I woke up in a dark room. I hated the dark. I started to panic, but I remembered this was all just a simulation, and there should be a way to end this fear. I felt the walls for a light switch. Nothing. I gave the walls another once over in desperation and found a switch. That was odd, it wasn't there before.

I turned the lights on and found myself in a field. The wall and switch had disappeared. There was a whinny behind me, and I turned to be greeted by a black horse. It sniffed my hand and muzzled it, in what I thought was an affectionate gesture. But after it had muzzled me, it rose its head. Its ears twitched and started to act skittish. I tried to calm it down, but suddenly it reared, and galloped off. I looked in the direction that the horse was staring at, and saw some black blobs moving towards me. As they got closer, I heard thundering, like hooves. Now I could see what they were. It was a herd of horses, around 30 strong. Plenty to trample me.

Now they were even closer. I doubt I'd be able to scare them away, especially in a simulation. I could run to the side to get out of the way, but I would be crushed. If I could run with them, I should be able to get on a horse's back, away from their hooves. I started to run, knowing they'd catch up. The first horse thundered past me, then the second, third and fourth. I sprinted in the middle of them. I was lagging now; I had to find a horse, and quickly. Fortunately, I saw one cantering next to me, this one seemed much older and slower than the rest. I grabbed on to its mane, and ran alongside it, swinging myself on to its back. The horse didn't protest and let me stay. Now what to do? I decided I wouldn't be able to think with my heart racing, so I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself down, But as I regained my composure, the fear ended.

I opened me eyes and found myself walking towards what looked like a dentist's chair, in a white room. I couldn't control myself. I tried to stop but I couldn't. Against my own will, I sat down in the chair, and started to buckle myself to it. I tried to force my arms out of the buckles and straps, but they didn't move an inch.

A group of people came towards me, with syringes in their hands. The syringes had very large needles in them-larger than any I had ever seen. I grimaced, accepting what was to come. I closed my eyes, so I didn't see the needles going into my skin, they were imposters to my body. I felt one in my arm, right in my bicep. Then one in my stomach. I cringed but tried to control my breathing. Freaking out wouldn't help anything. I tried to calm down, like with the horses. As soon as I regained control over my breathing, the fear ended.

Six more fears came after this. Failing faction initiation, spiders (old classic), having to be in a very hot desert (I never liked hot days), ostriches (that was incredibly unexpected and random), choosing the wrong faction once I reached 16, and fire.

The final fear was by far the worst. I was back in the Dauntless compound, stood by the chasm. I peered over and saw three bodies on the floor. They were Liam, Zoey, and Four. I had lost those who were still alive and important to me. Before I could fully absorb what I had seen, I found myself falling down towards where the broken bodies of those I loved lay.

But I never felt the impact of my fall, instead I saw Four, back in the simulation room.

"Hey, hey, I'm here. It's okay, you're back." Four tried to reassure me.

But I had leapt out of the chair and stood by the door, shaking, and trying to block out everything by putting my arms over my ears and keeping my eyes shut. I took some time to recompose myself as well as I could for now, then stood up straight.

"So, have you solved your matter of apparent life and death?" I asked Four with a shaky voice.

He looked reluctant to speak but did so. "You were aware that you were in that simulation, right? And you manipulated the simulation, like the first one. There wasn't a light switch until you got desperate. That isn't meant to happen."

"Okay. Explain the life and death thing." I spoke.

"Look," he started, "you can't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you, not even Zoey or Liam. Understand?"

"Yes."

"I assume you know what a Divergent is. They have no aptitude for a single faction. As a result, they are deemed as dangerous and uncontrollable. I would never have told you this if not for what happened to your aunt and parents."

The mention of my dead family startled me. "Wait, what?"

They were found at the bottom of the chasm, weren't they? From what I heard; your parents' death was deemed as a loss of balance. But the people that knew them said they were always cautious around there. And your aunt's death hasn't been proclaimed as anything yet. It only makes sense leadership found out they were Divergent and killed them. This is why I told you. You are too. You need to be careful. You haven't taken part in any simulations that have been reported to leadership, so you should be fine for now. But come initiation, and if you choose Dauntless, you might be in danger of being found out. But you can conceal it. We'll worry about that if you choose Dauntless."

"So I can't tell anyone I'm Divergent?"

"No. No one. As I said, not even Zoey or Liam. I don't want to see you at the bottom of the chasm."

I thought about what Four had just said about my aunt and parents.

They were Divergent. Dangerous. Uncontrollable. Unpredictable. According to leadership, at least. Aunt Atlanta hadn't seemed dangerous or unpredictable at all. I didn't feel uncontrollable myself.

I tried to act normal at dinner, but it was hard. I was about to leave after eating, but dessert was chocolate cake, so I decided to stay. But I didn't enjoy it as much as I usually did. The fact that Four said leadership would kill me if they found out who I was dampened my spirits slightly. I tried to forget about it, I hadn't taken part in any proper fear simulations that would be logged, so if I stayed quiet, no one would know.

But once I hit sixteen? That would be a different story.

A week or so passed. The Divergent matter was no longer invading my brain as it was before.

Now the initiates were nearing their final test, after this they'd be fully fledged members of Dauntless. I'd been hearing that Tris was doing especially well, mostly from Four. He sang of her praises whenever we spoke about training. I suspected they were getting closer somehow, there was definitely some sort of attraction, something special. I'd just have to wait and see. Four had never been in a relationship as far as I knew. He hadn't even really been on a proper date. I remember him going on a double date with Zeke. Zeke found a girl to go with Four, but apparently it was the most awkward situation. We didn't talk about it much, Four said that the girl acted like he had offended her. I mean, he somehow probably did.

But Four did deserve someone who he could truly love, and someone who could truly love him back. Perhaps Tris would be this someone.

I got up the next morning to go to school. My fear landscape had shaken me up so badly that even in PE it lingered in my head. After that I had English as our last lesson. I liked English, analysing and comparing texts came naturally to me, and I usually found it interesting. We didn't have many novels, so we used non-fiction almost always. The teacher had been talking about imagery for the last 10 minutes, much to the boredom of the class. I thought about my final fear. Liam, Zoey, and Four at the bottom of the chasm. The only ones I had left, meeting the same fate as the ones I had lost before. That was the worst one, it even topped the needles.

After our lengthy lecture about imagery, the teacher announced the end of class, and everyone rushed out. I met with the other Dauntless and went to climb up our statue. I was one of the first to finish, so I started to make my way to the tracks to wait for the train. But as I walked out of the crowd, I saw some Erudite my age who had an Abnegation cornered. She must have been around ten. They stood around her and jeered at her, throwing insults. The majority of those insults were about the pathetic rumours going around that the Abnegation withheld things like fresh fruit in a massive warehouse and didn't give any of it to the other factions. I couldn't fathom how anyone could even believe that crap.

I went up to the Erudite. The Abnegation girl just looked down and took the insults, not even asking them to stop, lest she be branded as complaintive.

"Come on, leave off the girl." I said, trying not to sound overly infuriated.

An Erudite looked over, probably leader of his little gang. "What makes you think you can tell me what to do, Dauntless? Anyway, why are you defending this coward? I thought the Dauntless loathed cowardice?"

"Oh, we do. But with you being an Erudite, I would assume that you'd know that you're the one being a coward, picking on someone who's younger and someone you know that won't defend themselves."

"Don't be ridiculous." He spoke.

I stepped forward and planted myself in front of the girl. "Oh, I'm not the one being ridiculous, coward."

What came next was very unexpected, so unexpected that I couldn't even defend myself.

I felt a flare of pain on my cheekbone, everything went fuzzy for less than a second. But once my vision cleared, I saw the Erudite boy clenching his fist. The coward punched me. I leapt in his direction, kicked him in the back of the legs and wrapped my arm around his neck in a chokehold.

"Ever touch me or anyone again." I snarled through gritted teeth, "I'll do much worse than a chokehold. Understood?"

He just about nodded.

"Also, don't ever attack a Dauntless like that ever again, you Erudite are pathetic fighters." I added.

I was just about to let the coward out of my chokehold when a teacher came rushing in our direction. I didn't know why he looked so mad at me; I hadn't exactly killed anyone.

Both me and the Erudite got put into detention. I thought I was better off than the boy, he initiated it and violence was certainly not expected of an Erudite.

Liam and Zoey offered to stay behind, but I told them to go. I figured Four would wonder why I hadn't come back to the compound with the other Dauntless kids.

The hour quickly passed. As I left the class, I looked at my reflection in one of the balcony railings. I could see a blotch of red on my left cheekbone. That would hurt even worse tomorrow.

I arrived at the compound, and passed Four and Zeke, both with a bottle in their hands.

"Here comes our dear volatile child! Haven't we raised her well, Four? " Zeke grinned like a maniac.

"I am not your 'dear volatile child', Zeke." I said.

Zeke laughed. "But you are! Anyway, you want some?" He motioned to his bottle. "Might soothe the pain from that nasty bruise on your cheek."

Four shoved Zeke's bottle away from me, and then turned in my direction, wearing a serious look on his face.

"Why did you get a detention? Apparently, you got someone in a chokehold, that's all I heard and understood from Zoey. She talks very quickly." Four said, seriousness very prominent in his voice as it was on his face.

I explained myself to him. "There were some Erudite kids being horrible to an Abnegation girl. I told them to stop, but one asked why I was defending the so-called coward. I said he was the coward since he was bullying a younger kid and one who won't defend themselves. Then he punched me."

Zeke snorted and almost dropped his bottle. "I thought Noses were meant to be smart."

"Well, this one wasn't. I kicked him and put him in a chokehold. Obviously, the teachers don't approve of me defending myself."

Zeke spoke again. "Forget the teachers. As I said, raised very well, aren't you? Isn't she Four?"

Four had a slight smile on his face. "Yeah. I thought you had started a fight yourself; I couldn't believe it. Seems not. Do you need help with some ice for the bruise? Looks pretty bad."

"No, I can do it. Anyway, it doesn't hurt that much when I think about the Erudite holding his hand after he punched me. I think he did more damage to his knuckles than my face."

"Nose deserved it." Zeke said as he put his bottle down "Anyway, I'll see you at dinner, dear volatile child, since you're going to your apartment. Better get some ice."

I laughed as I left Four and Zeke, impatient to get some ice on my bruise.