Hello! So here is the next chapter, as promised, before New Year. Happy Day Before New Year's Eve!
Tris blinks to avert her eyes from the vines and leaves and flowers flowing in the wind. The sun is still shining down into the colosseum, making everything look blinding, and Tris admits it would've been a pleasant kind of blinding if it didn't literally burn her eyes.
She trudges on, trying to forget the beauty of this nature-devoured place, a certain beauty that she would love if only she could hear. Sure, the sights and smells are perfect, and the caress of the wind on her skin is sweet, but she couldn't hear the wind whistling by, or maybe a horn was already sounding in the distance but she would never hear a thing.
Her feet step over crawling vines and her legs cross over gaps and go over fallen blocks covered in moss and more vines. She lets her eyes wander to the distant arcs that could be an exit from this colosseum, or an entrance to some place else. But so far, she can only see it extending into more ruins, like the ones she had just walked away from when she entered the colosseum.
Just like the fear serum, Tris guesses she needs to get something done here before she can wake up again.
And so far, the only lead she has is needing to be somewhere, and maybe wherever she needs to be will hold whatever thing she needs to do to get out of here. She's sure she can figure out what she has to do. The hard part there, then would be finding where she has to be, or at least the path that will lead her there.
She continues looking around, but finds nothing.
She finds herself staring off to somewhere, some place, way off there beyond the ruins, beyond one of the arc exits, and a sigh seems to escape her. She feels the long exhale from her nose, and how her shoulders relax, and she honestly doesn't know since when she tensed up, but she did and now she wonders helplessly. What is she going to do?
Only the luckiest or smartest people can ever find their way out of a situation like this. No guide, no clues, no hints, but if a person is lucky enough, it's obvious that person will find what he or she is looking for, just stumbling upon it in due time. If a person is smart enough, no amount of luck is needed. A smart person will have the entire puzzle figured out before Tris can even find the hidden entrance or whatever she's looking for.
The wind caresses her face once again. It brings with it strands of her hair that tickle her nose and cheeks. The scents of the flowers flood in her nose once again, and it makes her eyes close shut with how fragrant all those scents turn out to be. If she tries hard enough, she swear she can almost feel Tobias' hands on her face, urging her to face back forward, to move on, to keep going. And she's glad for him, for the memory of him, because he reminds her to be strong when she loses all her strength, when she loses sight of the strength she possesses.
But the scents bring the image of a blue dress and a blue blazer and blonde hair, and most of all, watery gray eyes.
The scents bring the image and the image bring a sound, a sound that Tris is sure she hears, but she knows that would be impossible, because all she actually hears is a high-pitched screech that seems to go on endlessly. But she nearly thinks she can hear again with the sound—no, the voice—that resounds in her ears from a memory.
"You can do it, Beatrice. You're strong enough for this."
She wants to believe it even if she doesn't. It feels wrong to want such a thing when in fact, she shouldn't. Why would she? Why should she? But the words that she had listened to when she was still knocked out keep going in her head, keep resounding in her ears, as if to dominate the screech that now keeps her from hearing anything, including that woman's voice.
"Do it for… Do it for me."
Her eye lids lift and Tris faces forward once again, eyes shining with determination.
In front of her stands a hole in the ground, one that looks like it has steps going down, as well as a stone railing that descends in a spiral. She walks up to it, knowing full well what she needs to do.
Her steps are no longer slow and calm, but fast and urgent.
Stepping onto the first step, the step before the stone staircase descended, Tris nearly wishes it was the memory of Tobias' caress that pushed her on, that pulled her out of her momentary grief and back into her mission, though she knows deep down that isn't the case.
The fact is, she can't believe such a thing.
Not yet.
Though she already does.
Tris' foot lands on the first step that descends into the ground. Her hand is on the rail, a firm yet cautious grip, as if she is expecting it to crumble and collapse any time now, though she is not reckless enough to think she does not need the railing entirely.
Just like he taught her.
And it fills him with so much pride yet so much anxiety. It makes him feel like she might just slip out of his grasp like she would slip on the steps, and there'll be no way to get her back because the only her he'll ever see will be the Tris losing the life in her eyes, the beautiful glint fading into a dull, hollow shine.
But he can't doubt Tris, and he knows in himself that he doesn't doubt Jeanine, because Tris may be reckless but she's Erudite too, isn't she? She got that in her aptitude test, too. And Jeanine, with renewed purpose and all the knowledge she has, he knows he can't doubt someone who has only ever done things for a purpose which would mostly be to succeed.
But every experiment can fail right? What then?
He tries not to think about it, because there's no use troubling himself now and making himself less complacent before Tris comes back. She can handle it herself, and he knows that.
She's always been strong, and he knows he can't doubt her strength because her strength is his strength and if all else fails, she'll be the only one left who can bring him back up. If he doubts her strength, it would be like doubting his reason to live.
And he can't do that. He has to keep believing for her.
"So how is she doing?" A voice says from beside him.
Had he known someone was there? Maybe. Maybe not. Though he seems to have already felt the presence before he became aware of knowing someone's there.
"Okay." It's like a Dauntless sort of thing, if Tobias would think about it. Facing one's fear head on, not conspiring a way around it, or giving one's self away. Tris is facing this head on, even if this isn't a fear, but she is still facing it head on in the most Divergent way possible.
No, in the most Tris way possible.
Because Tris isn't just Dauntless or Divergent. She's Tris.
And he wouldn't change that.
He and Peter stay in silence as they watch the hologram projection of Tris in the simulation, all the while he feels Jeanine just stand still watching, observing, and not uttering a word while the simulation goes on.
None of them actually speak though. The only ones who speak are the ones in the other room, the people who actually take note of specific things and analyze and maybe manipulate. Their voices, though not loud, echo in the room they stand in, words flying around the room about electric jolts and chemicals and scientific this and thats, most things Tobias doesn't understand and probably won't try to understand either.
No sound really comes from their room. All until there is a sound of an Erudite door—or rather, the door to their room—opening.
All three heads turn to the door where a man stands in all his Erudite neatness.
Caleb Prior.
Tris reaches the end of the steps, and she feels the air vibrate in a hollow way. She imagines that if she could hear it, it would sound like a thunk that bounces off the walls like a shout in a cave.
Her eyes scan the hall before her, with crumbling stone ceilings and rock walls with crawling vines.
Here, there are no fragrant flowers or vibrant colors. The light of the sun can't reach here, and whatever waits wherever she has to be, she's sure it's deep where there might be no way out.
From where she stands, the hall extends far beyond what she can see, and there are also arcs that lead to the left and to the right. There are a few surviving torches on the walls, so she walks to one and yanks it free of the vine grasp it's locked in, examining it for any possible use or damage.
I can manipulate simulations.
A fire comes to life on the crumbling tip of the torch and Tris' vicinity is lit.
I'm Divergent, even if I can't hear right now.
Her feet plow on, and she's moving again, deeper, deeper, deeper into the underground passage that seem more like halls built for an underground palace. The atmosphere feels like there could be a secret meeting going on somewhere in the deep crevices of the place, as if there might be some ancient chanting or summoning somewhere the light can't reach. It's solemn in the scariest way, and her heart beats heavily and steadily as if approaching the greatest enemy in the war.
She presses her back to the left wall, holding the torch on her right.
She takes a peek at the left hallway, where no one seems to be in. Not one inch of movement, nor a sliver of light. She looks to the right hallway just facing the left hallway entrance.
No one there either. No light at all.
She pushes off the wall and walks on in the left hall, where she sees nothing but rock walls and marble floors. Ahead of her, there seems to be nothing, though she can make out the faintest outlines of what might just be doors somewhere ahead of her on the walls.
Where will they lead?
And is she supposed to be in one of them?
"Caleb."
"Jeanine, may I talk to you for a moment?"
She turns to walk away from the spot she has claimed as her own toward the door wear Caleb steps away from, just far enough to let her through.
She steps out of the room and follows him just at the corner of the hall, there where he stops, then turns to face her.
A moment of silence passes.
"Caleb-"
"Jeanine, what exactly is going to trigger the electric shock in the serum?"
The serum was made with a unique electric component that can be triggered to heal what was damaged when Beatrice was awakened. Such an electric component needed an electric jolt just as strong as, if not stronger than, itself, if it were to be activated. With their manipulations of getting the resting electric shock to the part of Beatrice's brain that holds her hearing, the only thing left is to jolt it awake so the shock can activate and the serum may do its purpose.
Though for the brain to send electric waves strong enough to activate the serum's electric shock, Beatrice would need to burst with a strong emotion.
"As you know, we will need a strong emotion for that."
"And as per research, the strongest emotion in terms of electric waves is anger." He pauses, swallowing his breath. "What exactly is going to trigger that?"
In his eyes, Jeanine sees so many emotions battling at once. And although from the outside he appears calm and composed, Jeanine knows better than to settle for superficial.
He's worried, and scared, and anxious because that is his sister, the sister he thinks he betrayed, the sister that he played a part in nearly killing.
But, Jeanine wants to say, he also played a part in creating the serum that could save her. He also played a part in reviving her, no matter how small. He has done many things to hurt Beatrice, but Jeanine knows Beatrice enough to know that the many things Caleb has done can never parallel to Beatrice's love for him.
But it's not in Jeanine's place to tell him that. Beatrice has to tell him herself.
Otherwise, it will lose its meaning.
"I would like to hypothesize that it will come from her greatest cause of anger, but with her health condition and the many modifications to the serum, I cannot say for sure."
There is a short pause, and the business in the atmosphere in Erudite is thick and almost tangible.
"What do you think would be the greatest cause for her to be mad?"
A woman knows a woman best, doesn't she? Or rather, a person recovered from pain knows a person in pain the best.
"The thing that would hurt her the most."
They settle in silence, neither able to meet the other's eye.
Caleb begins to walk past her and she follows behind him, and she knows he's heading where Tobias and Peter are right now, where the hologram of Beatrice's simulation is displayed.
Just before they reach the door, though, they hear the ends of a conversation.
"Why have you never told anyone?" Peter.
"It's hard for me to talk about Trina even now." Tobias.
A girl with long, brown, braided hair, and bright blue eyes, in dull, gray Abnegation clothing. The gray never suited the girl, but the girl never had the chance to try on any other color.
Beatrice will never forgive me if she found out.