Chapter 11
The initiates wait in the hall for their turn in the room. They all look nervous and they should be. There really is no amount of preparing that helps you live through your worst nightmares, and that is exactly what each of them is having to do. I slowly work through the initiates watching them be attacked by various animals, people, and other dark forces. I watch them fall off cliffs, shoot family members, drown, burn to death, and be stabbed. It is exhausting. I purposely put Tris last, knowing watching her struggle through her fear will be the hardest for me to watch.
Uriah comes in right before Tris. He sits down in the metal chair. I look at him and can't help the urge I have to punch him in the face. I force myself to continue, without saying anything about yesterday. I just turn back to the computer screen and ask if he has any questions about today. He shouldn't most of the Dauntless born have grown up hearing stories about what happens during stage two and three of training and the fear landscapes. I am sure Zeke told him all about it, after our initiation two years ago.
"Looks like you had fun zip lining yesterday. I saw Tris went with you guys." I say out of no where.
"It was epic man. You should have gone with us. She asked where you were." he says grinning at me. "Seemed a little disappointed that you didn't come, if you want to know the truth."
"Can't imagine why she would want her instructor to come zip lining with her." I say, trying to sound like I am making small talk, not really all that interested.
"Maybe she sees you as more than her instructor, Four. Stranger things have happened." Uriah watches my face, trying to see my reaction to his last comment.
I don't respond. I just pull out the injection needle and push it into Uriah's neck. "Be brave, Uriah."
Nine minutes later Uriah emerges from the simulation, sweating and yelling Zeke's name. He calms himself down and I send him out the door in the back of the room like the others. As he leaves, I start thinking about what he said before he went into the simulation. Why would Tris ask about me, if she is with Uriah? Why would he bring it up if they are together? Maybe I have misread the situation between the two of them. I go to the door and call her name.
"Come on, Tris." I beckon her in the room. Touching her shoulder and leading her in, closing the door behind her.
She looks at the chair in the room and recoils as if it is going to bite her. She is clearly upset by seeing what is in the room, but I don't know why. The only other time she would have sat in a chair like this was during her aptitude test. She shouldn't have a reason to be frightened.
"Sit." I say, squeezing her around the arm forcing her forward.
"What's the simulation?" she says, her voice shaking.
"Ever hear the phrase 'face your fears'? We're taking that literally. The simulation will teach you to control your emotions in the midst of a frightening situation." I explain.
Tris touches her hand to her forehead to move her hair out of her face and I can't help but notice it is shaking. If she is this scared before the simulation starts, she will never make it through the actual fear. I have to calm down or this is all pointless. She can't scratch on today's times. She needs them to keep her ranking up. She is barely off the bottom of the list now.
"Do you ever administer the aptitude tests?" she asks. Why would she ask about the aptitude test? Is she? No, she can't be. That would just add to the reasons she is in danger. I push the thought from my mind.
"No," I reply. "I avoid Stiffs as much as possible." I add the last part thinking it might get her to stop asking so many questions. There are cameras in this room and if she is not careful she is going to start drawing attention to herself for all the wrong reasons. Dauntless don't like it when people ask to many questions. They see it as a challenge to their authority.
"Why?" she persists.
"Do you ask me that because you think I'll actually answer?" I snap at her.
"Why do you say vague things if you don't want to be asked about them?" she challenges, narrowing her eyes at me.
I can see that this is getting us nowhere. I have to start the simulation soon, before she gets us both in trouble. I move her hair to the side, brushing her neck with my fingertips. I feel a tingle every place her skin touches mine. I tap the syringe getting it ready to inject into her neck.
"An injection?" she says, her eyes wide. Maybe, she is afraid of needles.
"We use a more advanced version of the simulation here. A different serum. No wire or electrodes for you." I explain.
"How does it work without wires?"
"Well, I have wires, so I can see what's going on," I say. "But for you, there's a tiny transmitter in the serum that sends data to the computer." I bend down and ease the tip of the needle into the tender skin on the side of her neck. She grimaces as the serum spreads through her throat. I look at her, trying to calm her down. Her eyes are so beautiful. I would be staring at her, even if I wasn't trying to calm her.
"The serum will go into effect in sixty seconds. This simulation is different from the aptitude test," I say. "In addition to containing the transmitter, the serum stimulates the amygdala, which is the part of the brain involved in processing negative emotions—like fear—and then induces a hallucination. The brain's electrical activity is then transmitted to our computer, which then translates your hallucination into a simulated image that I can see and monitor. I will then forward the recording to Dauntless administrators. You stay in the hallucination until you calm down—that is, lower your heart rate and control your breathing."
I can tell that she is trying to follow what I am saying, but the serum is taking control and soon she will be lost in the hallucination. I lean down close to her face and look her directly in her eyes, making sure she is focused on me. "The first time is always the hardest. It will be over soon. Be brave, Tris." Then her pupils dilate and I know she is gone.
I look back at the screens. She is in a field and it looks like a flock of birds is coming towards her, attacking her. She struggles against them, but there are too many of them and soon I can't see her anymore. I look back at her laying on the metal chair. Her face is contorted in a silent scream and she jerks around like she is trapped in a dream. I want so badly to wake her, let her know that it isn't real. I look back at the screen and can see her vitals have picked up, her heart beat a blur on the screen. Then all of the sudden, it starts to slow and I can tell that she has found a way out. I hear her scream and turn around to see her brushing invisible feathers from her body. I turn and look at the screen, again.
Three minutes. That can't be right. Shit. I tell myself it is a fluke. She can't be, but if she is, it is just one more reason I have to protect her. I look over at her. She is shaking and looks like she might be sick. I reach my hand out and put it on her shoulder. She turns around to punch me, yelling at me not to touch her.
My voice is quiet, "Tris."
She doesn't look at me, just pulls her knees to her chest and begins to rock back and forth, tears flowing uncontrollably down her cheeks.
"Tris, I'm going to take you back to the dorms, alright?" I say.
"No," she says forcefully, through sobs. "No you can't...I don't need you to...They can't see my like this."
"Nonsense." I say, soothingly. "I will talk you out the backdoor. No one will see you. I promise."
I grab her under the arm and pull her out of the chair, forcing her out of the room. We walk in silence until we are about a hundred yards from the dorms. Then, she yanks her arm away from me and stops.
"Why did you do that to me? What did that prove? I wasn't aware when I signed up for Dauntless it meant weeks of torture." she looks at me blame and hate playing in her eyes. It is the same look she had, the day I threw knives at her.
"Did you think overcoming cowardice would be easy?" I say, calmly.
"That isn't overcoming cowardice! Cowardice is how you decide to be in real life, and in real life, I am not getting pecked to death by crows, Four!" She presses her palms to her face and sobs into them.
I don't say anything. I don't know what to say. I know she needs someone to comfort her and tell her things to make her feel safe and calm, but I don't know any of those things. Comfort wasn't in great supply during my childhood. So, I just stare down at her, helpless.
"I want to go home," she says, weakly.
I am suddenly angry at her. Angry at her weakness, at her cowardice. She is better than this. I am frustrated that she can't see it. I want to comfort her, but pitying her won't do her any favors right now. She has to be tougher, if she is going to make it through the next few stages.
"Learning how to think in the midst of fear, is a lesson that everyone, even your Stiff family, needs to learn. That's what we're trying to teach you. If you can't learn it, you'll need to get the hell out of here, because we won't want you."
She looks shocked at my words. "I'm trying." She says, her lower lip trembles. "But I failed. I'm failing."
I sigh. "How long do you think you spent in that hallucination, Tris?"
"I don't know." she shakes her head. "A half hour?"
"Three minutes," I reply. "You got out three times faster than the other initiates. Whatever you are, you're not a failure."
She looks at me in disbelief.
I smile a little, feeling like I was a little harsh on her after her comment about wanting to go home. "Tomorrow you'll be better at this. You'll see."
"Tomorrow?"
I touch her back and guide her toward the dormitory. I like the feeling of my hand on her back and she seems to like it, so I leave it there as we walk.
"What was your first hallucination?" she says, glancing up at me.
"It wasn't a 'what' so much as a 'who.'" I shrug. "It's not important."
"And are you over that fear now?"
"Not yet." We reach the door to the dormitory, and I lean against the wall, sliding my hands into my pockets to stop myself from wrapping them around her waist. "I may never be."
"So they don't go away?"
"Sometimes they do. And sometimes new fears replace them." My thumbs hook around my belt loops. "But becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it, that's the point."
She nods at me thinking about what I just said. I study her face for a moment, fascinated by the thoughts I can see behind her eyes.
"Anyway, your fears are rarely what they appear to be in the simulation," I add.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, are you really afraid of crows?" I say, half smiling at her. For a moment, I forget that I am her instructor and she is my initiate. I am just a boy talking to the girl her likes, as he walks her to her door. "When you see one, do you run away screaming?"
"No. I guess not." she says. She moves closer to me and leans against the wall. She tilts her head to the side, studying me, like she did on the Ferris wheel. I can feel her body heat. She is only about six inches from me, and I want that space to be smaller. I keep my thumbs hooked tight in my belt loops making sure my hands don't reach out and pull her to me.
As if she can read my mind, she leans in closer and says, "So what I am really afraid of?
"I don't know." I say looking at her, my whole body is tingling. "Only you can know."
She nods slowly, thinking it over, then she says, "I didn't know becoming Dauntless would be this difficult." Her eyes widen a little after she says it and she looks at me nervously, clearly regretting telling me.
"It wasn't always like this, I'm told," I say, lifting a shoulder. Letting her know that she can trust me. I don't think any less of her.
"What changed?" she asks.
"The leadership. The person who controls training sets the standard of Dauntless behavior. six years ago Max and the other leaders changed the training methods to make them more competitive and more brutal, said it was supposed to test people's strength. and that changed the priorities of Dauntless as a whole. Bet you can't guess who the leaders' new protégé is."
"The answer is obvious: Eric. They trained him to be vicious, and now he will train the rest of us to be vicious too." she says. She looks at me for a moment, and smiles at me. I hope she knows that I would never let that happen to her.
We continue to discuss Eric and leadership for a moment and I am waiting for her to ask me why I didn't take the leadership role, but she never does. She wouldn't feel right asking me personal questions, being from Abnegation. She would have been taught that personal questions are selfish, as the information only serves the person asking the question. She sniffs and wipes her face one more time. Then she smooths down her hair. Even when she is crying, she is beautiful. I stare at her, I can't help myself. Looking at her, makes me feel, alive, more awake.
"Do I look like I've been crying?" she says, her eyes shining up at me. It takes everything I have not to pull her to me and kiss her.
"Hmm." I lean in as close to her as possible. I narrow my eyes like I am inspecting her face. A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. We would be breathing the same air, but I notice Tris has stopped breathing. "No, Tris." I give her a serious look and add, "You look tough as nails."