"Uh…"
I feel his strong hand wrap around my bicep and everything becomes blurry and confusing as pain shoots back and forth between my temples. The dim light around me is replaced with harsh white and I realize my feet are moving beneath me. I grab clumsily for the sunglasses with the arm not restrained.
I retrieve the plastic lenses and hastily shove them onto my face just in time for Tobias to move his hand from my arm to my shoulder and shove me forcefully downward until my butt connects with a something cold and hard. I groan a little at the impact and hear him mumble a quick "sorry" before disappearing. I look down to find that im seated on one of the benches in the make-shift waiting room. I feel the heat of a body next to mine and study it in my periphery. Dark skin, unkempt hair, and a distinct "I don't even have to try" demeanor. Uriah.
I bend down a little to retrieve the flask, wincing as blood rushes to my head. I chug some more of the liquid before turning to face Uriah.
He looks like hell. His eyes are glassy and sunken back in their sockets, his face has a faint green tint as if he is about to projectile vomit, and there is a nasty bump just below his hairline on his forehead. I remember him telling me about Zeke's get together and wonder if he went. Wonder if he's hung over like me. Wonder if I look like that.
"Do you know if Tris has gone through her fear landscape yet?" Tobias asks from his spot on the opposite side of Uriah.
"Good morning to you, too. Oh, im fine, thanks for asking. Yeah, my fear landscape went great. That is, until I had an allergic reaction to the new serum and-"
"Wait," I interrupt Uriah, sitting up a little and trying to make myself seem not so messed up," Allergic reaction?"
He nods," Everything was normal at first. It felt just like it did during initiation last year, but with more panic. About halfway through my second fear things got… hot. I mean literally hot. It felt like the room was on fire. My skin started prickling and I was sweating. I could barely breathe. Then the simulation melted away. Like literally melted. Colors were blending together and voices were shouting, but I was way too busy trying to breathe to pay attention to what they were saying."
"Then what happened?" Tobias asks.
"They must have injected me with something. I felt a pinch in my arm and everything faded to black. When I resurfaced they told me they were aware that there was a possibility of something like that happening so they were prepared. Anyway, they told me that they're just going to have me go through the old simulation in a couple days."
"But why would they have you go through your fear landscape with the old serum? What do they think they'll gain from that?" I ask, taking another swig.
"Besides a chance to catch my divergence?" He lets out a curt laugh and winces," They said they just want to make sure the side effects are actually because of the serum and not just a strange reaction to fear. Whatever."
"Those things that happened to him, are they indicators of divergence? Are those the kind of things they're looking for?" Tobias asks me.
I shake my head and instantly regret it. I press the heel of my hand against my forehead again as I talk," They're looking for a fever and high blood pressure. They didn't say anything about melting simulations and mental breakdowns."
Tobias turns to Uriah again," Well then, as long as you don't screw up your regular simulation, I think you're in the clear."
"What about you guys? How did you do?" Uriah looks relieved, but still very nauseous.
"Mine went okay I think. But there's really no way to tell, I guess. It's not like they're going to shoot me right there in the room. Especially not in the middle of initiation," Tobias leans toward Uriah again," And we have no idea how Tris did."
Uriah looks at me. By the look on his face it must be the first time he's really looked at me since I sat down. His eyes scan my face skeptically, then land on the flask in my hand. "Did you-"
"We don't know." Tobias answers sternly for me.
"But if she went through," Uriah's eyes scan the room quickly and his voice drops to a whisper even though we're the only ones here," drunk, then how do we know-"
"We don't." Tobias answers again, leaning back against the wall and raising his eyes to the ceiling.
I sigh and mimic his posture. Damn booze. Damn party. If I had just gone back to Tobias' apartment with him last night I wouldn't have an upset boyfriend, a pounding headache, and an uncertain future. Damn party.
Before I can get too involved in my internal self-loathing, the door on the far side of the room, the one im like 90% sure I came through earlier when I found Tobias, opens to reveal a slender girl with multiple piercings and freshly dyed purple hair. Lauren.
And judging by the flustered look on her face, she just came out of her landscape.
"Max told me to get you guys. They want to talk to us about our landscapes. Explain how to administer them." Her voice is small and delicate, the way a girl's should be. Sometimes I find myself jealous of it. It's stupid, honestly, but I can't help it.
The three of us stand up automatically. A little too automatically. The blood rushes away from my brain when I stand and I find myself swaying uneasily until Tobias' strong hand catches mine and his arm slips around my waist to steady me. I lean into him and let the world spin around me for a second. Once I feel steady I smile up at him and he returns a half-hearted smile. I internally sigh, knowing I still have a lot of groveling to do to make up for last night, and lace our fingers together.
We follow Lauren out of the waiting room and across the hall. She leads us into the viewing room just beside the brick room. The normally near empty room is packed with equipment. Monitors, computers, syringes with a deep purple liquid in them.
And Jeanine Matthews.
I recoil the second I see her brilliantly blond hair. Every rumor, every newspaper article, every ambitious hint at rebellion slams against my skull. I release Tobias' hand and grab the flask out of my pocket again.
The six of us, me, Tobias, Uriah, Lauren, Max , and Eric, all form a semi-circle around Jeanine, her two minions, and a large machine that looks faintly like a copy machine.
Jeanine gets right to business," As you can see, the new serum requires a bit more attention than the previous one, though I think you will find that running it is more efficient and ultimately more revealing than the last one."
She turns to the machine and hits multiple buttons," Usage of the equipment is rather self-explanatory. All buttons are labeled clearly. The machine really does most of the work."
One of the minions pulls a table with a monitor on it to the center of our circle and presses the power button. As the screen comes to life, a tense and ready Tobias appears on it. I grab real life Tobias' hand and realize he's almost as tense as the one on screen.
"We filmed each of your landscapes to use as examples. You can be assured that we will delete the footage at the end of our demonstration. We will begin with Tob- Four's simulation." Jeanine sends a pointed look in his direction as she corrects herself. He stiffens even more.
On-screen Tobias begins moving. He crouches immediately and looks around at the floor. I lean against the real life version and hide my face in his shoulder. I don't want to watch. I don't want to see him so panicked.
He releases my hand and arms an arm around my shoulders, pulling my tighter against him as the on-screen version begins yelling. He must be jumping off the building.
The yelling stops and I dare to look at the screen, pressing my ear against his shoulder instead. Virtual Tobias is sitting still in the middle of the room with knees to his chest. The box. His chest rises and falls as he tries to control his heart rate. We all watch him sit there for a minute or so until relief washes over his features and he moves to stand up.
I know what will happen next. He will walk up to an invisible metal table and pick up a nonexistent gun. He will circle a poor girl that we can't see a couple times, working up his courage. Then, when he's ready, he will hold up the invisible gun and press it to her invisible forehead. He'll look away. And he'll shoot her.
But none of that happens.
Instead, on-screen Tobias drops to his knees and stares at something on the opposite side of the room. His hands are behind his back, as if tied or bound there. He looks purely mortified. It's hard to tell with the awkward angle of the camera but I think I see tears welling up in his eyes.
Real life Tobias pulls me closer and turns his head to hide his face in my hair.
I stare at the screen, confused. I don't remember this obstacle. I don't remember him breaking down like this when I went through his landscape with him almost a year ago. Annoyance grows inside of me. Why is he acting to weak? What could be so bad in his landscape that he-
The Virtual Tobias speaks. It's barely a whisper, the word barely even leaving his lips, but it rings through the small viewing room, letting the horror and brokenness inside it settle inside of each of us.
"Tris."
My eyes widen. Real Tobias takes in a sharp breath.
I'm in his fear landscape.
"No, Tris. Don't you die on me. Don't you fucking die on me, Tris. Tris!"
The image freezes. The yelling stops. Jeanine paused the footage. All eyes are on us, except for hers.
"As you can see," She starts, pointing to a series of numbers along the top of the screen that I hadn't noticed until now," His body temperature and blood pressure remained within the acceptable limits throughout the entire simulation. Though his heart rate skyrocketed multiple times, that is to be expected in a situation like this. Overall, this is an example of a near perfect fear landscape simulation."
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. They didn't see anything wrong with his landscape. They didn't see he was divergent. He is safe. Tobias is safe.
But the knot in my stomach doesn't go away.
I feel him sigh with relief into my hair. I wrap my arm around his waist and give him a little squeeze, telling him to pull himself together. He pulls back from my hair and looks down at me. I nod at him, telling him we will talk about the simulation later and he returns the nod.
"Next," both our heads snap to look a Jeanine who is standing behind the screen again," We will be watching Tris' landscape."
It only takes a second for the image in the monitor to switch from Tobias' kneeling body to my standing one. My knees are bent on the screen, ready to attack, but my face is slack and my eyes seemed glassed over and distant. Drunk.
Someone presses play and I begin to move.
Howdy.
So first things first, I noticed that the response to Chapter 6 was a little... weak. And I totally understand because it was kinda a weird chapter like I was trying to make Tris sound dazed and confused without loosing too much of the story line in the process and I dont know it just didn't come out the way I wanted it to but I dont know how else to do it so im just going to leave it and hopefully I can make up for a not so fabulous chapter sometime in the near future. Sorry about that.
Kay. Secondly, I just want to remind you guys that I start school in like 2 days so next week's update... might not come. Im not totally sure how my schedule will look for the weekend but im really going to try to keep updating every week but If I miss a week just know that I will definitely update the next week and ill probably apologize for the rest of my life about it so yeah.
Finally, thank you guys for reading this story and posting reviews. I know I say it a lot but I dont think you guys understand how amazing it is to get this kind of response to my writing. Like I have posted stories for other fandoms on other sites in the past and have never gotten so many amazing readers who leave sweet comments and tell me straight up how they feel about the story. I really love writing and I really love divergent and the fact that I can combine the two and get such a positive response is just amazing so please keep the reviews coming because I really want to know what you guys think.
And again... if you want to be in the loop on when ill be updating and how the chapters are coming you can follow me on twitter (TobiasEverlark) and I follow back all Divergent accounts so yeah.
Until next week (Hopefully...)!