Hello! I'm very sorry for this three-month-late update. School has been breathing down on my neck and, well, as much as I would have wanted, I couldn't write at all. Here it is, though. I'm going to try to put another one up before New Year. And without further ado.
Where is this?
Cobblestone streets spread far and wide, vines crawling on buildings, covering them in a green wrap over the moss that has grown through time. Fallen columns block some roads, and from where she's standing divides four paths from a central square: one to the north, another to the south, and to the east, and to the west. The four paths are all made with stone arcs as some kind of entrance, and when she looks up, the sky is a bright blue with fluffy white clouds overhead.
A flock of birds pass by.
But she doesn't hear a thing.
And just then does she realize the constant presence of a hum in her ears, a constant screech like when she was in the Erudite laboratory. It remains no matter how much she moves, no matter how long she waits, and she wonders if that serum is supposed to clear her deafness.
Maybe it will, maybe it won't. She'll have to see for sure.
But this place strikes her with awe and wonder, and Tris finds herself walking forward down a cobblestone path, slowly, steadily, passing under an arc covered with moss and vines with some hanging flowers.
The smell is sweet; fragrant like perfume. It's familiar and warm and foreign all at the same time. Even while she still can't hear, she can smell, she can feel, and for now, that's enough.
When she closes her eyes, she sees stark blue clothing and blonde hair, but most of all, watery gray eyes.
She walks on. Where is she? This landscape is unlike any she's ever seen, and she doubts anyone who's ever taken the fear serum has ever seen this before either.
So she takes her chance: to explore this land it is.
The path she takes merges with a larger road that plows through the ruins of this ancient city and cuts through to a colossal stadium. Crumbling walls and fallen pillars, but it still stands prominent among the ruins of this mysterious landscape.
Will she find something there? Will it simply be a waste of effort? The fact that she's here is already enough proof that she's supposed to do something.
So she proceeds to the colosseum down the cobblestone street, more ruins and fallen pillars scattered around her.
But the road is untouched by the debris from whatever happened when this city fell.
As she walks down the main street of this place of ancient ruins, her eyes dance left and right, marveling at the sights of columns from more than a century ago, awe-struck by what she knows she can never see anywhere else than this fear landscape.
Fear? Maybe awe.
The street seems to go on for feet on end. And left and right there are arcs that stand and pillars that have fallen, walls with the top half of their material rubble on the ground, devoured by the crawling vines that bear flowers of more than one kind. There are holes on the ground with staircases leading deeper into the earth, and some lucky chairs that are still left standing.
Statues of gods and goddesses are spread far and wide, one holding lightning and another holding that ancient weapon called a trident, another wielding a bow and arrow, and so on.
Her feet walk on and it feels like she's in another world (which, in a way, she is); it feels like she's been taken back in time to see and relive the world that used to be before whatever ravaged the world ravaged it.
It's all so beautiful, especially the prominent structure that lies ahead.
"I believe that is called the Roman Colosseum."
"Neutralize her!"
"The syringe!"
"The serum!"
"What's that?"
"Get her heart rate steady!"
"Joshua, the drug!"
"It was a prominent structure of Ancient Rome. Long before the modern age, before our technology ever existed, people found entertainment in other citizens either battling or being fed to lions. It was execution and entertainment, but also a simple battle to the death, though still entertainment. The stadiums in their time were small compared to the Roman Colosseum, and to put it in lay man's terms, one day they just thought of creating a much bigger stadium that resulted in the Roman Colosseum."
"Do NOT let her go into a comatose."
"But why would a fear serum trigger her to imagine something she might not even know about? It's obvious the serum was modified, but why would it come to that? It's not even a familiar idea, let alone a familiar setting."
She stands beside him with just as disheveled a look, because they both need Tris to come out of this alive and well—not worse—and he remembers how she shouted orders at doctors and scientists and all the people who work in that section of Erudite, how even for a few moments, she seemed to have gone back to being the old Jeanine Matthews. But the old Jeanine Matthews would have had eyes as unfeeling and steely as a machine's. This Jeanine Matthews' eyes are alight with a determination they share: to save Tris from whatever it is they've risked her into.
Now Tris is out of harm, or at least safe for the mean time, but he wonders how a fear serum could actually create a place the person never even knew about, never even knew existed. Forget knowing how the place looks like, Tris didn't even know anything about the Roman Colosseum.
None of them do. Except the generation before them.
The generation before them which includes Jeanine.
She speaks again, just as factually as she did the last time, her eyes trained to the hologram displaying Tris' view, her voice calm and emotionless though her eyes display a loss of adrenalin but the presence of emotion.
"The serum contains a slight electrical wave that can only be triggered by a wave just as strong, if not stronger, than itself. It's possible that the electrical activity reached Beatrice's brain, as it's supposed to, though altered any landscape that was supposed to appear because of Beatrice's health condition. What I say are just theories though, so it may be wrong."
They stay silent after that, maybe an unspoken agreement between them to give all their attention to Tris.
So they do. Just as Tris walks at the tip of the cobblestone path, now directly in front of the Roman Colosseum.
It's like there are doors from all around, as if on every floor there is a door from the outside to the inside. But it seems the structure was never finished, with so many vines coating the concrete that amazingly stands erect even after what looks to be centuries worth of endurance.
The concrete though, as old as it seems, still bears a rich cream color. And with the vines that cover it bearing leaves that gleam with dew under what seems to be the late morning sun, with flowers blooming from place to place, the age of the structure didn't matter. It's
as if it was made to be unfinished, as if nature would finish the building for it. To make some kind of hidden paradise, an escape for all in hardships and jeopardy.
And the smell, oh the smell; it's not like some stuffy old building with columns soaked in age-old water. It smelled of flowers: sweet, sweet flowers.
Her feet surge on, toward the intriguing structure that stands before her, the sweet scent of the flowers filling her senses.
She is welcomed by one of the arc-shaped entrances extending at least half a meter long, spanning wide enough to fit maybe more than five people, higher than even three of her could reach, and maybe just barely if the height of hers and Tobias' would be doubled. To add to that, vines crawl on it, nearly covering every surface of the stone. The flowers sprout from everywhere, and where the entrance ended, above head there are bits of vines reaching out like hands, with flowers at their ends.
Inside, it's an even more stunning view.
There is no ceiling, except the sky that's bluer than any sky she's ever scene from the Abnegation or even the Dauntless headquarters. The clouds are like cotton in the beautiful dome sky, and the wind comes in as if to comb her hair, as if the wind has fingers that long to slide through her hair. Just as it caresses her skin and touches her cheek, the wind brings the scents of all the flowers blooming in the stadium, as if giving her a bouquet of every flower she could ever dream of, and more. The sun shines into the stadium as the wind blows on the leaves of every vine, and the colors drown every inch of her sight—vibrant greens, bright pinks, strong reds, pastel peaches, and so many more hues that they seem to be never-ending.
It's a beautiful sight. Like a dream in paradise.
Soon enough, the wind dies down and the sun dims, but the smile on Tris' face can't seem to leave just yet, so she closes her eyes to listen to the melody of this place where she wishes she could stay in forever, this place that could be her escape from everything and anything that would try to hurt her.
Seconds pass and all she can hear is a high-pitched screeching sound in her ears. She opens her eyes just as the last bits of her smile fade.
Right. I'm deaf.
The paradise stops feeling like a paradise in those moments.
Tobias stands beside her, neither of them making a word. Or, for that matter manner, any audible sound.
Without having to move her eyes to look at where his is trained to, she knows he's watching that holographic screen just as intently as she is, watching every movement as if it could be Beatrice's last. And truth be told, it could. If anything were to go wrong.
Certainly, neither of them would want that. It's beyond a certainty that either and both of them would want no harm to befall Beatrice. But in these moments, it's really up to Beatrice to keep herself alive, because at this point, with all the necessary procedures done to keep Beatrice's body at a particularly healthy state, the only thing left is for Beatrice to find the trigger for the serum to activate.
Otherwise, this will all end in jeopardy. One that would be irreversible, one that Jeanine would give anything to prevent.
This had been risky from the start. But it's the only chance they have of getting Beatrice's hearing back.
Jeanine's sure that even Tobias would have done the same thing should he have been in her place.
Anything for Beatrice. Absolutely and completely anything for Beatrice.
Thank you again for reading, even with this very late update. Have a Merry Christmas!