A/N: There was a bit of a delay in writing this. I'm happy to be posting, though. Enjoy!
Standard canon warnings apply. There's some more unwanted sexual attention again but it's still within the source (book) material [aka no non-con, rape, or full-on assault]
I woke in a sea of smoke, chaos, and tears. My lungs burned and seized in my chest. Trying to see was murder as the gas flooded the air around me. I managed to push off from the bunk and tumble to the ground. The smoke was thicker here, spewing out from the canisters spinning lazily in circles.
Oxygen wasn't reaching my head. Stars punctured my sight, stabbing through the concrete floor to illuminate the satin, black void curling in from all sides.
Next my limbs dropped out from under me. They were dragged down, down, down by the forces of gravity.
A dream.
A nightmare.
A panic attack?
There was nothing real to latch on to. No context for the glossy eyed creature with flaming hair that flipped me onto my back before tossing me over its shoulder. I wheezed as they shifted in form - a skeletal mass, a hulking shadow, nothing at all.
No. Not nothing.
That was the void, expanding from the edges of my sight to swallow me whole.
Where the smoke had snared and burned me, now there was cool, fresh water lapping at my frame. I threw myself into ragged wakefulness. Sight came painfully. I recoiled away from the glaring lights from the ceiling.
Down on my hands and feet, I splashed in the pool of water that had woken me. It covered up to my wrists and soaked through my shorts. Taking in everything around me, I fought to understand what had happened. There was no explanation, nothing rational to the steel ceiling lined with fluorescent bars that connected to four long glass walls. Was this another observation chamber? I stood and pressed my face to the glass.
Empty air stretched around the chamber, the blank concrete floor giving way only to darkness as the light faded. I turned my attention to the water below me. It was the only clue I had. Yet I understood nothing about it.
My ankles were covered now. There was motion to the water despite my feet having stilled within it. There! I was on top of a grate, not concrete. The water was rising up from below.
The water was rising up from below!
I turned to the glass walls again and slammed my whole weight against them. "Hey! Hey someone's in here! Hey!" I bellowed. There had to be someone out there, hadn't there? After all, that was my biggest fear now in Dauntless. You never felt alone, even when you thought you were. Someone was watching, waiting, stalking.
I pounded my fist on the glass over and over. My feet were freezing now. The water was too cold now. It crept up my calf, to my knee, midway up my thigh. My fist hurt from hitting the unyielding glass. My heartrate echoed in my ears along with the dull thuds.
Trapped.
Kicking did nothing. Each wall was equally solid. There wasn't the slightest waver in the material no matter how hard I threw myself at it. This wasn't the ocean. I couldn't just bob along to safety. If the water didn't stop filling the chamber, I'd be out of air.
As the water covered my hips and the cloying smell of chlorine filled my nose, the realization washed over me. If the air was leaving the chamber, there had to be another vent - something that wasn't just glass. I wiped my eyes to clear out the last of the smoke and then strained to see past the lights. They flared so brightly, it was impossible to make out what could have been between or behind them.
My waist was covered now and my balance was shifting in favor of the water. I wasn't just standing any more. My body started to bob with the churning flow. Fear slid firmly into place in my mind. If I didn't act quickly, I was going to die. That was it.
Wet hands slicked back straggling strands of hair. Teeth worried at the sore creases of my lower lip. I was beyond auto-pilot. I was falling back to pure reactionary instinct. "Think, think, think," I chanted to myself, a forced reminder that I was more than just base reactions.
Four walls: glass, unbreakable, and too sturdy to kick out.
Ceiling: too high. By the time the water floated me up to meet it, I would have only moments to look for the air vent. Hell, the light fixtures might even electrocute me before the water drowned me.
Floor: the source of the problem.
I turned my attention downward. The entire thing was a grate. I shifted my feet around as I gauged the size of it. Underneath there had to be a pipe feeding everything. And that pipe had to be fed by something, too. Not just a source but a pump; the water was flowing far too quickly not to be aided by something, never mind the rapidly increasing flow. The water was creeping steadily up my stomach to my chest.
I closed my eyes and sank under the surface. I could hear the muffled glup-glup-glup of the water churning above and around me. Behind that, I could hear a steady thrum as well that confirmed my thoughts - a motor, pump, whatever.
Flipping over, I scratched at the floor grate. The diamond slats were small, but not smaller than my fingertips. If I wasn't holding my breath, I would have sighed in relief as it lifted readily to my firm tug. The water was helping here. The grate's weight was buoyed by the currents, just like I was. The thrum got louder.
I surfaced again to suck in three more deep breaths. I didn't dare spend longer at the surface; my time was running out. I kicked the grate against the wall and peeled my shirt over my head. Diving under again, I fought against the still-growing current to get to the head of the pipe. It was too tight for my shoulders to fit through, but my arm had no problem passing through. There was an immediate hard wall that stopped my heart.
Prodding my fist along found which way it had turned. The joint had narrowed still more. I switched my shirt to the other hand, balling it up as tightly as I could underwater. When I tried to open one eye to help guide my motions, I couldn't keep it there. Something in the water burned worse than the smoke from earlier. I had to rely on touch alone to find the pipe corner again.
My lungs screamed. I'd never held my breath for this long before. I didn't dare return to the surface of the glass box. If I didn't plug the pipe now, I wouldn't have enough air left in the box.
My fingers fumbled in the water, squishing the flimsy t-shirt into the pipe. Was that enough? Was it secure to stay against the pressure? I wanted to push on it one last time but my mind was losing the fight against the need to breathe again. Shoving against the floor, I flipped my body around towards what I hoped was the top of the box.
My feet found purchase. I kicked off. Instantly my shoulder followed by my face hit glass. I gasped, water hungrily streaming in to fill my mouth and throat. Adrenaline shot through me. I twisted in the water and kicked out my feet again. This time felt different - less slippery - and I flailed every inch of my body to gain just one more inch of height in the tank. The surface of the water lapped, bubbled, and finally broke around my face.
I was dry, gasping, and very much not drowning in the middle of the fear landscape room.
Lauren saluted my reaction time. Four took off the electrodes. I hurried out from the examination chamber with red-hot cheeks and a stomach set with confusion. I didn't remember going in there. What was worse, honestly though, was having to tug my shirt back on over my exposed stomach and bra. Fear landscapes forced you to actually perform every action you tried. Clearly I'd been a little too successful at stripping down for the tank.
Space. Distance. I needed to be anywhere but here. I don't even think that I registered whether or not anyone had been watching me from the observation room. God, I hoped that no one had been paying too much attention. I had a horrible, bitter feeling in my gut that I would suffer through the ridicule from someone. There was nothing funnier than a stiff stripping down, after all.
Nothing registered to me but the tunnel vision leading me one step in front of the other to some random corner of the hallway. There I slouched, head in hands, willing my thoughts to catch up with what was happening.
"Great job, as usual," Al commended. He was trying to be pleasant. I whined into the back of my hand. I had to be polite. I had to be nice. My head bobbed in response. This had to be something that I would be okay with.
The sim was over. I was fine. I still tasted chlorine in my mouth. My hands pressed out the creases in my shirt, checking it was in place.
I felt Al move to stand next to me. He shifted on his feet, nerves radiating off of him. As I finished catching my breath, I stood up fully. "Wow," I breathed. "That one was harder than I thought it should have been."
A less decent person would have make a remark at my phrasing. Al merely loomed closer. "You always handle it though," he said. I did perk up at the compliment, even through the remaining stress shakes.
Turning my head, I started as I realized just how close he was now. My instincts were all out of whack. I could feel his breath fanning across my forehead. I also forgot how much taller than me Al was. "Just good luck," I replied breathlessly.
That slow trickle of dread spiked through the back of my skull. Al lifted on arm and pressed a hand oh so casually on the wall beside us.
"Good luck or good looks?" he said. The delivery wasn't him. It wasn't Al. He didn't have it in him to control that treble in his voice or to think of something so smoothly crafted. "No one was expecting that little peep show."
My skin crawled. I crossed my arms quickly and looked away. I still couldn't reason through the disconnect of this very-not-Al behavior with that of my friend. Or maybe this was just another layer of encouragement that he thought I'd respond to. "Not. Interested."
"C'mon, Stiff. Show a little bravery. You were so eager to strip in the sim. It's just as easy in real life," Al continued. His hand came up to curl a finger around the cuff of my sleeve. I flinched when his fingernail brushed against my skin.
One simple word with one very clear meaning. My lips refused to part to allow it to escape. I was frozen, locked in place by my own panic.
I shouldn't have been scared of this, Dauntless logic insisted. I was wrong to be scared of someone being sexual with me. That was what I was trying to tell my Abnegation heritage.
But, God. I didn't want this. Not from Al.
His hand caressed my arm. I think he was pulling some kind of enticing look across his face. I jerked away from his touch, mumbling past my unresponsive lips and tongue.
"Such a pretty thing under all that tough attitude," he crooned.
When I felt his hand at the hem of my shirt, that was when I found my strength again. He lifted. I swung. My knuckles hit cheekbone and cartilage. Something might have cracked. Maybe it was my teeth as they clenched further against one another.
I tripped as I tried to pull away. Between fumbling limbs and the residual shakes from before, I went down hard against the wall. Somehow I didn't hit the ground. Luck, maybe? No. This wasn't luck, to be here terrified and vulnerable with the guy who was supposed to be my friend.
"Leave me alone!" I yelled. The fall had awakened my voice. I yelped again as he again reached for me. Fingers wrapped around my wrists. A strong yank broke them away. I wanted a weapon. All I had was my body. Hell, I'd figure it all out somehow.
I cocked my fist and sank into a fighting stance. "I told you - stop it, Al!"
The world melted away again.
"Stop it Al!" Somehow I knew. I knew that this was reality finally right here and now. First there was the unmistakable comprehension of all of my senses, not just the semi-clarity of the simulation. Then there was the absolute solidity of returning to consciousness by shouting at my friend as he watched me through the observation glass.
Jarring didn't adequately describe the sudden return to actuality. I felt the words echo in the room around me before fading to nothing. Lauren - the real Lauren - hovered next to the computer terminal for a painfully long moment without reacting. I turned away from the glass and shakily stepped towards my instructor.
My legs responded well enough. I had been using them just moments ago to ready a kick against Al. Against the sim, that was. Not the real Al. The real Al was hurrying out from his seat, no doubt heading for the door.
Lauren spurred into motion, stepping around the terminal to take my shoulders. I was too tired to flinch and the brief touch was comforting. Her eyes met mine in a silent question. "I'm okay," I insisted.
Her lips pursed and her thumb stroked my shoulder one final time before she started on the actual task of relieving me of the electrodes. They weren't positioned quite as neatly as usual. I barely cared. "Your times were a bit sluggish, Prior," Lauren said quietly.
I waited for the encouraging remark, the bit of wisdom that she was always so quick to offer. I apparently had to supply my own. "That was… harder than usual," I admitted. "Harder than the ocean or Caleb."
Still I got nothing from Lauren. Her forehead was furrowed. I peeled off the last white pad and passed it to her waiting hand. "Is that normal?" I questioned.
Her eyes went back to the screen where my times were displayed. "I don't know," Lauren admitted. "Your readings were all over the place, too. I pulled you out of that last one when it seemed like you were stabilizing over the fear response, but based on your body language, I really don't know."
Four came into the room with Lynn next to him. He had one arm draped over his shoulders and she was hanging limply on his side. I blinked sharply. "Wait, that really happened before? The knockout gas?" I said. I'd assumed it was a sim just like everything else, but now as I registered everything else in the other room, I realized that we were the only ones actively moving about. The rest of my classmates were slumped in chairs with heads together or lolling on the backs of their seats. They were unconscious.
"It's a new idea. We're treating it like a midterm for the phase. Seeing how you guys do going under cold," Lauren explained. "It helps compensate for the awareness that comes from attacking the landscapes you know so well. Or that you will know pretty well, after the rest of the week."
"I thought that was just another fear," I admitted.
Lauren gave a half-hearted laugh. "It might become someone's soon. That stuff can trip you out pretty badly. You were lucky. You got to go early. Not a lot of time to get lost in the weird dreams," she explained. "You never know how things work in the brain, especially when you mix in serums."
I didn't feel lucky. With how weird the sims had felt earlier, I don't think that having strange dreams before would have had been much worse. I did however care about the apparently lackluster scores I'd gotten just now. Seeing my sluggish results on the screen under my usual, neat times was disappointing in a way that I hadn't anticipated.
I slunk out from the testing room to take up one of the empty chairs. My legs were cramped as I curled up on the seat. I much rather would have gone back to the dorm to try and sleep of the rest of the early morning but practicality and nerves kept me in place. I couldn't shake the echo of the simulation I'd just left. Instead I waited out the remainder of the morning in a miserable silence.
Most people weren't so concerned when they completed their sims. A few laughed off the setup when Lauren explained it to them. Marlene was stone-faced and silent. She sat hand in hand with Lynn - who had not sat with me but hadn't left like the others - until Uriah's test wrapped up. Then they all disappeared in a unit. They weren't going to be separated for a long time.
I waited out the rest of everyone's tests. Christina left without looking at me, almost in a daze. I wondered just then if she'd seen anyone familiar and uncomfortable in her landscape. Maybe this was the stage of Initiation that would succeed where the others had failed and finally break us.
I didn't even feel like budging when Four wrapped up the computer cords or Lauren printed out the morning's results. I think I would have stayed in that chair forever until Lauren padded softly over.
"You should eat something. It'll help settle your stomach after that smoke bomb," she offered. I shook my head and continued to stare at the little broken bolt I'd noticed a few minutes ago under the glass window. I didn't want to divert my attention to anything else, not in the least myself. Four walked by and paused, but at a look from Lauren he continued on his way out.
"We're giving them until after lunch, right?" he asked from the doorway.
"Yeah. We can meet in the mess to go over reports if you've got time. Later though," she stressed. I shifted further into my own arms. She was going to fuss over me. I heard Four close the door behind him.
I kept on staring at the broken bolt. Lauren settled sideways on the table next to my chair so she was facing me but not quite head on. "You seem really shaken up, Tris," she said. When I lifted one shoulder and dropped it, Lauren let out a quiet sigh. "I can't make you talk about it. It just helps, usually."
"I know it does," I mumbled. Still, I couldn't even puzzle out what I even wanted to talk about. My throat was tight and I couldn't break away from staring just straight forward.
Lauren was patient. She carded a hand through her hair. It was dark in the low light of the observation room, and it appeared to be just plain brunette rather than the shocking cobalt it really was. Each pass of her hand smoothed away another knot, another tangle. Not everything could be untangled, but she got it neat before tying it up loosely.
"When I was younger, I had a really traumatic experience. It was back in mid-levels. You remember those years. Everything's getting more intense - school's harder, people are getting cliquey - but you're still also just a kid," Lauren said. Her hands switched to looping the ties on her bootlaces around now that her hair was back up. I said nothing.
She took a deep breath and huffed as she exhaled. "It's tough to think about, even now. Even after two years of knowing it's there - it's going to be there - in the back of my mind for the rest of my life, probably. No matter what happens, I'm always going to remember it.
"I decided I was going to finally be a big, tough Dauntless. In the stupidest way," she said ruefully. "I skipped class. It was science. I loved science, but it wasn't cool to like science.
"It was cool to skip out and to head over to the factionless shops that were on the back street behind the school," Lauren explained. My mouth twitched in a smirk. She was right. I knew so many Dauntless kids in school who would dart out of phys ed or faction history or even lunch just to go grab a big bag of chips with the point or two they'd been given by their parents or older siblings.
But this wasn't the kind of story to smile at. I could tell as Lauren's fingers stilled once more. "I didn't realize that kids didn't ever go alone, at least if they were taking the shortcut through Pennant Street. But I was tough, you know. I was finally skipping class and I was going to be so fast, getting through that shortcut."
The silence that followed hung in the air, more cloying than the smoke in the dorm. I twitched my head to look at her. Was she waiting for me to say something? Did I have to prompt her to keep going?
Her expression was focused in the memory. Her knuckles had gone white; even in the low light I could see them pressing stark through her skin. "I was tough," she echoed. "I was tough and I didn't think there was anything to worry about in the world. I was Dauntless-born and this was me proving it.
"There were three of them. I guess there was a market at the time for the real fucked up factionless, the ones that don't even bother pretending that they want to be a part of the rest of the system. They wanted girls, boys, whomever. And I looked older - maybe fifteen instead of thirteen - cause I was taller."
My heart wavered in my chest. Lauren's nostrils flared and rage, contained but only just so, sat behind her eyes. "I was ready for the catcalls," she said shortly. We were always ready for the catcalls. My parents had driven that warning in deep.
"I wasn't ready for the rag with the ether," Lauren said. Her fingers flexed to give her knuckles a reprieve before curling once more. Her fist shook it was so tight.
I didn't know what to say. I wasn't that kind of Abnegation.
Lauren's tongue darted to wet her lips once, twice. Her chest rattled as she sucked in breath after breath. Behind her eyes she was reliving everything all over again. I wanted to say something, anything, to give her encouragement. My hand cupped her shoulder roughly. It seemed to break her out from the memory or maybe her deep breathing had calmed her enough regardless.
"It haunts me." Her voice was ragged. Her eyes were transfixed in the open air in front of her. "I remember the fear, the knowing, the waiting for what they were taking me for. But it seemed to go on forever, that time in that deep, dark cesspool.
"And even though I got free, even though I was able to run back home, I still worry. They were found a few days later - the whole ring was brought down within another month - and I'm still here with the leftover fear," Lauren explained. She closed her eyes. Her hands stirred once more in her lap to unfold and latch onto her knees instead of themselves.
"I'm sorry," I whispered finally. It definitely wasn't enough. I just didn't know what else to even try to say.
"I get to relive that fear every time I have to run my landscape. I think I went through it every day for a week in my Initiation. I barely made it through at first. And I got worse, somehow, the more that I'd seen it," she admitted.
I swallowed roughly. "But you're here," I said. "You made it through when it mattered?"
"Yeah. I don't really know how or what was different. What works for me might not work for you. Everyone's different. And I'm not sleeping twenty yards away from my nightmare."
Her mouth twisted in a half dozen expressions before smoothing into something resembling a smile. "What I'm trying to say," Lauren finally managed, "is that you're not alone in feeling like you're stuck in a moment. Or that you don't have the answers yet. You don't need to have them. You just need to be able to put one foot in front of the other until you're where you want to be. One day, you'll just… be there. Giving advice to someone else."
She looked me over, that weak smile hanging on her lips. She was already building back that usual front that I recognized on her albeit with a few cracks in place now. In a few minutes I wouldn't be able to find them, I was sure. I let my hand drop from her shoulder.
I still didn't have the right words. Maybe that was okay though. "Thanks, Lauren," I murmured. "You didn't have to tell me all of that. I'm glad you did, though."
Lauren laughed weakly. Her arm looped around my shoulders in a sideways hug. "It's kind of my job, you know. I'm happy you listened. I hope it helps." Her words were heartfelt and the embrace earnest. "I think you'll be a great Dauntless. We need more like you."