A/N; I do NOT own the Divergent series.
I'm just messing around with it.
Fun times are ahead of us as we hit the simulations.
Y'all have been patient this week so I thought I'd post this a bit earlier!
Enjoy!

A joyful day of shopping with Christina, not. I got a new tattoo on the right side of my rib cage.

'F.E.A.R
Forget Everything And Run
or
Face Everything And Rise'

It's perfect for my chosen faction. The shopping bags have been dropped off and we're making our way to the cafeteria for dinner. We stand in line like everyone else.
We make our way to a clear table. The chatter picks up, seats are being used, everyone's in good spirits, except me.
"Tris, what's wrong? You don't look so good!" Christina enquires, forever observing every little thing.
"Nothing," I keep my head down.
"Aw, is something wrong with the Stiff?" My head snaps up, my eyes narrow and my nostrils flare.
"How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me 'Stiff'?" I really don't want to do this. I can't tell you how much I don't want to do this because there are not enough words for this situation.
"I don't know. When are you going to stop being so stiff?"
"Funny you should say that, shit head! Dauntless is in my blood so keep your trap shut and go away."
He laughs, coldly. "Are you smart-mouthing a leader?"
"No, you dick! I'm smart-mouthing an arrogant, selfish, pansy cake." I regret everything I'm saying. "Is this still about our team beating yours at Capture the Flag? Because it was my plan that beat you, or is it about me kicking your ass, literally and figuratively?" I cannot believe I'm saying these words.

"It's about the fact that you're still a Stiff at heart. You're not Dauntless enough!" He's purposely goading me and I can't stop the reaction.
I laugh cruelly, "I'm not Dauntless enough? I didn't know I had to be an asshole to be Dauntless."
"Really? What gave you that impression?"
"Just be quiet, Eric. We're done here." I get up from my seat, taking my tray with me.

"Coward!" My movements halt.
I turn back to him, "What did you call me?"
He gives a half shrug, "I called you a coward, coward!"
"No, Eric." I give him an easy smile and take slow measured steps toward him. "Just because you're having a shit day, doesn't mean you can take it out on the first person you see. A coward is someone lacking the courage to do the things they want to do. So, what do you want to do that you don't have the courage for? Because I know what I want to do." I smirk.
His nostrils flare, his eyes harden and it feels like the room just got thirty degrees colder. There is absolute silence. We're forehead to chin, I'm short.
"How dare you! You're a pathetic little girl from Abnegation."
"Yes, I'm a pathetic little Abnegation girl that kicked your ass." The Erudite in him can't argue with the fact. "Let's talk about you though; you have no courage, you are a heartless, cold, brutal, ruthless asshole." He grabs my hair at the hair tie, lowers himself so that he can look straight into my eyes. I can see the regret, the apologies and I brace myself for the hit I know is coming.

My cheek stings and I feel the fire behind my eyes. Just because I am prepared for the hit, doesn't mean it wasn't surprising but I will not cry! I stand looking at the floor blinking the tears from my eyes. My hair makes a curtain between me and the Dauntless. He pulled the hair tie, that sneaky bastard. I hear gasps and shouts. I raise my head slowly to meet his eyes again and smirk, "Is that all you've got? Now," I hold up a finger, "before you answer, remember that I can and will incapacitate you in mere seconds so think before you act!" I raise an eyebrow. He stares at me before raising his hand again. I grab his shirt with both hands, jump up and head butt his nose. His stitches burst and I want to go to him but I can't.

"I'll pick my stuff up later!" I turn away and swiftly make my exit.

Nine in the evening, everything has calmed down, I've had time to think and people aren't trying to kill Eric with their eyes, I make my way to his apartment to gather my things. I am nervous, excited and fearful. What if we went too far and there's no coming back from that? What if I went too far and he doesn't speak to me again? What if he's afraid to talk to me because he thinks he went too far? What if the Dauntless do try to kill him? What if I become factionless and can't help where it's needed? There are so many 'what if's' that I can't even begin to count. I knew from the beginning that this would be hard. I grew up sparring with the guy and we had an easy-going friendship.

I'm so far into my thoughts that I don't hear the door opening or closing. I'm sitting on my bed, staring off into space, thinking about the possible outcomes of every scenario or situation.

What snaps me back to reality is the movement from someone sitting beside me.
"Hey," Eric puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me into his side, "We'll get through this!"
"What if we don't or can't? What if something happens to one of us and the others can't do anything about it?" I wrap my arms around his waist and shake my head, "Think of every situation, every scenario and how many ways this whole thing could go wrong. There are hundreds, thousands of possibilities and we can't even see half of them."

"You know what will happen? We'll be alright. Everything will be alright as soon as we've done what needs to be done. I'll make sure that if you're captured by Erudite that I have some leeway and you make sure you've got Max and I covered from your end. Once initiation's done, Erudite's plans will come into play and then we take them down Dauntless-style!" He kisses my hair, "Just trust in yourself, your team and me. Now, we've gotta get you packed up and moved back into the dorms. Take this."
He hands me a small sheathed knife.
I remove the sheath and examine the blade.
The word 'Sweets' is carved into one side running along the blunt edge. Carved on the other side are the words 'Be brave.'

"I can't take this." I replace the sheath and hand it back.
"Tris, I need you to take it because I can't bodily protect you when you're not living here." He's so sincere, it looks like it hurts.
"Fine," I sigh. "My comms won't be on until Stage three is done, so you won't be able to contact me until then."

Thirteen hours later, as far as I can tell the second stage of initiation involves sitting in a dark hallway with the other initiates, wondering what's going to happen behind a closed door. Uriah sits across from me, with Marlene on his left and Lynn on his right. The Dauntless-born initiates and the transfers were separated during stage one, but we will be training together from now on. That's what Four told us before he disappeared behind the door.
"So," says Lynn, scuffing the floor with her shoe. "Which one of you is ranked first, huh?"
Her question is met with silence at first, and then Christina clears her throat.
"Tris," she says.
"Bet I could take you." She says it casually, turning the ring in her eyebrow with her fingertips. "I'm second, but I bet any of us could take you, transfer."
I laugh and the others, including some of the Dauntless-born join in. Typical Dauntless and their challenges. When the laughing stops, I say, "I wouldn't be so sure about that, if I were you. Who's first on your end?"
"Uriah," she says. "And I am sure. You know how many years we've spent preparing for this?"
If she intends to intimidate us, it works on everyone but me.
"Can you take down Eric or Max?" I question, "Or how about Uriah? Can you take him down too? Because if you can, you'll give me a challenge." I grin, but before she can respond Four opens the door and calls on her. She walks down the hallway, the blue light at the end making her bare head glow.
"So you're first," Will says to Uriah.
Uriah shrugs. "Yeah. And?"
"And don't you think it's a little unfair that you've spent your entire life getting ready for this, and we're expected to learn it all in a few weeks?" Will says, his eyes narrowing.
"Not really. Stage one was about skill, sure, but no one can prepare for stage two," he says. "At least, so I'm told."
No one responds to that. We sit in silence for twenty minutes. I count each minute on my watch. Then the door opens again and Four calls another name.
"Peter," he says.

Each minute wears into me like a scrape of sandpaper. Gradually, our numbers begin to dwindle, and it's just me, Uriah and Drew. Drew's leg bounces, Uriah's fingers tap against his knee and I try to sit perfectly still. I hear only muttering from the room at the end of the hallway and I suspect this is another part of the game they like to play with us. Terrifying us at every opportunity.
The door opens and Four beckons to me, "Come on, Tris."
I stand, my back sore from leaning against the wall for so long and walk past the other initiates. Drew attempts to trip me up but I kick the side of his knee joint.

Four touches my shoulder to guide me into the room and closes the door behind me.
When I see what's inside, I recoil immediately, my shoulders hitting his chest.
In the room is a reclining metal chair, similar to the one I sat in during the aptitude test. Beside it is a familiar machine. This room has no mirrors and barely any light. There is a computer screen on a desk in the corner.
"Sit," Four says. He squeezes my arms and attempts to push me forward but my feet are rooted.
"What's the simulation?" I ask, as strongly as I can, which turns out to be quite weak.
"Ever hear the phrase 'face your fears'?" he says. "We're talking literally. The simulation will teach you to control your emotions in the midst of a frightening situation."
I touch a wavering hand to my forehead. Simulations aren't real; they pose no real threat to me, so logically, I shouldn't be afraid of them, but my reaction is visceral. It takes everything I have for me to steer myself toward the chair and sit down in it, pressing my skull into the headrest.
"Do you ever administer aptitude tests?" I say. He seems qualified.
"No," he replies. "I avoid Stiffs as much as possible."
I don't know why someone would avoid the Abnegation. The Dauntless or the Candor, maybe, because bravery and honesty make people do strange or stupid things, but the Abnegation?
"Why?"
"Do you really think I'd answer?"
"No, but why do you say vague things if you don't want to be asked about them?"
His fingers brush my neck and my body tenses in preparation for pretty much anything. He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and makes sure it's not going to get in the way. He taps something and I tilt my head back to see what it is. Four holds a syringe with a long needle in one hand, his thumb against the plunger. The liquid is tinted orange.
"An injection? You know that if you force that upon me, I'll break your arm? I'd rather do it myself."
"We use a more advanced version of the simulation here," he says, "a different serum, no wires or electrodes for you."
"How does it work without wires?"
"Well, I have wires so I can see what's going on," he says. "But for you, there's a tiny transmitter in the serum that sends data to the computer."
He hands me the syringe and points to spot on my throat. I ease the tip of the needle into the tender skin and a deep ache spreads. I wince and try to focus on his calm face as he takes the syringe and says, "The serum will go into effect in sixty seconds. This simulation is different from the aptitude test. In addition to containing the transmitter, the serum simulates the amygdala, which is the part of the brain involved in processing negative emotions –like fear- and then induces a hallucination. The brain's electrical activity is then transmitted to our computer, which translates your hallucination into a simulated image that I can see and monitor. I will then forward the recording to Dauntless administrators. You stay in the hallucination until you calm down –that is, lower your heart rate and control your breathing."

I try to follow his words but my thoughts are going haywire. I feel the trademark symptoms of fear; sweaty palms, racing heart, tightness in my chest, dry mouth, a lump in my throat and difficulty breathing. He plants his hands on either side of my head and leans over me.
"Be brave, Tris," he whispers. "The first time is always the hardest."
His eyes are the last thing I see.

I stand in a field of dry grass that comes up to my waist. The air smells like smoke and burns my nostrils. Above me, the sky is bile-coloured and the sight of it fills me with anxiety, my body cringing away from it.
I hear fluttering, like the pages of a book blown by the wind, but there is no wind. The air is still and soundless apart from the flapping neither hot nor cold –not like air at all, but I can still breathe.
A shadow swoops overhead.
Something lands on my shoulder. I feel its weight and the prick of talons and fling my arm forward to shake it off, my hand batting at it. I feel something smooth and fragile. A feather. I bite my lip and look to the side. A black bird the size of my forearm turns its head and focuses one beady eye on me.
I grit my teeth and hold it steady with the arm it's clutching. It digs its talons in and doesn't budge. I cry out, more frustrated than pained and wrap my hand around its neck giving a sharp twist. Thunder rumbles and I hear the patter of rain on the ground but no rain falls. I dig my fingers under the talons and pry them open, gasping sharply because of the pain.
The sky darkens, like a cloud is passing over the sun. Still prying the bird off my shoulder, I look up. A flock of crows storms toward me, an advancing army of outstretched talons and open beaks, each one squawking, filling the air with noise. In a single mass, hundreds of beady eyes shining, they dive, descending toward the earth.
I try to run, but my feet are firmly planted and refuse to move. I lift my arms up and my breathing becomes shallow as they surround me, feathers flapping in my ears, beaks pecking at my shoulders, talons clinging to my clothes. I try to fight them off, but it is futile. There are too many and I am alone. They nip at my fingertips and press against my body, wings sliding across the back of my neck, feet tearing at my hair.
I twist and wrench and fall to the ground, covering my head with my arms. They scream against me. I feel a wiggling in the grass, a crow forcing its way under my arm. I open my eyes and it pecks at my face, its beak hitting me in the nose. Blood drips onto the grass and I decide I've had enough. I break neck after neck and they keep coming, more birds wedging themselves under my arms, claws trying for anything they can grasp.
I take in as much air as I can through my nose and let out a blood curdling scream.
The crows flap harder, a roar in my ears. My body burns and they are everywhere, I can't think, I can't breathe. I gasp for air and my mouth fills with feather, feathers down my throat, in my lungs, replacing my blood with dead weight.
I feel like I'm dying.
My skin sears and I am bleeding, the squawking is so loud my ears are ringing, but I am not dying. I remember that it isn't real, but it feels real, it feels so real. Be brave. Four's voice screams in my memory. Think Dauntless. Max scolds me. Trust in yourself. Eric encourages.
I cry out, extremely pissed off, inhaling feathers and exhaling. There will be no help; I am alone and I must trust in myself!
You stay in the hallucination until you can calm down, Four's voice continues. I cough and another crow has wriggled under my arms. I feel the edge of its sharp beak against my mouth. Its beak wedges past my lips and scrapes my teeth. The crow pushes its head into my mouth and I bite hard, tasting something foul. I spit and clench my teeth to form a barrier, but now a fourth crow is pushing at my feet and a fifth is pecking at my ribs.
Calm down. I can't, but I can try. My head throbs.
Breathe. I keep my mouth closed and suck in air through my nose. I make a point of rolling over, hopefully crushing the crow. It has been hours since I was alone in the field; it has been days. I push air out of my nose. My heart is still pounding and I need to slow it down. I breathe again, taking in as much as I can and holding it for a few seconds before letting it out again.
I force myself onto my front, stretching out on the grass, which prickles against my skin. I extend my arms and breathe. Crows push and prod at my sides, worming their way beneath me and I let them. I let the flapping of wings and the squawking and the pecking and the prodding continue, relaxing one muscle at a time. I think of the feeling of the grass on the side of my face, resigning myself to becoming a pecked carcass.
The pain overwhelms me.
I open my eyes and I am sitting in the metal chair.
I shiver and slap at my arms and head and legs to make the feeling disappear. I can still feel the feathers brushing the back of my neck and the talons in my shoulder and my burning skin. I pull my knees up to my chest, burying my face in them.
A hand touches my shoulder and I throw out a combination of punches. It doesn't register that I've just attacked Four because the feeling of feathers is still there.
"Hey! Hey, it's over," Four says. "No need for almost killing me."
"You've seen what I can do and yet, when I came out of that, you think it's a good idea to touch me." I shake my head, running my palms along my arms, still brushing off feathers, though I know there aren't any. I rock back and forth in the metal chair.
"Tris, I'm going to take you back to the dorms, okay?"
"No!" I snap. I lift my head and glare at him. "They can't see me, not like this!"
"Oh, calm down," he says. He rolls his eyes. "I'll take you out the back door."
I shake my head. My body is trembling and I feel so weak I'm not sure I can stand, but I have to. I won't be one of the initiates that must to be carried back to the dorms.
"I don't need you to, I can do it myself." I take a steadying breath, unfold myself and stand, shakily. I take another breath, deeper this time and shake out my arms and legs.
"Nonsense." He attempts grabbing my arm but I dodge and make my way to the door. He walks to the other door that's behind the computer screen. When we're a few hundred yards away from the room, I stop.
"Why are the leaders allowing this?" I ask. "What is the point of that? I wasn't aware that when I chose Dauntless, I was signing up for weeks of torture!"
"Did you think overcoming cowardice would be easy?" he says calmly.
"That is overcoming cowardice? Could've fooled me. Cowardice is how you decide to be in real life and in real life, I am not being pecked to death my crows!" I press the heels of my hands into my eyes.
He doesn't say anything.
"I want to go home!"
But home is not an option anymore. My choices are here or the factionless slums and I cannot be factionless.
He doesn't look at me with sympathy. He just looks at me. His eyes look black in the dim corridor and his mouth is set in a hard line.
"Learning how to think in the midst of fear," he says, "is a lesson that everyone, even your Stiff family, needs to learn. That's what we're trying to teach you. If you can't learn it, you'll need to get the hell out of here, because we won't want you."
"I've been learning that since the day a factionless man attacked me at the age of five," I growl. "But I'm failing this part of initiation!"
He sighs. "How long do you think you spent in that hallucination, Tris?"
"I don't know." I shake my head. "A half hour? Forty-five minutes?"
"Three minutes," he replies. "You got out three times faster than the other initiates. Whatever you are, you're not a failure."
Three minutes?
He smiles a little. "Tomorrow you'll be better at this. You'll see."
"Tomorrow?"

He touches my back and guides me towards the dormitory. I feel his fingertips through my shirt. Their gentle pressure makes me forget the birds for a moment.
"What was your first hallucination?" I ask, glancing at him.
"It wasn't a 'what,' so much as a 'who,'" he shrugs. "It's not important."
"And are you over that fear now?"
"Not yet." We reach the door to the dorm and he leans against the wall sliding his hands into his pockets. "I may never be."
"So they don't go away?"
"Sometimes they do. And sometimes new fears replace them." His thumbs hook around his belt hoops. "But becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear and how to be free from it, that's the point."

I nod. I used to think the Dauntless were fearless. That is how they seemed anyway. But maybe what I saw as fearless was actually fear under control.
"Anyway, your fears are rarely what they appear to be in the simulation," he adds.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, are you really afraid of crows?" he says, half smiling at me. The expression warms his eyes enough to see that he's not always 'Four the instructor.' He's just a boy, talking casually, walking me to my door. "When you see one, do you run away screaming?"
"No, I guess not." I step closer and lean against the wall, tilting my head sideways to look at him. "So, what am I really afraid of?" I say.
"I don't know," he says. "Only you can know."
I nod slowly. There are a dozen things it could be, but I'm not sure which one is right, or if there's even one right one.
"I didn't know becoming Dauntless would be this difficult," I say, and a second later I am surprised that I said it; surprised that I admitted to it. "I knew the physical training would be there and that was easy but this, this trumps everything I've been through." Was it a mistake to tell him that?
"It wasn't always like this, I'm told," he says, lifting a shoulder. My admission doesn't appear to bother him. "Being Dauntless, I mean."
"What changed?"
"The leadership," he says. "The person who controls training sets the standard of Dauntless behaviour. Six years ago, Max and the other leaders changed the training methods to make them more competitive and more brutal, said it was supposed to test people's strength. And that changed the priorities of Dauntless as a whole. Bet you can't guess who the leaders' new protégé is."
The answer is obvious: Eric. Four thinks they trained him to be vicious and he thinks that Eric's training the rest of us to be vicious too. He doesn't know that Eric's been helping keep Divergents safe. He doesn't know the lengths that Eric goes to, to get people out of the city to safety.
I look at Four.
"Are you sure you know who you're talking about? I mean, one hundred and ten percent positive that that's what's happening? If you were ranked first in your initiate class," I say, "what was Eric's rank?"
"Second." This keeps getting better and better. Eric must have learned how to hide how much training he'd actually had in the hopes of being able to help more Divergents with more time on his hands. But Four had to go and turn down the leadership position, leaving Eric with next to no time.
"So, you were their first choice for leadership and he was their second," I nod slowly.
"What makes you say that?"
"The way he was acting at dinner the first night. Jealous, annoyed, I'd even go as far as saying he was pissed!"
Four doesn't contradict me, so he must think that Eric wanted the leadership position. I want to ask why he didn't take the leadership position; why he is so resistant to it when he seems to be a natural leader. But I know how Four feels about personal question.
I smooth down my hair and ask, "Do I look any worse than I did after the simulation?"
"Hmm." He draws his eyes over my face and hair, like he's inspecting me. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
"No, Tris," he says. A more serious look replaces his smile as he adds, "You look tough as nails!"