Oh. My. Goodness. The Divergent movie was amazing! I found it a lot funnier than I should have when I saw that one Initiate was named Noah :-)
Sorry this took so long. The fact that Tuvia is not Divergent means that he has more fears, and they take a while longer than they would for a Divergent person.
I don't have too much to say other than about the movie. All I can really say is...get excited for the chapters to come, because schist's goin' down(yes. Percy Jackson reference)! Well...hope you like this chapter!
Tuvia:
Fear. Fear's a weird thing. It makes you want to run and stand still at the same time. Fear makes you sweat, even though you feel cold. All I can say for sure is that I'd definitely rather not have to experience every fear I have lined up in some weird Terror Parade.
"Hey, Four?" I ask, watching him pick up the menacing, all-too-familiar syringe.
"Well, I'm not Eric," Four smirks.
"Four," I repeat. "How long does this take?"
He shrugs. "Depends on how many fears you have. Could have fifteen, twenty fears...and it might take a while longer if you suck at dealing with fear."
Fifteen or twenty fears? So, what, a half hour in my own personalized Hell? What if I can't do this? I already have seen how weak I can be mentally - I'm freaking insane. And nobody can deal with someone like me for too long.
"How many fears did you have?" I ask, trying to look emotionless. But I'm losing my mind all over again. I can feel my sanity exploding in my head, burning and collapsing onto itself.
He scowls, his jaw going rigid. "It's hardly your place to ask me such things. Sit still."
Ignore everything, just sit still. I pretend I'm dead, since I'm probably better off that way, letting Four plunge the syringe into my skin. The world fizzles away from my vision, making up, down, left and right swirl into a nauseating jumble before my closing eyes.
My eyes open to the sound of laughing. Everyone I know - old friends from Amity, new friends from Dauntless, people to whom I only ever muttered rushed greetings, all jeering and pointing at me. I try to raise my arms and ask what might be so funny, but chains yank at my wrists, handcuffs cutting into my hands. The blood trickling down my forearm only makes the crowd erupt with laughter.
A breeze scurries around my body, but the wind feels weird. Colder, like it's hitting bare skin. I look down, and see that the air is, in fact, rushing over me without protection, other than a pair of briefs decorated with tiny, cheerful bunnies. In. Public.
No. No. This can't be happening. When did I even buy these? Why am I here? I think, then laugh grimly at myself. I'm here because I deserve it. I'm here because I'm hardly human. Never was. Never will be. Even Sivan couldn't bear being around me. I'm probably why Nechemia left Amity, when he was sixteen.
"Hey, Little Brother!" Nechemia shouts, as if on cue. "Tuvia, it looks like there's two-of-ya!"
Sivan shrieks with laughter at the dreadful pun, standing out among the rumbling chuckles waving through the crowd, as everyone watches my abdomen expand, concealing the hard-earned muscles behind a layer of fat. Stupid people, I think bitterly, but I'm even worse. I must have ruined the life of every single person here, in some way. The same way they tear mine apart, I tear apart everything. I tear apart myself, so I am floating in the winds, shreds of what I never was, ruining everything nearby.
WHACK. Something slaps my back, a blunt force, knocking me forward. The chains make me feel like my hands have just been cut off, and the tormentors surrounding me guffaw at my cry of pain. I look back to see, through my swimming vision, my mother - my own mother, grasping a metal club.
She raises her weapon again, preparing to strike. I want to stop her, but I know I deserve the pain. I deserve every pain. This isn't enough, but nothing ever will be. I am a curse on everything, and everything curses me back.
WHACK.
WHACK.
WHACK.
She wields the club once again, blood dripping down my back, arms, stomach, and legs. Just before she strikes, I whisper, "Make sure to get my head. And make it count." I wish I could hit myself with a club, for everything I've done, but I know I'm too weak.
She sneers, raising her club a bit higher, then slams it down onto my head.
There.
Good.
I'm dead.
Except I'm not. I open my eyes, expecting to see whatever Hell looks like, the especially horrible one designed for a creature like myself. But I don't see anything.
I let the darkness move around, in, out, and through me. The darkness wraps around the darkness inside of me, so I really can see how I feel. That's it. I wanted to die, but I didn't deserve it. I don't deserve to live, but I don't deserve the luxury of death. And nobody deserves the luxury of my death, nor do they deserve the punishment of my life. So this is where I'll be forever. In the darkness of my soul. Alone. Where I can't ruin anything but myself. And I will. I always do.
Wait. If I'm alone, why do I hear skittering noises?
If I'm alone, why did something just brush against my ankle, something with fur that caresses my skin like Satan's giving me "tickle torture"?
Suddenly, interrupting my panicked thoughts, the lights flip on. Dozens of tiny, beady eyes glare at me, just waiting to feast on my flesh. Rats. Their long, pink tails squirm in the air as they begin advancing toward me.
My first instinct is to shout for help, but I stand paralyzed, my whole body frozen by the gaze of the menacing rodents. Suddenly, a thought rushes through my mind like venom entering my bloodstream. Funny thing is, I am the venom. They are near me. When things are near me, they die. The rats will die.
I take a deep breath, grin, and hold out my arms. "Come on!" I shout. "I'm waiting for you!"
The rats scurry toward me, climbing up my pant legs, nibbling on my skin. I feel blood flowing down my shins, pooling in my socks, while tiny claws dig into my skin.
Finally, as the fifth rat steps, without hesitation, onto the toe of my shoe, I smirk and bend down. I grab the rodent with a single hand wrapped around its abdomen. "Nobody gets this close without suffering," I tell the creature, but it doesn't seem to be listening. Really, it's just poking its nose in all directions, panicking. He's right to panic, being this close to a monster - a monster who is done with everything and everyone.
My laughter terrifies me, as I tighten my grip around the rat's fragile ribcage. When I hear the final crack, watching the little animal fall limp in my fist, I feel myself cracking. I fall on the floor, cackling like a maniac.
"I CAN KILL YOU ALL!" I shriek at the rats, who are all running away. Yes! Yes! Those terrible, horrifying things are going away!
I would have killed them all - really, I would - but the scene fizzles away like everything I've ever known. And that, really, is my own fault. My life is like an acid that just keeps eating away at everything. And the victims eat back at the acid, hurting each other at the same time.
My vision clears up in an enormous house, with a table covered in food, some song about having the "guts to say anything" blasting through the room, and at least a hundred people dancing, talking, or kissing, scattered in little clusters all over the house. How'd I get into this party? I ask myself.
Shooting for the stars, desperately reaching for something in the dark, pictures of memories...
Suddenly, a familiar voice laughs behind me. A laugh that was always so loud, there is no way I could miss it. A laugh I heard for most of my life, a voice I missed for a long time. I turn around, and smile at the owner of the laugh.
"Hey, Nechemia!" I shout, waving frantically as I try to be heard over the music. Now that he's here, maybe I'll be happier. Or, in general...happy. To any degree
Nechemia jumps at hearing his name, but he glares at me, once he sees who is calling his name. "Tuvia," he scowls.
"What's up?" I ask him, pretending not to notice.
"Tuvia," he says coldly. "You're not my brother."
"Well, sure, I am!" I growl quietly, trying to keep my anger contained. "Dad always said you can't choose your family!"
"I have no Dad," Nechemia frowns. "Or family. Go away. Now."
"Okay," I shrug, feigning indifference. "Bye."
When I turn around, my eyes are instantly drawn to the back of a girl's head across the room. I'd know that hair anywhere. And I know what I need to tell her.
Lie awake and dream of the endless possibilities, catch my breath, and go for it.
Before I really know where my legs are taking me, they bring me over to the girl. When I'm eight feet away, I shout out, "Hey! Sivan!"
Only then do I realize why I only saw the back of her head. Sivan is a bit preoccupied with someone else's face. The face of a ghost - but this ghost is alive.
"Ioni?" I whisper hoarsely. "What are you..."
He pulls away from Sivan, making a sort of grotesque sucking sound. "Oh, we're together now. Didn't you know?"
I didn't know you were alive to begin with, I almost tell him. But my mouth is frozen shut with shock, confusion, and the realization that every brick of my life is slowly crumbling.
"I..." I finally choke out.
"You'll what?" Ioni smirks.
After some unintelligible stammering, I finally come to a conclusion. Without replying, I sprint up the spiral staircase a few meters away.
Take apart everything that's holding me down.
"Our action was too hot for you?" Ioni calls as I run. "I understand. Bathroom's third door on the left. Don't break your hand!"
Make a point to pick a new direction, find a new connection.
I can see the bathroom door, but I'm not up here to "play with" myself. I'm here to finish what should never have started in the first place.
The window is hard to open, but I finally push it up, letting the summer breeze blow by my face, swallowing the music. Without much more hesitation, I take a final breath, and jump out. I feel the wind moving around me as I drop, making my jacket billow out, just as it did on my first day in Dauntless.
Only a few meters now. I won't survive this. Good. Five feet, three feet, one foot...
There. I must be dead. My world is all fuzzy, and I feel sort of like I'm floating a few inches above the ground. I'm not floating, though - I'm lying flat on my back, vision swimming, like I'm looking through bubbles.
Wait. On my back? I fell on my stomach. Onto a sidewalk. But I'm on grass now. What happened?
Before I can even see anything, I feel something moist pressing into my ear. I quickly realize it's a nose, sniffing into my mind, smelling the remnants of my soul. I don't know whose nose is in my ear, but I know it's no one pleasant, as my body loses any ability to move, other than slight tremors.
When my vision clears, I see what is attached to the nose. A tiny head and body, enormous ears, and cheerful yipping. A freaking chihuahua.
I bolt up into a sitting position, only to see a whole landscape of those little buggers. Chihuahuas by my head, chihuahuas by my feet, chihuahuas over the freaking horizon. I'm probably lying on a bunch of little dead chihuahuas, but I don't mind. I hate these things. And it's their own fault, ending up so close to the human version of death itself.
"Yip! Yip!" A noise in my ear, replacing the nose, makes me jump. Instinctively, I turn toward the noise, and find myself face to face with...
A chihuahua. Oh my G-d, it's a chihuahua.
I don't know why I'm so scared of them, but I don't know how anyone wouldn't be terrified of these furry creeps. I'll bet Satan's down there in Hell somewhere, petting chihuahuas. Or maybe Satan is a chihuahua. I wouldn't be surprised.
I reach a hand forward to snap the neck of one nearby, but I pull back. What if it bites me? What if I get rabies? What if they all just ambush me?
For a few seconds, I sit still, wondering what I can do. Suddenly, before I've even decided what I can do, the dogs begin jumping on me. First, one leaps onto my ankles. Then, one on my chest. Before I can realize what is happening, they pile all over my body, holding me down, suffocating me by covering my mouth and nose. My lungs burn from lack of oxygen - and, probably, from inhaling bits of fur.
I'm going to die. I am going to die. First, the panic breaks in, causing me to turn cold and clammy, despite the layers of fur and body heat on top of me. Then, I realize that everyone - and everything - is better off without me. If only everything else could die, so nothing would exist anymore. Then all would really be well. Nothing can be okay when I exist. And nothing will ever be okay with anything existing.
Especially chihuahuas.
With this in mind, I lie still, waiting for nothing else except death. As the air in my lungs is exhaled, with nothing to take its place, my brain feels less and less substantial, until I feel like I myself have become an abstract idea.
Not long now. Not long at all. Not l...
I feel the last of my life fade away at last, smiling with the last of my strength.
Why am I breathing now, if I'm dead?
I open my eyes, noticing how easy it is, all of a sudden, for a dead man to breathe. When my vision stops screwing with my head, I see that I am laying on the floor of a room with white tiles, and pastel pink walls. But I can hardly see the pink, because navy blue doors line the walls at a ridiculously high concentration. There can't be much more than a bunch of very narrow hallways beyond those doors, unless there's some sort of "bigger on the inside" technology - which doesn't exist. I open a nearby door, wondering what I'll see inside, but I see nothing but an eternity of darkness.
"Mommy?" A child's voice calls from within the open door. "Mommy, I'm scared!"
I don't know who this is, but I reply, "What is it?"
"The dark," the voice whispers, no longer from a door, but ringing through my very being, as though someone had found the center of my soul, and was muttering into the ear of my soul.
"Don't be frightened," I told the voice - but I knew I was more telling myself, not to fear this child. "It's only the dark."
"It's not just dark!" The voice shrieks, now behind a door again. The voice sounds like it must be only a few feet from reaching this room. "Help! It's going to eat me!"
"What will?" I ask, but I get no reply. After a few seconds, I repeat my question. "What will?"
A shriek pierces the eerie tension, sharply cutting itself off after two seconds or so, leaving only the echo. What happened to the girl?
"Are you alright?" I shout into the void, receiving no answer. My skin turns so cold and clammy, I could end up covered in a thin blanket of ice soon. Something's wrong here, and I can't quite match what it is.
My eyes scan the room, searching for something, anything, that could hint at the problem. I stop when I detect movement, just at the very edge of my vision, far to my left. I turn toward the movement, but all I see is a shadow from the door I opened.
Wait.
That door is on the other side of the room. There's no way a shadow of a simple door could stretch that far.
Dread infects my body like a toxin as I realize what this is. I know this as well as I know the dark midnights of my childhood, spent lying awake after I woke from my nightmares. My nightmares of The Darkness. The Darkness is real, it is here.
It is coming for me.
When the shadow realizes I understand what it is, it begins slinking along the floor at an accelerated speed toward me, trying to catch me faster. I stand frozen, preparing for death. Soon, The Darkness will find its way in, through my nose or mouth, and poison my soul with its essence. If it doesn't kill me, it'll do something close, or maybe worse.
Come on, Tuvia, I think desperately as The Darkness comes closer, squeezing my eyes shut. What do people do when they feel dark inside?
Turn on the light.
Yes! Yes! The light! Love! Think about love!
The problem, I realize, is that I'm not capable of love - accepting or feeling. Every love I've ever known has shattered, frozen, or been torn away before its full blaze could show. How can I think about something I've never really had? All I really know is a childhood full of girls who just wanted to hook up, a family full of people who leave me and scream at me, and friends who I ruin, whether I like it or not.
Where can I find love? Somewhere, somewhere...
Suddenly, a scene fights its way into my mind. I sit on a red blanket under a tree, surrounded by my family, who is smiling, all dressed in their own Faction colors, but still looking so warmly at me. And Sivan - dressed in black, one arm wrapped around my shoulder, eyes gazing lovingly at me.
Love. It can happen. It just takes hope.
"Hope," I whisper. I open my eyes just in time to see The Darkness reach me. "Hope! Hope!" I begin shrieking, hoping, hoping, hoping, that hope can be enough. But I feel myself fading, fading away, seeing nothing but haze and bubbles. I must have lost my battle. Right? This is death.
And now I've gone to Hell. Back when Dauntless Initation began, I should have known Dauntless was a sort of Hell. Because here I am, right where we used to throw knives. I'm right on the target.
Wait. What?
Four stands in front of me, where I'd be standing if I were practicing my knife throwing. He smirks at me, and every Initiate snickers, whispering to each other. I take a deep breath. Oh. Breathing. I guess I'm not dead. Yet. Shoot.
"Quiet!" Four snaps. "Now, this is what you get for being a cowardly little hobbit-monster." He smiles, a menacing curve interrupting the hard angles of his face. His muscles tense with excitement as Tris hands him a knife. "Don't flinch. Or I may need to hold you down. And we know how well I can aim a knife when I'm close enough to pin you against a wall."
Knives. This madman is going to throw knives at me. I didn't tell anyone before - not even Sivan - but I'm terrified of knives. Ever since I tried to kill Shmuel, I've just feared knives, and stabbing in general. It just makes me think of the insanity that still is me. "Have you lost your mind?" I shout at him, but I don't dare run. He's just catch me. And I'd rather die on my own terms, not the ones of someone else.
"My mind's not nearly as lost as your blood will be," he prepares to throw his knife. "Don't flinch."
When the first knife is sent flying, I pretend it's not real. I pretend I'm just watching a 3-D movie. With excellent graphics. Really excellent.
The second knife, however, pins one of my curls right to the wall. I shut my eyes, cringing as my hair is tugged slightly, stuck against the wall.
Wait. My breath stops in my throat. My whole body stops functioning. I flinched.
Four sneers. He must have noticed, because he's walking over to me. "You flinched," he whispers. His breath smells like chocolate cake, which is weird.
I nod, my entire body feeling cold and sweaty. But I won't feel for much longer. Four has my chest slammed against the target with one strong hand.
"I'm going to make this fun," he says, pausing for everyone to cheer. Sivan cheers the loudest, clapping her hands gleefully. You'd think he'd just said 'it's time to give Sivan cake now.'
He begins with my hair, which I used to love so much. He hacks it off with the knife, until I have a head covered in uneven tufts of fluff, and a few bleeding nicks in my scalp.
"Not done!" Four sings out. He slices down my arms, letting blood drip off of my fingertips like children on a slide. He traces every contour and line of my face with his blade, turning my face into a grid of deep gashes. He takes my throat in his left hand, holding my body in place with a knee to the stomach(punctuated by a foot to a place where anyone knows a foot can really hurt a guy, if you know what I mean, and carves his name into my throat, just shallow enough to keep me alive, just deep enough to make me feel like I want to die. F. O. U. R.
"Please," I whisper. "End it."
"Since you said 'please,'" he grins, and brings his knife toward my chest.
At the last moment, I realize something. I can fight. I grab his hand, which was wrapped around the knife. I twist his hand which, combined with his shock, releases his grip. When the knife is in my hand, I advance on him.
"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to kill people who are smaller than you?" I look him in the eyes one last time, then I stab his forehead with the might of a million angry thoughts. When I see the light leave his eyes, the vibrant, invigorated color leave his face as blood seeps around the blade of my knife, I feel a sick glory. I just killed Four. I just killed someone who wanted to kill me. Finally, my way of being a toxin can help me.
I think the blood loss is getting to me, since the whole room is spinning around me as I sink to the floor. The universe is a spiral of time and space, spinning in, out, and around me. Finally, everything goes black.
I'm dead. I must be. There's no way around it. Nobody's exactly going to run and help the guy who just murdered Four.
I open my eyes, knowing I must - at last - be in heaven. I always imagined heaven to be very white, groups of happy dead people strolling about on cloud-made roads and sidewalks. The only clouds I see, however, are above me, in the sky, in the spaces between jewel-green leaves. I must be in a forest. In heaven?
Shoot. Either I'm still alive, or heaven's not half as cool as I imagined. It's pretty, sure, but not really what I thought.
"What are you doing?!" A voice pierces my warm serenity, making me jump to a sitting position. A panicked young man, thirty years old at most, with brown hair that must have been well-kept this morning - but now is messy and uneven, his fringe flattened to his forehead with sweat - stands a few meters to my right.
"Are you G-d?" I whisper, just loudly enough for him to hear, as the awe keeps me from talking at a normal volume. I stand up quickly, ready to bow.
"No, I'm not G-d!" The man shouts, and holds out his arms, as if asking 'what's your issue?' "I'm Matt! Run!"
I sprint to catch up with him. Sprinting. With Matt. Who is not I'm alive. "Run where? Why?"
"Anywhere but here! Someone set fire to the forest! Spreading fast! No more talking!" We keep running, not speaking. Just panting.
Thud. Without warning, my foot catches on a tree root, and I fall forward onto the ground. A shooting pain travels through my ankle, making me moan as I clutch my foot. I can see the flames licking at trees, climbing toward me with speed.
I try to stand up, but my ankle gives in to the fire I already feel in my leg, and I fall back down. "Matt!" I cry out. Matt, however, is too far by now to hear me over the sound of the crackling fire.
I've always been scared of burning. Ever since I saw Dauntless children burning insects on the playground with an Erudite girl's magnifying glass, I've felt ridiculously uncomfortable around fire. How fitting that something I have feared so much should be my downfall.
No. There must be some way to survive. There must be. I whip my head around desperately, searching for anything to help me. Finally, I see something glinting past the trees. Maybe 100 yards away or so, I see...is that water? Is that a freaking creek?!
I'm not sure - could be an illusion cast by the heat of the fire, or the pain in my leg - but it's my best bet for survival. If I can just get to the water...
I know I can't run to the water, no matter what. I take a deep breath, and do the only thing I can do to survive - I crawl. I crawl like the wind. A really slow, really painful wind.
I can almost feel the flames biting at me as I try to head toward the creek, urging me to keep moving forward. Finally, I feel mud under my palms as I crawlfurther toward the bank, dampened dirt ruining my pants - but I don't care. I just can't burn. Maybe I can die another way - any other way - but I can't burn.
When I am roughly six feet away from the creek, I begin to smell a different sort of burning, not like the burning trees. I glance around, unsure of what might be freshly set alight.
My first clue is when my right arm feels weirdly hot. Panicked, I turn my head, and find myself facing a spreading fire up my shirt sleeve. I let out a childish shriek - I don't care who hears me now - and dive for the creek. I sit in the shallow area of the water, looking at my charred sleeve, which is now extinguished. The forest fire avoids the creek, passing me as it continues its reign of terror.
I close my eyes and sigh, feeling triumphant. I did it. Beat my fear of fire. "Yes!" I shout, opening my eyes.
When I open my eyes, I don't see the blazing woods. Instead, I find myself in a blindingly white room, so white I can't even pinpoint the approximate size of my confinement. I have to shut my eyes again, open them, and rub them vigorously with my fists to convince myself that, yes, I'm somehow out of the forest. I know it's not heaven, because I know I must have defeated the fire. Right?
In that case, I have no idea what this could be. If I'm alive, where am I? And how did I get here?
"Tu."
The high-pitched, eerie voice makes me jump. I whip my head in all directions, finally seeing what must have made the noise: a little doll, with big black buttons for eyes, a knitted orange sweater, a pink skirt, and blue ribbons woven into her black braided pigtails. Her little felt smile is tilted up at me as she sits on the floor, staring into my soul.
I know this doll. It's the creepy doll that Tzippi girl had as a kid, when she lived down the street from me in Amity. I always hated that little devil-thing. Wait. How did it just talk? It's just a little doll her mother made of a few torn dresses and an empty potato sack.
Something's seriously wrong here. I stand up and back away, but I trip backwards over something - something that, as I fall, says a single word:
"Tu."
I begin hearing more voices behind my back, all identical. I turn around to see an army of the same little doll, repeated in a grotesque infinity.
"Tu."
"Tu."
"Tu."
"Tu."
Tu. The name Tzippi called me, back in Kindergarten. She used to push her doll in my face and cry out, "Tu! Tu!"
"Tzippi? Come on!" I call out, hoping she'll pop out with a hidden microphone, shrieking, 'you shoulda seen your face, Tu!'
When nobody comes out to end what I still hope is just a prank, I try to pick up the nearest doll and find a microphone. When I lift the doll off of the ground, however, she suddenly heats up, transmitting the heat of what must be every summer combined into my fingertips. I let go of the toy, yelping in pain, eyes screwed up as I try to keep from exploding like a popcorn kernel.
Still, I realize, the voices are multiplying. Which means the dolls are multiplying, every moment I don't see them. But I'm afraid to open my eyes, and see the little dolls ready to strike.
Nobody would go to these lengths to prank a childhood friend. This must be real. I force myself to open my eyes, and I am no longer able to see anything but dolls. A doll skyline - er, ceiling-line, as I'm still indoors - stretching beyond the horizon.
"Tu."
"Tu."
"Tu."
Soon, the room will be full of them. I can't hold off forever, but I can try to get them away for a bit.
"Tu."
"Tu."
"Tu."
But how? I could burn my hands off!
"Tu."
"Tu."
"Tu."
I'm desparate. Without another moment's hesitation, I swing my leg back, and kick a doll as far as I can, watching her sail over her brethren in an almost comical manner.
I can kick them.
I send off several dozen with roundhouse kicks conditioned by the days spent in combat in Dauntless training. I don't realize my maniacal laughter at first but, when I finally notice, it just further propels me to kick dolls.
After a while, I look up at the ceiling, arms outstretched, my cackling so strong it hurts my throat. "You're all just dolls! You can't control me!"
I lie on my stomach, eye-level with the doll-clones. "You. Don't. Scare. Me. That clear? IS. THAT. CLEAR?"
I never get an answer, because the dolls all begin fading away, their vibrant orange sweaters becoming pale orange, then oranges-and-cream, and finally blending with the entire room to make a universe of oblivion around me.
The oblivion quickly fades into a new scene, enriched with a field of the greenest grass I've ever seen, as I stand beside my fellow Initiates, Eric and Four standing a few feet away from our line of people. I make a face. Am I high? I wonder. Bright colors, weird events, Four who is dead...I'm probably high off of some drug. Yeah.
"Come on, guys!" Ohad yells, as the Initiates begin to run. A train is coming, sending a dizzying vibration though the air and ground, and we must be on our way somewhere. Where? No clue.
Margalit is the first to get on the train, after Four and Eric. Then, Yaakov hops on, his long legs bounding almost effortlessly into the train car. Avigayil follows, her shorter stature requiring a bit more effort, but her leg muscles, strengthened by Initiation, make the jump possible.
Everyone continues jumping onto the train car, whenever they feel ready. I am the last to jump, embracing the air as I sail inward...until I hit a tall, muscular wall of human. I open my eyes to see Four glaring at me.
"You can't ride with us," he grunts.
I scowl back. "What do you mean? All the other Initiates are here!"
"Emphasis on 'Initiates,' Tuvia," he smirks at me, since I must look as confused as I feel. "Did I forget to tell ya? You're out."
My breath stops in my throat. "Of Dauntless? Why?" I can feel my hands getting cold, and my face getting hot, and my heart thumps so loudly, I can bet that Four can hear it. I'm blinded by fear, which swirls my vision into a Hell in Real Life, so I can't exactly read his face to find out.
"Because," Eric sneers, interrupting us. "You're a little Pansycake. Coward," he laughs as he tries to shove me out of the train car to my likely death, but I grab his jacket collar as I fall, and he manages to keep himself on the train, which keeps me on as well.
Four groans. "Eric! I could've pushed him out of the train better than you! It takes skill to screw that up!"
"I can practice on you, and try again on the Initiate," Eric snarls. "Since you're too much of a coward to push the kid yourself, with all your high-and-mighty talk."
If I can get them into a fight...my mind races in a million different directions, finally deciding on one. Risky, sure, but possibly epic.
While they argue, I leave Eric's side, and cut in front of Four. "Hey!" I taunt. "Not his fault I know how to use strategy to survive! Not his fault I'm smarter than you!"
Eric lunges forward, his fist ready to make contact with my face, but I duck down at the last moment, and leap to the right, so Eric hits Four instead. Four, blood streaming down his chin in two crimson flows from his nostrils, sends his knee into Eric's abdomen. While Eric is hunched over, Four tries to punch his face, but Eric grabs hold of the fist, twisting his arm to the left.
Four, instinctively moving with the forced direction of his arm, loses his footing, and begins falling out of the train car. In the half-second he has before an almost inevitable death on the tracks, he grabs Eric's throat, bringing them both down to spatter their blood along the tracks.
I poke my head out of the train to look back at the two, but I never see them. Once my face hits the rushing wind, everything goes black.
When I wake, I'm in my bed. My Amity bed, from when I was a kid. The soft white pillow engulfs the back of my head like a cloud strangling me, but in a good way. I almost drift back to sleep - after weeks of sore muscles in coed bunkers, I deserve it - but my door opens slowly, timidly, to reveal the face of a girl with a round face and long red hair.
"Amy," I smile. She was a good friend, when we were younger. She's cheerful - even by Amity standards, funny, and loved to make apple pie with me on the weekends.
Amy's ever-smiling eyes, however, now are lined instead with worry. I give her a questioning look, and she replies by opening the door further, revealing a round, bulging stomach.
"Hello, Tuvia," she whispers. "I see you're back."
"You're..." I stammer.
"Yeah," she sighs.
"Pregnant," I say awkwardly. "How? I mean, I know how, but who..."
She bites her lip. "You."
I nearly choke to death on the millions of thoughts running through my mind. I know what happened. I'd erased it from my mind, but now I remember.
It was two nights before the Aptitude Test, and I sat in my living room with a few friends, reminiscing about simpler times in childhood to keep each other laid-back. When everyone went home, Amy stayed with me, since she only lived next door. We made sandwiches for dinner - we both stress-ate, and ended up having five each. One thing led to another - I don't really recall much of it - and I woke up at five in the morning with her long red hair splayed in a fan around her head on my pillow, right next to me.
Panic rising in my throat, I woke her up hastily. She got up, got dressed, and walked home, and we never spoke of it again - not that we had much time to talk before I left Amity.
"I got you..."
"Yeah."
"Sorry," I mumble stupidly. "Didn't mean to."
Really, I didn't. The guilt is biting at me like a dozen rats. Soon, there will hardly be anything left of me. I feel like I've ruined this sweet, loving, amazing girl's life, by leaving her alone to care for this baby.
"Just wish you could be here to help me care
for it. But we're in different Factions now," she shrugs, hugging her belly.
My heart stops at her words. For so long, I have been broken down by people who leave me - my mother who hates me, Ioni who committed suicide, my brother who is Candor, and so many others. Her words unintentionally sting me. I have become my own demons.
"I'll help you!" I blurt out shakily, my voice cracking. I have always feared becoming what I always despised - and, after that night, before I deleted it from my mind, I had been feeling so guilty, so nervous that I'd gotten Amy pregnant. Now the fear has been confirmed. I need to make it up to her.
But how can I care for a baby? I can hardly handle having friends, without them hating me. I'll be ruining another life. I'm so terrified of ruining someone else.
Amy's eyes shine, a hopeful smile playing along the contours of her face. She isn't thinking what I'm worried about. "Really? How?"
"We can..." I take a few seconds to think. "If we were to both drop out of our Factions - no. No, forget I said that. We aren't raising a baby in Factionless. But we can meet up frequently, and I can help with the baby!"
Her eyes fill with tears as she nods vigorously. "Yes. Yes, I'd love that!"
I give her a little grin. "Together?"
She reaches her hand out to mine. "Together."
Once we touch hands, my entire universe fizzles away. My vision refocuses in a large room, full of people observing me. That's it. That's my fear landscape. Ten fears, and I am done. My heart is still racing, but I've faced my fears.
Four claps a hand on my back. "You have completed your Fear Landscape with ten fears in seventeen minutes. You'll see the final ranks at dinner," he announces, then his voice drops. "Tuvia," he whispers gently. "You ended a lot of those with suicide attempts."
"So?" I mumble.
He raises an eyebrow. "Did you forget to take your medicine?"
I think back to my morning. Got up, got dressed, brushed teeth, out the door. Sheepishly, I shake my head.
"Go," he commands me. "Take them. Now. We don't need any real suicide. Or homicide."
I slide out of the chair. "By the way," I smile awkwardly. "I don't actually want to kill you or anything."
"Thanks," Four smirks. "I appreciate it."
Well, that was fun! Sorry it took so long, it's just...it's a long chapter :-)
Anyway, hope you liked this. Baiiii!
