(Tris)
I gather two things before I slip into the darkness of the unknown. The first is that I am on an upper floor of the Hancock building. The second is my brother. Caleb is alive. He's okay. I hold onto these small glints of hope as the serum takes over and the world around me changes.
I'm on my feet in a dimly lit, doorless room. I wonder briefly why there are no exits. From somewhere unknown to me, Tobias enters the room with something in his arms.
Joy fills me at the sight of him, and I make my way over to him. He beams at me, and shows me the thing in his arms.
A baby, wrapped in a soft white blanket. It's sleeping, its pink lips parted.
My heart swells on instinct. My baby.
I reach for the baby, and as Tobias hands it to me, he kisses my head. I smile up at him.
And then, suddenly, it changes again. I hear a bang, and Tobias's eyes go wide and glossy, his face void of expression.
All around me, people I love-Christina, Uriah, Caleb, my parents - are standing, staring at me with the same lifeless look.
I turn back to Tobias, and he collapses. Everyone collapses. I fall to my knees beside him, gently setting the baby down.
"Tobias? Tobias?!" I scream, shaking him. I check for a pulse, for breath. Nothing. He's dead.
I blink, and when I open my eyes, all that remains is my baby, wailing.
I pull the tiny body to my chest, sobbing, clutching to the only thing left that I love. And then it's gone.
The cries cut off sharply, the baby locks eyes with me and bores holes into my soul, then fades away, leaving me empty handed.
I scream over and over again, I scream for life, for death, for those I love. I am on the floor of that dark room for days, years. Time stretches on.
And it begins again.
I am in another room. I watch Tobias and everyone I care about get murdered in a countless number of ways.
Drowning. Burning. Poison. Sickness. Shooting. Stabbing. Hanging. I watch Tobias hurl himself off of a building. I witness Christina having a seizure.
The outcome is always the same. I am powerless to stop them, powerless to save them. I am always left alone, everything I love ripped away from me.
...
I wake up in the Hancock room gasping and sobbing, hunched over myself.
The numbness has long since left my body and sheer pain starts settling in.
It wasn't real. It wasn't real. How did it work on me?
I feel paranoid. So completely afraid because I know, with these memories, I will never be the same. I can feel grief coming and it hurts like nothing I've ever felt.
I don't know how long I scream. It's gut wrenching pain. Images of Tobias dying burn the back of my eyelids and everything aches. I literally writhe in emotional pain, clawing at my skin, pulling at my hair and trying to get their screams out.
Somewhere in my state, I understand that the screams I'm hearing are my own.
I cry and shriek and throw up on the tile floor. When I roll away from it, I see blood trailing from my previous position and my current one.
The knife.
I pull up the leg of my jeans, ripping the hilt of the knife from my flesh and hurling it away from me. Blood gushes from the place where it dug in deeply.
I press my hand to the wound, an action that does nothing but cover my hand in crimson red.
I know that I'll die if I don't stop the blood, so I pull myself to my feet and stumble to the sink in the corner.
Hoisting my leg onto the counter, I cup water in my hands and pour it over my calf. I use the entire length of my arms to wipe the wound, covering me up to my elbows in blood.
There are scratches all over me from where I clawed at myself in blind panic, and the leg that isn't on the counter threatens to give out beneath me.
A few people dressed in white charge in, coming straight for me.
"Where the hell is she?!" Tobias's voice echoes down the hall.
"Don't kill me! Please, I'll tell you everything!" David's voice screams, trembling.
It's all the blood in the sink. It's the crying, and the fluorescent lights, and white sneakers and pale faces and shaky breaths and blood. So much blood.
This isn't real. This isn't real.
"Tris!" Tobias's voice sounds again, closer this time. The guards seize my arms and pull me away from the sink.
I cry quietly. I don't want to open my eyes to see how he dies this time.
"Tris! Let go of her!" Two bangs go off on each side of me. I hear people collapse to the ground.
Familiar arms wrap around me, strong and warm.
"Tris?! Tris, look at me!" He says frantically.
I cry harder, squeezing my eyes together tightly.
"This isn't real!" I scream.
"No, Tris, this is real. This is real. I promise. We're in the Hancock building. We have to go home... Oh God, your leg," he says in that same frantic tone.
My eyes fly open.
This is real.
If it wasn't, I wouldn't be aware.
"Tobias," I sob, wrapping my arms around him as tightly as I can.
"It's okay. It's okay," he whispers, carrying me towards the hall. Something occurs to me.
"Caleb! No! No, find Caleb!" I scream.
"Tris, we have to get you to the h-"
"No! Find him! Please find him!" I try to break free from his hold, to jump to my feet.
"Damn it, Tris-"
Zeke runs down the hall, dragging a barely alive, but conscious Caleb at his side.
"Found him! Come on! They're waiting for us at the top!"
Tobias adjusts his hold on me before running down the hall after them, anxiously breathing an explanation along the way.
"We saw the Hancock logo and came here. We recognized the tree by the window, so we knew which level you were on... getting up here is a long story," he sighs. "We killed a lot of people, including David. He's dead. He can't hurt you anymore. But there are still a ton of people down there. Amar called the... police. They're kind of like Dauntless. They're having them all locked up, but until they get here, those people are too dangerous. We have to take the zip line down," his voice shakes on the last sentence.
Sadness fills me. I have no problem going down the zip line, but I know how afraid of heights Tobias is.
He looks down at me, and if I've ever wondered how much he loves me, I have a pretty good idea by the way he looks at me.
"We have to get you to a hospital. I missed you so much," he says softly. I notice the pale color in his face, the shadows under his eyes. I wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face into it.
When we reach the roof, Caleb is just pushing off, screaming. Tobias sets me down and I rush to the edge.
"Who's first? Quick," Zeke says. Tobias looks frozen with fear.
"We're going together," I say firmly, taking his hand.
Zeke shrugs. "That works. Come on, hurry."
"Will that even work?" Tobias asks.
"Yeah. Did it once with Shauna. Hurry," Zeke replies.
"It's okay. Just like your landscape," I whisper to Tobias softly. I kiss him fiercely, pulling him as close as possible. For every moment that I've missed him this week, longed for his arms around me and the warmth of his body and the sound of his heartbeat. I've never been more grateful for his life.
The kiss appears to be what he needs to get into the sling, and I climb in in front of him.
"Ready?" Zeke asks.
Tobias grips both my hands in his and I nod.
Zeke pushes us off, and Tobias shouts.
I hold his hands tightly and grin, stretching my arms with his so we feel like birds.
My entire body sings as we zip through empty space, hundreds of yards above the ground. Free. I laugh joyously.
Tobias pulls the brake as we near the end, and we drop into the net of arms that await us.
Then I'm rushed to Amar's car, and we speed towards the nearest hospital.