A/N I used some of the original text in this chapter but changed it to fix my fanfic. Hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: I don't own Divergent.
We have to do the fearscape first. What if it doesn't work on me, no serum has worked on me yet. The Abnegation woman that administered my aptitude test said that she had never seen anyone not being able to go under. I thought I would have time to find the woman's daughter and have her help me be able to go under. Now I have no time and I haven't found anyone named Beatrice. Trice...Tris! My eyes shoot to the lovely blond girl as she walks ahead of the transfers with her husband, Four, and Eric. Now how am I going to ask for a moment alone with her. Four is always with her and I don't know if he can be trusted.
The instructors lead us out of the dorms and along the paths that surround the Pit. Wes and Audi are next to me.
"You and Wes worried me this morning," Audi says quietly.
"I'm sorry. But I got you breakfast." I tell her lightly.
When her almond shaped green eyes meet my silver ones, she nod. "Thanks and I will know now."
I just nod back to her and smile.
We climb higher than we've gone before, until Wes's face goes white whenever he looks down. Most of the time I like heights, so I grab Wes's arm like I need his support—but really, I'm lending him mine. He smiles gratefully at me.
Eric turns around and walks backward a few steps—backward, on a narrow path with no railing. How well does he know this place?
"We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure to act in the midst of fear," says Eric. "Therefore each stage of initiation is intended to prepare you in a different way. The first stage is primarily physical; the second, primarily emotional; the third, primarily mental."
He eyes me, a shiver runs down my spine as I look into his steel grey eyes.
It's hard for me to fight off a smile. That is, until Eric's eyes shift to my arm around Wes's, and all the humor drains from them. His expression sends a chill through me. Is he…jealous?
We get closer and closer to the glass ceiling, and for the first time in days, I see the sun. Four walks up a flight of metal stairs leading through a hole in the ceiling. They creak under my feet, and I look down to see the Pit and the chasm below us.
We walk across the glass, which is now a floor rather than a ceiling, through a cylindrical room with glass walls. The surrounding buildings are half-collapsed and appear to be abandoned.
The Dauntless mill around the glass room, talking in clusters. Above me, two ropes stretch across the room, one a few feet higher than the other. They probably have something to do with the daredevil stunts the Dauntless are famous for.
The trainers leads us through another door. Beyond it is a huge, dank space with graffitied walls and exposed pipes. The room is lit by a series of old-fashioned fluorescent tubes with plastic covers—they must be ancient.
"This," says Four, his eyes bright in pale light, "is a different kind of simulation known as the fear landscape. It has been enabled for our purposes, so this what it will be like the next time you see it at the end of stage three."
Behind him, the word "Dauntless" is spray-painted in red artistic lettering on a concrete wall.
"In stage two when you would have went through your simulations, we would have stored data about your worst fears. The fear landscape accesses that data and presents you with a series of virtual obstacles. But today we don't have that data so it will be all of your fears and not just obstacles of it. Some of the fears will be the same you will face in your simulations in stage two. Some may not be seen again until the final test. The difference in this is that you are aware, in the fear landscape, that it is a simulation, so you will have all your wits about you as you go through it. In stage two you will not be that lucky."
That means that everyone will be like Divergent in the fear landscape, but what is I can't go under. The awareness won't be able to help me out if I can't be put in the simulation. In the aptitude test Mrs. Prior told me that it just might be to weak of a serum. That the fear serum will be much stronger and most likely be able to take me under, but to still find her daughter and ask for a double dose so as to not chance it.
Four continues, "The number of fears you have in your landscape varies according to how many you have."
How many fears will I have? I think of facing my mother or Wes dying and shiver.
"Eric told you before that the third stage of initiation focuses on mental preparation," he says.
"That is because it requires you to control both your emotions and your body—to combine the physical abilities you learned in stage one with the emotional mastery you learned in stage two. To keep a level head." One of the fluorescent tubes above Four's head twitches and flickers. I look from Four and look at Eric to see his stare on me.
"In a few weeks you will go through your fear landscape as quickly as possible in front of a panel of Dauntless leaders. That will be your final test, which determines your ranking for stage three. Just as stage two of initiation is weighted more heavily than stage one, stage three is weighted heaviest of all. Understood?"
We all nod.
If I do well in my final test, I have a good chance of making it into the top ten and a good chance of becoming a member. Becoming Dauntless. The thought makes me almost giddy with relief to be away from my mother and her clutches.
"You can get past each fear in one of two ways. Either you find a way to calm down enough that the simulation registers a normal, steady heartbeat, or you find a way to face your fear, which can force the simulation to move on. One way to face a fear of drowning is to swim deeper, for example." Four shrugs. "So I suggest that you take stage two to consider your fears and develop strategies to face them."
"We told you before that you will be ranked for job selection after your final test. But to get there you must make enough points to stay. In my initiation class we only allowed in the top ten. Since then we have gone back to the point system. Don't make the points, don't make the cut." Tris says as she looks around the initiates. "As you see the Dauntless-born will be present for this stage. The only stage you will not have together is the first. Four and Eric will be in the room with the one in the simulation. Myself plus Lauren and Lynn will be out her with the others."
Maybe I can take Tris aside when one of the other initiates are testing. That is if I'm not the first.
"One by one we will pull you into the room. Everyone else will be able to see your fear from that monitor." Eric points to the large screen to the side. "This will not count against your ranking. As you haven't been prepared for it yet."
"Then why do we have to do it now at all?" Dalton asks.
"Erudite?" Four asks.
Dalton nods.
"Max and the other leaders wanted to see the fears early this year." Eric answered looking at me.
I gasp as I realize that they don't want to see the others as much as they want to see mine.
Please don't take me first.
"First up, Aren Zane." The Dauntless-born boy stands up and follows Eric and Four into the room. We watch as Aren is injected with the fear serum then we look over at the screen. His fear landscape has started. As I watch I count, he has nine, becoming bald, becoming ill, spiders, dependent on others, solitude, immobility, deformity, insanity, and the death of his family. While still watching I walk over to Tris.
"Can I speak to you for a moment?" I ask as I get near.
"Sure." She walks me out of the room and stops. "My mother came to me last night. I told Four and he will double your dose. We will see if it works. If it doesn't we will not inform your mother. Dauntless no long shares our information with Erudite. Not until a trusted leader is appointed. My brother and your friend's father are working on it."
"Thanks." We go back into the room Aren is still trying to get past the immobility. I walk back over to Wes and sit next to him where he now sits with Audi next to the wall across from the screen.
"Why did you have to talk to Tris?" Wes asks.
"I let her know that I got sick from the other serum." I tell him. He just nods he knows I am divergent, but so is he. I told him before my mother found me the day of the aptitude test.
I start to shiver and Wes hands me his jacket. He knows I get cold easy. I slip on the jacket and am immediately enveloped by his scent. "You still smell the same."
"Thanks I think." He chuckles.
"Its good. Audi smell him and tell him." I lean back as she leans over me to smell Wes.
"Your right. He does smell good." She says as Aren comes out. Another name is called.
Wes tucks me into his side until it is his turn. When his name is called I ask him if he wants his jacket back. He says no and follows a stony faced Eric into his fearscape.