Dr. Collins stands up and starts pacing back and forth, keeping his distance.

"She's in something called something Modern Dream State. It's very rare. The symptoms are the same symptoms, of, well, death. Pale, cold, minimal breathing. It's also hard to bring MDS patients back to health. Tris can definitely survive while unconscious, but we'll never know when her consciousness kicks in. When she wakes up though, she will have to be watched carefully for about a month and Tris would be back to normal."

I can't breathe.

For a moment I forgot how. How can she be alive? I thought her death was a joke, now I think her aliveness is a joke. She can't be alive. I don't know how to take this. I should be happy, overjoyed, but why am I not? Was I grieving too long so that I forgot about her? Did I only remember parts of her?

What if I had forgotten how to love?

"That can't be true," I say. I can't figure out what I'm feeling through the mass tangle of emotions in my head.

"Do you want to see her?" Dr. Collins says.

I don't. I don't want to see her alive, but looking dead. It makes me feel dead. But I need to see her. She is alive. Tris is alive. I am alive. But I am so dead. I think about almost erasing myself in Abnegation. Should I have done it? Nothing makes me feel more terrible than I do now. I am upset that my love is alive, and I don't know why, and I'm so confused that I want to break down and cry. I am weak. So weak, without her.

"I don't know," I say finally.

"Think about it, Tobias. You have time. She has enough strength to push against it, but we'll have to see if she can push through it. MDS puts patients into a very realistic hallucination. They think they are alive, so it's hard for them to figure out that it's not real."

"Like a simulation. She's Divergent. She can do it."

"Divergent?"

I forgot that almost everyone's memory had been erased.

"Did I say that? I meant something else, sorry. I'm sure she can figure it out, though. She really can."

"We'll see. Certain things they do not hallucinate about, though. These worlds they think they exist in are much like the real world. You are probably in it, and her friend Christina is probably in it. Things like fantasies and angels and heavenly things don't really occur in them," Dr. Collins says.

"Thank you," I say, though I do not thank him at all. I wish everything he said was a lie. But inside I knew it was true, no matter how much I tried to lie to myself. I walk out of his office, into my bedroom again, sit on my cot, hunched over, hands crossed, staring at the floor, just like I did all those days after she died. I should feel something. I only feel confusion slapping me in the face again and again, scolding me for being so stupid.

I lay on my cot, staring at the ceiling now. The only change from now and then is that now, no tears wet my face and shirt, and no ugly sounds escape from my chest. Now I miss her, finally, and I feel better for missing her, because it's what I should do. I want her next to me, I want her to be there and I want her to tell me that she loves me. Then I start to cry again, like a pathetic, broken creature. The words and image of her death had broken me into a heaving wreck. I am so weak inside without her. I understand my confusion. I am so used to her being dead that I couldn't adjust to the idea of her still being alive. Then I fall asleep, wanting her hand over mine.

I walk into the bathroom, shivering and breathing unevenly. I wash my face and look at myself in the mirror. My swollen face is covered in uneven stubble and my hair is everywhere. I look at my hair painfully. I cut it when I took a secret trip to Abnegation, or so I thought. Christina followed me, made me not erase myself. I'm glad she did not let me erase myself, or else I wouldn't ever been able to see Tris again, and when she woke up, she would hurt at the sight of me not knowing her. It would be like I was under a simulation she could not break me out of, and I would have never forgiven myself for doing that to her. Thank you, Christina.

I hadn't washed properly in a few days. I decide to take a shower and shave. I think I'm crying, but I can't tell the stream of water from my tears. I step out and finally put new clothes on, and look in the mirror again. I look cleaner, but not better. My face is twisted with an unusual form of pain. I start to feel frustrated with myself, I'm not sure why, but I punch my reflection in the mirror as hard as I can, and it cracks and shatters in all different directions. My knuckles are scratched and bleeding, but I don't rinse them. This time I punch the wall. I feel somewhat better.

I start to punch everything in the room, until my muscles ache too much and arms are too tired to hit anything. I feel satisfied. I walk into the bathroom again, and look at the distorted image of myself in the cracked mirror. Broken. I see myself for what I really am. Broken, pieces of me scattered everywhere, pieces of me that I can't get back. All I want is for things to be back to normal again. Tris and I together, talking, facing the everyday challenges. I sighed, my boots crunching on the broken pieces on the floor, and walked toward the Medical Wing.

She is there.

She lays there, on the hospital bed, so dead, so alive. I don't squeeze her hand. I don't touch her. I don't stand close to her. I stand in the doorway, watching, waiting for her to wake up, walk over, give me a kiss, tell me she loves me. She doesn't. How can she be alive? So pale. So small.

"We took the bullet out. She lost a lot of blood. Even if she could wake up, she might not because of lost strength," Dr. Collins says behind me. "Well, I'll leave you two alone now." I hear Dr. Collins walk away. You two. Not just you. You two.

I walk closer. Close enough to see her face. Then the barrier I tried to build up inside of me breaks, and I start to cry again. Her face is so still, so unaware. I collapse into the chair by the bed and cover my face with my hands so she can't see. Can she hear me? I think I will just stay in that chair until she wakes up. I remember how Tris pulled me out of that simulation. Maybe I can do the same. I take a deep breath and touch her hand. Then I squeeze it.

"Tris," I say, trying to remember what Tris had said to me that day I almost shot her. "Tris, you're in a simulation. Tris, I know you're in there," I whisper. My heart throbs. I stand up, leaning over her. "Tris, please." I am begging. I am pathetic. Tears make my face hot.

"Please. See me." I see her face change the slightest bit, her eyebrows twitch, the corners of her lips turn downward. She twitches for a long moment. For about ten minutes, she sort of jerks around. "Please see me, Tris, please!" Her scowl turns deeper. I'm not sure if I like this, but I feel it. She's getting out. She's fighting it. I let go of her hand. I don't want her to struggle. She's acting like a tortured animal. I move my hand to her neck, trying to calm her. "Tris, it's me," I say.

"It's not a simulation. It's not a landscape. You have to get out," I say, and wait.