Dear readers, followers and reviewers

I hope you're all enjoying the story so far. If you find the time, let me know what you think of it. Criticism is a good thing and requests are always welcome (although I make no promises).

As for those of you who have already reviewed: Thank you so much for your support! It really means a lot to me and every single one of your messages brings a smile to my face (which ultimately leads to me updating sooner, so if not for me, do it for yourself! haha). No, for real, I am so grateful.

Anyway, reviewer or not: I hope you will all enjoy the next chapter! It does mention child-death and corpses so if that's a trigger for you, you'd better skip to 'TPOV'.

Anyway, on with the story.

Love.

KPOV
FEARLANDSCAPE #3

Keena didn't know how long she had been subjected to the horrific sound of her crying siblings, but eventually it stopped. She had been sitting in the furthest corner of the room, covering her ears and trying to control her breathing, because after all, that's what helped her during her first fear when she had needed to calm herself down too.

Opening her eyes, Keena was surprised to realize the living room was still there, although instead of being alight like before, it now seemed to be evening and the lights were still off. Standing up and dusting of her clothes, she let her eyes adjust to the new-found darkness when a movement outside caught her attention.

Intrigued, Keena moved over to the window, taking special care not to show herself. Peeking around the curtain, she noticed a male figure on the other side of the street, watching the house and although she could not make out his face in the dim streetlights, something about his stance was awfully familiar to her.

A chill run down her spine when, just like that, he disappeared and suddenly reappeared in front of her, his hands pressed against the glass as his red-rimmed bloodshot eyes looked at her angrily.

"You." Keena figured to lipread, as the man tapped his finger accusingly against the window. "You, you, you-you-you." Scarlet tears started streaming down his face, slowly painting his cheeks the same deep dark red.

The tapping of his finger changed into the pounding of his fist. "You made me do it. You!" The man yelled now so hard she could actually hear him through the glass. "How could you?!"

Keena stumbled back a bit at the venom in his voice. What had she done to him? Had she even done anything, or was he just a madman? She didn't know him, right? But then why did he seem so awfully familiar? Tripping over a toy, she fell to the ground simultaneously as the man's voice seemed to come from everywhere and anywhere in the house, as if he were on speakers. Gripping the chair next to her in support to get up faster, Keena noticed bloodstains on her hands. Checking her hands for any injury but finding none, her eyes trailed the blood all the way up her arms, down her breast, stomach and legs only notice the pool of blood she was currently sitting in.

It was still warm too.

Her eyes shot to the man at the window in horror and shock, but he'd disappeared. The only indication he'd ever been there was the bloody handprint he left on the window, smutched out like some horror movie. Averting her eyes away from it, Keena suddenly found the entire house seemed covered in blood. The thick dark burgundy liquid was smeared on and dripped from the walls and furniture, congregating into multiple big piles of blood on the floor. In contrast with the white and clinical interior of the room, it seemed like an eerie slaughterhouse.

Having been too distracted by all the blood, Keena hadn't even noticed that the man's voice had seized chanting his accusations, but she was reminded of the lack in noise, when something infinitely worse replaced the brief silence. The voices of her siblings were back. Although this time, they weren't crying.

"You did this!"

"How could you?!"

"I hate you!"

"You are nothing to me!"

"Liar!"

Every one of her siblings' voices seemed to echo through the room, all chanting different, yet equally awful things to her. Just when Keena figured things couldn't turn more horrible, something fell from the ceiling – or sky, to be exact, since the ceiling had miraculously disappeared.

Moving closer to the object, Keena started to scream.

On the ground in front of her, laid the lifeless body of Aaron. A gunshot wound in his skull, blood dripping from his mouth. Keena's first instinct was to back away from it – him! – but she clumsily tripped over something behind her (yet again), falling backwards onto the floor.

Or, well, she would've, had she not fallen on top of the lifeless body of Dylan instead. One of his eyeballs had been ripped out while a large gaping wound on his throat was still spilling blood. Keena opened her mouth to scream, but her throat suddenly felt way too thick and dry to form any sound. Instead she threw up on the spot, quickly scurrying off her very much dead baby brother.

Corpses continued to fall from the sky and unfortunately, it didn't stop after one of each sibling either. No, quickly the entire floor was somehow filled with corpses as they fell down like rain. All dead, all being her siblings and all with horrible malformations and deformities afflicted to their person. It was one thing trying to keep her wits together and not throw up every two seconds, it was another to keep her head 'above water' and not somehow get buried under a dozen of her dead siblings. The ongoing audible jabs – manifesting in her siblings' accusations – didn't help much either.

"We trusted you."

"You were supposed to protect us."

"Failure."

"Look what you did!"

"We hate you!"

"This is your fault! And you will never be able to fix it!"

"Enough!" Keena chocked in a strangely high-pitched voice, as the molested and lifeless form of Marilee fell onto her shoulder before joining the stack of other bodies Keena was currently standing on.

Her dead baby-sister just fell on top of her… Her baby sister's corpse just fell on top off her.

This wasn't real. This wasn't real. This wasn't real!

On the brink of hyperventilating, Keena had the common sense to realize she really needed to get out of here before next time a corpse would fall on her head and knock her unconscious or worse.

She needed to focus.

Maneuvering herself over the carpet of bodies, Keena reached the window and used her elbow to smack through it, not caring for the shards sticking deep into her flesh.

"Leaving us again?!"

"Murderer!"

"You'll never outrun what you did!"

"You deserve to die!"

With a shuddering last breath, Keena forced her body through the window opening, somehow enjoying the feeling of the glass cutting into her skin.

After all… she deserved the pain.

TPOV

Tori made her way through the dancing crowd, trying her best to sidestep all the hot and sweaty bodies that would try to grope her. She loved this place normally, although granted, 'normally' always had included a lot of alcohol and sober the Basement just lost a lot of its appeal. Plus, today she was on a mission.

The mission of getting some ruthless leader's ass the fuck out of here.

Pushing past the last few bodies, she finally reached her destination: the VIP lounge. Word had made its way through Dauntless that Eric had been accepting all fights in the ring down here. 'The Basement' was the underground club in the very center of 'the Maze' (where the annual Christmas Party took place). It was a club with a lot of organized fighting combats. As soon as two people had a disagreement over anything really, they fought it out here. For hundreds of people to watch and bet on you or your opponent: You just announced it to the DJ, he would flip the music and everyone knew to clear the area right in front of the DJ-booth.

It was a popular and efficient way to settle – non-illegal – arguments, especially amongst friends. The winner won whatever he and his mate had been in an argument over, so everyone could continue the rest of the night without drama.

Eric however, seemed to have been provoking all kinds of people into combat. In a non-too-friendly way.

Five of them had already ended up in the infirmary, which was a lot since most Dauntless, especially when drunk, preferred to just drink or sleep the pain of their losses off or decided to self-medicate with a little help of the local drugstore and their First Aid kit. Tori could only guess how many more victims of Eric's wrath where out there, currently sulking and licking their wounds in the privacy of their own home.

Eric had taken on fights in the Basement before, but this – knocking them out cold and sending them off to the infirmary – was a whole different level.

"There he is." Zeke nudged Tori in her side, nodding his head to the left before walking off in the same direction.

Tori followed his lead, taking in the sight of a very intoxicated Eric, bloody and bruised with some scarcely dressed blond straddling his lap, while three other girls surrounded him.

"Looks like someone's having the time of his life." Zeke laughed as he plopped down on the couch next to one of the girls. "Do you mind, love?" He asked the pretty brunette, waving his hand dismissively away. An unmistaken order for her to get up and leave.

The brunette pouted prettily as she looked back at Eric, hoping to find some form of protest in him, but when she realized he wasn't paying her any mind she huffed and stormed off.

While Zeke scooched closer to his friend, Tori remained in her standing position on the other side of the table, watching the scene unfold. Zeke had – according to himself – a much better way of dealing with Eric than she had and honestly, after seeing this scene in front of her she was good just watching.

She had too little patience to deal with not only a drunk Eric, but three giggling whores as well. They looked like a bunch of fence-guards with their minimal sized muscles and pedicured nails.

They probably were.

Watching Eric for a second, nothing really seemed amiss though. At least, not in the way Tori had been expecting when she first heard the rumors of Eric fighting countless of men – and two or three women – down here tonight. She had expected more damage, more blood, more anything. But for someone who'd just send five guys to the infirmary, he looked impeccably untouched himself.

Then again, he was Dauntless' most feared leader for a reason.

But sure, for the outsider Eric looked the perfect part for the fucking brute and ruthless leader he always was. He was sitting in the VIP lounge with his bloody shirt on and a split open lip. His knuckles were covered in blood as well and he had a bunch of pretty girls surrounding him, one even on top of him… Yes, if that didn't scream 'most feared Dauntless leader', nothing did.

And yet… something felt off. He might look like he always had, but then she would be dismissing the past few months. This was the Eric she knew, yes, but it was the Eric she knew from before the Amity had come along.

Had he really changed that much since her arrival? She supposed he had. The changes had been made gradually, making them barely perceptible to spot, but she supposed he hadn't been seen a lot in the clubs these days, nor had there been rumors of yet another conquest of him in tears because he was 'already' fucking someone else, or didn't remember their names. He had been less violent and aggressive – which pretty much equaled happiness in Eric's book. So yes, the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that Eric really had changed over the past few months.

All he'd probably was trying to accomplish was reclaiming a part of his old self.

Not that that was working out for him. He might tolerate the blond on his lap, but it was obvious he wasn't paying her all that much attention, instead opting to look at the glass in his hand, swirling the amber colored liquor around.

In his own brute way, he looked fucking miserable.
Although it was a miserable with style, she'd give him that.

"Eric, the fuck are you doing?" Zeke stated lamely, snatching the glass out of Eric's hand and drinking it empty himself. Well, so much for his 'tactic' in handling Eric.

"Get your own drink." Eric snarled, trying to sit upright before realizing there was still a blonde on his lap. "What the fuck do you want?" He snarled at her.

"Baby!" The girl shrieked, before whispering something in Eric's ear, conveniently pushing her double D's flush against his chest in the process.

Eric grimaced, but still nodded before both of them got up. "We're leaving." He told Zeke.

"Splendid!" Zeke cried in jest. "You're place? My place? Her place?" He looked at the other two girls on Eric's other side that had stood up as well. "Their place?"

Eric snorted unimpressed. "You wish."

"What? Three for one?" Zeke sputtered undignified, a hinge of jealousy in his voice. "That's hardly fair. Besides ladies, I really wouldn't want to go there if I were you." He told them, taking in their appearances one by one. So Zeke had noticed it too.

The girls were all blondes, and all reasonably small and thin build for a Dauntless. Not as extreme as the petite Amity perhaps, but the alikeness was there.

"And why's that?" One of the other two girls asked in a weird sultry kind of voice. "If any guy can handle all three of us, it's Eric, I'm sure."

"Oh, no doubt." Zeke grinned at Eric's angry face from his position on the couch, not even bothering to get up himself. "IF he gets it up in his intoxicated state, I bet it will be lovely to hear him scream another name."

The blonde at Eric's side looked over at Eric. "You know our names, don't you baby?"

Poor thing. Eric didn't even try to look ashamed.

"Nope."

The three girls looked at each other for a moment, before they shrugged. "No mind. He can call us anything he wants too." One giggled, before taking his hand and pulling Eric behind them.

Tori sighed. It appeared this was all coming down on her again. Grabbing his arm as the group walked past her, Eric turned to look at her.

"Wu." Eric acknowledged, his eyes burning holes through her. "You here too? What a coincidence." His words were practically dripping with sarcasm.

"Coulter." Tori nodded back, knowing her eyes conveyed all he needed to know. She would make his life a living hell if he went with these girls. She couldn't exactly tell him that, Eric didn't take well to orders after all, and especially in public no one did go against Eric. Unless you had a dead-wish.

It didn't matter how good friends you were. Out in public, Eric was not to be argued with. He was the leader. His wish was your command. If you wanted to accomplish anything from him, you needed to convey the message without challenging him. That would only have the adverse effect.

Tori held his gaze steadily and he read it just perfectly.

"Girls, why don't you go ahead. I'll come later."

"But you don't even know where we live yet." One complained.

Eric's eyes snapped to her, his signature glare in place. "Leave." He hissed authoritatively.

Naturally, they hurried away. Everyone would. Even Tori would know not to fuck with him on a time like that.

"So, what is this?" Eric snarled, plopping back onto the couch. "A fucking intervention of sorts? No sex? Mommy, daddy, pray do tell, do I have a curfew as well?"

"Are you daft?! We did you a motherfucking favor." Tori snapped back at him.

"Favor?! You call that a favor?!" Eric barked. "I was about to have some mind blowing sex with three pretty girls. As far as I'm concerned you just cockblocked me." His eyes flashed angrily at Zeke. "You both did."

"Yeah, because a foursome is exactly what you want right now." Tori rolled her eyes.

With the second Eric was off the couch and in front of her, his hand painfully gripping her upper arm as he stared her down. "Don't pretend to know what I want." He hissed dangerously.

"In case you hadn't noticed, those girls were the spotting image of the Amity, Eric." Tori growled back in a hushed tone to avoid people from hearing her name. "How's that supposed to help you, hm? Fucking three smaller-sized blondes, while the one you actually want lays in the fucking infirmary!"

"That's her own doing." Eric stated, although all the anger had suddenly evaporated from his voice. "Besides, she has made clear what she wants and it sure as hell didn't align with my wishes. So now I make new ones." And without another word, he marched off.

"Don't worry. He's going home." Zeke told her from his position on the couch. "Alone."

"Yeah, I know." Tori sighed, making her way over to him and plopping down next to him. "It's just weird I had almost forgotten this part of him, you know?"

"I know. Me too." Zeke chuckled, shaking his head before standing up and holding his hand out to her. "C'mon let's grab a drink. This place is rubbish without one."

Tori chuckled and slapped his hand away. "You go get it, loser." She ordered him. "I did all the work back there."

Zeke's eyebrows shot up. "What? You want to say my good-cop, bad-cop tactic didn't work? I planned this all out, love." At her raised eyebrow he threw up his hands in defeat. "Fine, fine. What do you want?"

Tori grinned. "Something strong."