't be, but I feel that it is, that it's true. That I am alive just as I was in the Erudite headquarters, alive. The word surges through me like an electric charge, giving me strength and I feel tingling in my toes, my shins, my knees. I'm alive, I say. Alive. Tingling in my thighs, my hips. Alive! Alive! Tingling in my stomach, my chest, my neck. Alive! My eyes open.
My eyes open and in the corner, I see a figure. Tobias! A voice screams in my head. It has to be, it must be. He saved me and brought me here, away from everything else, away from the pain and blood we shed, away from the tears and the war waged against the city.
But no, as my eyes adjust to the dim light dancing across the polished, white walls, I see that it is not him. It is not him or Christina, or Caleb, or Peter. Not Mathew, Zoe or Nita. The figure sits straighter, as if noticing I'm awake, her sleek, blonde hair falling neatly over her shoulders, her piercing, blue eyes, staring into mine. It is then that I notice the figure is definitely not Tobias.
Jeanine.
Sorry for the shortness of this chapter guys, the next few chapters are longer :D
~ hazelrothprior