Chapter Two: Leap Of Faith
Jumping off a moving train seemed a little bizarre to me for many reasons, the largest one being that twenty four hours ago I was collecting data samples in a pristine laboratory in the heart of Erudite.
'This is my life now' I thought, as I looked around the train car that everyone piled into from the Choosing Ceremony.
I sized up the people sitting around me. These people were supposed to be my friends, confidants, but my Erudite wiring made me see them as nothing but competition. I observed that the car was full of mostly Dauntless born, three Candors, Dove from Amity, and I had been the only Erudite transfer, which was fine with me. There was also one Stiff, but he wasn't on the train with us. The run to the train was probably too exciting for him.
Just then, the Dauntless woman who had let us into the train hopped up and stood by the now open door.
"Alright, newbies." She grinned, "See you on the other side." She barreled out of the car and landed on her feet nonchalantly like she was stepping over a small stone and not leaping out of a moving train.
"Showoff." Dove grumbled under her breath from beside me. I smirked. An Amity with some snark. She was becoming more and more interesting to me as the minutes passed.
I watched Dauntless born after Dauntless born make the jump until the only ones left were the transfers.
I waited for someone else to step up, silently begging one of the Candors standing across from me to make their move. Where was that blunt tact now? Surely they should be fine with embarrassing themselves in front of our new faction.
Sighing, I moved toward the door. It was now or never. Without looking back or second guessing myself, which I had become fantastic at after years of living with my father, I took the jump. I rolled a couple of times and landed on my back. I looked to the right and saw Dove had landed right next to me, body contorted like a pretzel. She looked at me and began hysterically laughing, which in turn caused me to join in. I brushed myself off and got up, and then reached down to help her up. I couldn't remember the last time I laughed so hard in Erudite.
When we got to the rooftop where everyone had congregated, one of the Dauntless stood up on the ledge in front of us.
"Welcome to Dauntless!" He shouted, his voice booming through the crowd, "I'm Amar. And right below us is where you will learn to face your fears and become stronger than you could ever imagine. Or you'll die in the process. Either or."
"Below us?" One of the Candors beside me spoke up.
'Oh god, they're going to make us jump'. I thought, putting two and two together.
"That's right. Below us. The only way in is to jump. And with the low rate of faction transfers we have this year, what better way to find out if there's actually Dauntless blood pumping through those veins than to take a leap of faith for us?"
"What do these people have against doors?" Dove whispered to me.
"Traditionally, we allow the initiates to jump first. Personally, I don't care if you're Dauntless born or a transfer, just that someone jumps."
Every eye turned towards our small group of transfers in the corner of the rooftop. With the Stiff rejoining us, there were only six of us.
We didn't have much time to mull our decision over as one of the Dauntless born boys hopped up on the ledge, and tripped. He went soaring, cursing all the way down. The Dauntless around me chuckled, labeling it a "classic Zeke" move, the Candor girl next to me gasped, and I was just thankful I didn't hear any audible smacks like he had hit the pavement.
I took my chance to establish dominance in our little group, and quickly got behind the Dauntless born that were now forming a line at the ledge. At least I was first of the transfers. When it was my turn to jump, I took a deep breath, and let myself fall.
It took every fiber of strength I had to suppress the scream trying to make its way out of my mouth, but I didn't want to give the Dauntless born the satisfaction of knowing they got to me. I hadn't realized how hard I was shutting my eyes until someone tapped me on the shoulder and I jolted them open. I could see enough around the little dots in my vision to know that I had landed on a net. I quickly looked down and took inventory. Two legs, two arms, the gang was all here. I took the man's hand and stood up.
"Your name?" He questioned. I recognized him as Max, one of the Dauntless leaders I had met at the Choosing Ceremony.
"Eric."
"Next jumper, Eric!" The applause didn't last long as everyone was focused on the now bloodcurdling scream that was echoing through the building. I looked up, and it belonged to none other than Dove. How did she come from Amity?
"I think I handled that well." Dove said as she joined me next to the rest of the initiates.
"Nerves of steel, Dove. Didn't crack for a second." I laughed, and she poked me in the side playfully.
The Stiff is the last to join our group, looking like he just saw a ghost. Why a Stiff thought he had any business being in Dauntless was beyond me. I gave him a week before he was begging for food with the factionless.
Amar stepped up behind the Stiff, and motioned with his hand for us to gather around him.
"I was born here in Dauntless, so some of you may already know me, but for you transfers, all you need to know is that I breezed through initiation three years ago and because I was just so damn amazing, they gave me the gift of passing on my knowledge to you all. Lucky you." He smirked and paused for a minute before continuing.
"We normally separate the Dauntless born and transfer training because we want to give our newest additions at least a small chance before they are torn apart, but in the spirit of keeping things new and exciting in true Dauntless form; we're doing something different this year."
"Different?" Zeke, the first jumper who face planted off a roof, raised an eyebrow.
It only took one icy look from Amar to shut Zeke right up. Amar did have presence, he commanded the attention.
"Yes, Zeke. Different." Clearing his throat, he began walking, crooking his finger to follow us, "Before you do anything else, we want to see if facing your fears right at the beginning will help you in your training. We're going to take a look at all your fears right now. Think of yourselves as the guinea pigs." He grinned, leading us down a tunnel into a fluorescent corner room that is broken off into two sections. In one section is an open space behind glass, and the other section is a series of wires and machines that look like something you would find in Erudites and a table full of syringes.
"Welcome to the fear landscape room." We all piled in behind him, trying to soak up everything that was in front of us.
"W-w-w?" One of the Candor boys started, but another look from Amar and he didn't even finish the thought.
"I was getting to that. The fear landscape room is where you experience your deepest, darkest fears. It's a simulation."
I scrunched my brow. This couldn't be possible. Everything that Erudite had ever taught me made me firmly believe this couldn't be possible.
"There's no way you could know our fears." I said, meaning to whisper it to Dove, but realizing as Amar shifted his gaze on me that I had said it out loud. And loud enough for him to hear. Great.
"How refreshing having an Erudite here with us this year. They always seem to know everything, don't they?" He said with humor in his voice, but I had a feeling his thoughts on Erudite were anything but light hearted. He walked over to the table of syringes and picked one up, turning his attention back on me.
"Eric." He looked down at the syringe in his hand, "It was Eric, yes? I may not know your fears, but this serum sure will. I'm sure you've learned all about the different parts of the brain in your fancy Erudite libraries, and I'm sure you know there's one particular part that processes fear. Well this serum wakes that part up, and creates a simulation of your deepest fears. You're the director, kid. I'm merely the one stabbing you the needle."
"How do you get out of it? The simulation?" As terrifying as it was to have a syringe waved in my face by Amar, the Erudite in me was way more curious about this drug and process.
"You'll know what you're seeing isn't real. To get out of the simulation, your heart rate needs to get to a particular rate for me to tell the program to move to your next fear. Or, you can face your fears and deal with them head on. Problem solve. Work it out. In simple terms, you relax. You get out. When you have no more fears, you'll wake up."
I stood in silence, trying to wrap my mind around this technology. Going into people's minds, playing with their darkest fears had Erudite written all over it. They made the aptitude test serum, it only made sense they made this one too. But, I had never once heard about this. Not even beginning research.
"Alright, Eric. You're first." Amar said, tapping the needle in his hand.
"Wait-"
"Wait, what? Let's feed that Erudite mind, shall we? Get over here, Eric. You don't want me to have to tell you again."
Sighing, I took off my coat, handed it to Dove and made my way over to Amar. I was taking slow steps, which caused the Candors behind me to snicker like I was doing it on purpose. I wasn't, I was just terrified out of my mind, but I'd let them think that.
I reached Amar, and without preparing me, he stuck the needle directly into my neck. I hissed through my teeth, narrowing my eyes at our instructor. If I was a betting man, I would have said he enjoyed that a little too much. Amar ushered me into the room behind the glass, instructed me to keep my hands to my side and he'd go start up the machine.
I watched as he connected himself to countless wires, glancing over at my fellow initiates. Dove clutched onto my jacket tightly and threw a weak 'thumbs up' sign.
I was about to yell out that this serum clearly was defective, but was stopped as I was suddenly in a completely different place. A different timeline it seemed as I took in my surroundings. I was in a dark room; the only light was one singular light bulb hanging above me. I looked around and noticed there were holes all over the walls.
'What is this?' I began walking around carefully, 'I'm afraid of holes?' I was confused, to say the least.
And then I saw it.
One spider that was no bigger than a dime crawling out of one of the smaller holes. I glanced at the holes on the walls that were as big as the globes in school classrooms and knew I was in trouble. I had been afraid of spiders since I was a little kid. Even seeing one in the shower made me want to pack my things and set the house on fire.
The spider crawled around my foot, I tried to step on it, but it wouldn't die. My stepping on it only made it grow bigger, faster, and stronger. As I was dealing with the terminator spider, an army of new spiders crawled out of the walls, ranging in sizes from 'tiny' to 'I could eat a small dog easily'. When they reached my clothes and began crawling up and down my body, I attempted to swat them away, clenching my teeth, violently shaking all of my limbs. I couldn't even see my own outfit anymore there were so many of them on me.
'Don't, Eric.' I chastised myself, 'This isn't real. This is not real.' I bit back my scream and continued swatting.
I could charge these spiders, find a weapon to beat them with, or I could look at this from an Erudite standpoint. If there was one thing I knew I was good at, it was thinking like an Erudite. Instead of approaching these fears like a Dauntless brute, I decided I was going to approach them like a scientist. All I had to do was to get my heart rate down. I walked over to the corner of the room, faced the wall, and squatted. I put my hands on my ears and breathed. In and out. In and out. The only way to get these things off me was to breathe.
'Just breathe, Eric.' I told myself.
All of a sudden, I couldn't feel them crawling anymore. I began patting my clothes, and the spiders were gone. It was then I realized I was no longer in the room, and I was now in a car. Not only was I in a car, but I was in a car underwater I gathered from the water now pouring through the glass windows.
'Oh, my fear of drowning. I haven't seen you in a while.' I thought bitterly, flash-backing to my first swimming lesson where I hung onto the pool ladder for dear life and would kick the teacher in the face if she came near me.
The water began to rise, and that scientist method escaped me quicker than the air in this car. I began violently trying to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. I looked up at the sun roof and tried to pull myself up, but was stopped by the seat belt that was strapping me in. I tried to unhook myself, but there was no clip to undo the strap. I cursed to myself, trying to wiggle my way out of it as the water was now creeping around my neck and I could feel my breathing becoming shorter by the second.
When I realized I was out of options, I remembered how to get out of this. I just had to relax. Even if I couldn't breathe in this death trap, I could trick myself into thinking I was breathing and relaxed.
I stuck my neck up as far as it could go, away from the rising water, and breathed. In and out, in and out. Just like last time.
Even quicker than the last, I was suddenly out of the car and in another dark room. I had gotten the hang of this simulation.
For what felt like days, I faced nine more fears back to back by my count. Each one came and went quicker and quicker, the Erudite way was proving to be a very sufficient way to handle this. I faced my fear of public speaking, failure, rejection, snakes, clowns, the dark, being buried alive, tight spaces, and the jolly old monster that I thought lived under my bed as a child.
After sending the fictional monster back to wherever he came from, I stood up and I was back in the fear landscape room. Eleven fears had to be pretty good. There's no way they weren't impressed with that.
As I got closer to the other section, I realized that it wasn't Amar controlling the machine anymore. It was my father.
"Dad?" I questioned.
"Eric." He typed furiously at the computer, not even looking up at me. I hated when he did that. It was like I wasn't even worth the acknowledgement.
"You saw all that?"
"What, your less than impressive fear tour? Yes, I did." He sighed, "Disappointing, indeed. I didn't expect less, though."
"Eleven fears, Dad!" I was shouting, "I got myself out of them. Me. You don't think that's impressive?"
"What would you like me to say to you, Eric? Do you want a gold star? Do you want me to hold your hand and tell you that you're the greatest son in all the land?"
"No, I jus-"
"You want me to say I'm proud of you? Is that it?" He interrupted me, clearly stifling a laugh, "Well that will never happen, Eric. I'm not proud of you. I've never been proud of you. I'll never be proud of you. You have been nothing but a disappointment."
My eyes were burning now. This was part of the stimulation. It figures that my father was probably the finale. No one could get me to this point quite like him. I looked at him, and started breathing. I needed to let him go. He was right. He would never tell me he was proud of me.
"Bye, Dad." I said quietly and went to go sit down in the corner of the room, ignoring my father continuing to spit insults at me.
In and out. In and out.
I woke up and was met with the same expression from everyone in the room. I thought I had done something wrong, but upon further investigation, I could have sworn the look they all shared was fear, with a hint of amazement, and maybe a dash of shock.
I smirked and made my way over to Amar.
"That was…that was, impressive." He coughed, "Nicely done, Eric." I had the feeling making Amar speechless was an accomplishment in itself.
My blue coat was thrown into my arms and I turned to see Dove beaming at me.
"That was incredible!" She smiled, "You didn't even flinch. I know I'm going to be a mess in there. But you! You're a damn superhero."
I blushed. I wasn't used to adoration, especially not from people who looked like Dove, but I didn't hate it.
"You'll be fine. Just breathe." I touched her arm gently, and moved to the back of the room and began to put back on my jacket.
"Psst." Someone whispered from behind me, in the darkened hallway. I decided to ignore it and focus on the simulation.
"Eric." This made me turn my head around. When I couldn't see anyone, I made my way into the hallway, and my jaw almost dropped.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
None other than Jeanine Matthews was standing in front of me. At Dauntless. This was weird.
"I'm here because I need your help. Erudite needs your help."
A/N: Alrighty, there's chapter 2! The chapter was way too long already so I didn't go through all of Eric's fears, but if I continue I will go through the rest of them in his landscape…I just wanted to give you guys a little taste of it. Do you guys mind the long chapters? Are they too long? I've gotten a few reviews and favs/follows, so thank you guys sooo much! Please let me know if I should continue. I've got a lot of ideas how to take this. Thanks xxxx