Disclaimer: I don't own Divergent.
It's a saying I've heard many times. "Once you hit rock bottom, the only way you can go is up!" But it's not easy trying to climb out of the deep pit that depression feels like.
I never thought to ask Amar or Lauren for help, because they'd probably single me out as a weakling. Yet bearing the burden all on my own is as difficult as going through my fear landscape. I have to deal with twice the amount of grief that's expected, because it wasn't just Ysabelle who died recently. I just found out Bernard passed too, of "natural causes". It crossed my mind that, after Ysabelle's murder, I could turn to him to find additional witnesses for a future Jeanine Matthews trial. That is not going to happen now.
And even if Bernard didn't want to help, well, he was still one of my fellow human beings. He was still one of the factionless I'd promised to serve and protect, in the event that I become a Dauntless leader.
It's only because of my goal to become a leader that I'm still going.
I sit on the bench that I found in the Pit, my elbows on my thighs, my chin resting on my knuckles. I may be in the heart of the Dauntless compound, but there aren't many people I can see from here. Then Zeke enters my line of sight. "Four!" he crows loudly. "My man." Pure elation in his every step, he speed-walks to my side.
"Hey," I greet him, waving at him when he's close enough to me. I actually manage to keep the smile on my face. This is one of the few miracles I've experienced lately. They don't call me "Thomas" anymore, just "Four". All the transfers, the instructors, the Dauntless-born initiates, even Sean and Jason know and respect the new title I've been given. It's made me feel so much better about myself.
That's why, when Zeke sits down on the other end of the bench, I feel some of my depression melt like snow in the sun. "You on good terms with Shauna?" Zeke asks me, one eyebrow raised. For a long time, most of the people who know me attributed my emotional slump to our breakup.
I just shrug my shoulders in response. "Told her I know for certain that Eric's not Divergent," I say vaguely. "We're not getting back together, though." I don't specify, but there was a special reason behind my standing up for Eric, despite my hatred for him. I realized that if I implicated him, the police would come and open an investigation, and I'd be on the chopping block as well.
Plus, there's still the issue of Eric himself knowing I'm Divergent. I never found out what happened to the stuff that we dropped in the laundromat, after Amar interrupted our fight. I went back there after Amar allowed me to leave his office, and both the voice recorder and the access card had vanished. Likely picked up by one of the cleaners, because as far as I can remember, Eric was empty-handed when we left to go to Amar's office.
Theoretically, I could tell on him, but then he'd tell on me. Then it'd be his word against mine. Worth the risk? I don't know, and it's a gamble I'm not going to take.
Zeke looks at me, sympathy on his face. "Sorry, man," he says, hooking his arm around my shoulder.
"It's okay," I reply.
We catch up with each other for a while, just discussing initiation, our friends, and how Zeke's mom and brother are doing. Then Zeke suddenly says he feels hungry. He asks if I'd like him to go grab some food for both of us. I say yeah, and he tells me he'll be right back.
I'm all by myself on the bench again. There's a bad cramp in one of my legs, and that's how I know to get up and take a short walk. I stroll around the perimeter of the Pit and people-watch, even though I don't see any of the Dauntless I know. Then I hear a voice that I'm able to place almost instantly.
"In short, it's imperative that I see one of your fear simulations." That's Jeanine Matthews speaking. My heart skips a beat and I stop to listen to her.
Amar, my instructor, stands barely a foot away from her. "You just said you have… information," he says slowly. "From where?"
I'm not liking how afraid of the Erudite leader Amar looks.
Jeanine's facial muscles barely move as she talks. "An initiate came forward to express his security concerns," she explains. "I would like to respect his privacy." She turns, then beckons to Amar with one of her slender fingers. "You may accompany me to the simulation room."
I look again at Amar. He nods at Jeanine. I attempt to follow as they walk away, but they go too fast for me to match their pace without them noticing. Soon, they're gone, like Zeke.
But I think I can say who tipped Jeanine off. Her "information" came from an initiate, and there's only one initiate in my class who'd be talking to her.
As the next couple of days pass, I forget about Jeanine Matthews' latest visit. All of us initiates, Dauntless-born and transfer alike, go through our fear landscapes seemingly robotically, trying out one strategy after another to beat the same old fears that show up each time. I have just four that I need to conquer, and that's why my sessions are shorter, and why I can go through my own landscape more often each day. Now I'm the initiate who knows his own fears the best, and I can name them all on command. Heights, confinement, Marcus, and… something else. I don't really have a name for the last one, but I always see the same thing in the simulation. A train's speeding toward a helpless woman tied to the rails, the exact same woman I was forced to shoot in another simulation. I'm standing far enough from the rails that I won't be hit, but close enough that if I move in time, I could cut the woman's ropes with the knife in my hand and save her. But when I try that, I find that my arm's secured to a post, and I lose time freeing myself first. Then I'm forced to watch as I arrive too late and the train flattens and kills the woman.
Each time the simulation ends, I become aware of myself shaking, of mortification rising up inside me, because my friends and my instructor saw me in one of my weakest states. Sure, there's no other initiate with just four fears, but I'm no better at dispelling them when the simulations are done. Unspeakable nightmares, paranoid delusions, and nighttime teeth-grinding are now as everyday to me as Jason's bullying was in the combat stage.
"Getting the jitters?" Lauren asks at breakfast one morning. I look up and see Zeke and many others staring my way. The evidence of my depressive state on my face must be too easy to see.
Still I shake my head. "Nah," I say.
"Oh, you know," Zeke chimes in, laying his hand on my shoulder. "It's okay to not be okay." He smiles and I feel way more hopeful.
Yet it doesn't last. The weight of what we'll be expected to do today returns to our table, and I need to force myself to finish my breakfast. It tastes like dust between my teeth, like Abnegation food.
After the final swallow, I gulp down some water before I put my tray away. Zeke heads to the Pit with me, and I try to keep all thoughts of the fear landscape out of my head. At some point, Zeke's little brother, Uriah, runs up to us. A bandage sits behind his ear, covering up a new tattoo. You rarely see him not cracking jokes, but today is one of those rare days. Right now he just seems shaken.
"Hey, guys?" Reaching out suddenly, he grasps at his older brother's arm, as if telling him he wants support. He nearly stutters on his next few words. "Amar… Amar's dead."
I laugh. In disbelief. Not out of mirth. Still inappropriate for something like this, but my reaction's uncontrollable. "What? What do you mean, he's dead?"
"Someone found a body on the ground near the sculpture," says Uriah. "They identified it as Amar." I hear his voice drop in volume. "He must've…"
"Jumped?" guesses Zeke.
"Or fell, no one knows," mutters Uriah, still shell-shocked.
I rush to get on one of the paths that lead up the walls of the Pit. I usually will press my whole body against the wall when I climb, but this time, I'm not thinking about what's below me. I brush past hordes of running children and grown-ups standing in front of shops, then I ascend the stairs dangling from the glass ceiling.
At my destination there's a dense crowd. I elbow my way through it. I'm cussed at and elbowed back, but I don't care what those guys think. I look out the glass windows, which stand guard over the busy intersection outside of the compound. The place is being sectioned off with crime scene tape. The pavement's the exact same color as the canvas I usually paint on, and a single cranberry-colored brushstroke stands out on it.
That's right. The thing I'm staring at is just a dark red stripe, just part of a painted image that isn't finished. Not Amar's blood, because there'd only be this much if his body blew apart after hitting the ground.
It's when I comprehend this that my eyes don't want to look anymore, and I turn away.
Amar and I weren't exactly close friends, and not gonna lie, toward the end, I enjoyed feeling the distance between us increase. He was a born-and-bred Dauntless, and that made it inevitable that I'd clash with him on some of his views. Still, I feel something akin to grief whenever I think about him, when I remember how he gave me my new name, or how he moved to protect me when he didn't need to. But mostly I feel guilt and anger. He'd still be alive if I'd been better at keeping my secret from Eric.
They got Amar killed, Jeanine Matthews and Eric. But everyone thinks he jumped, or fell. It's something lots of Dauntless do.
The Dauntless arrange a memorial service for him that same day, and it's not so different from Mia's. Everyone's drunk within thirty minutes, like usual. We all flood the chasm, and Zeke passes me a cup that's still full. A strong smell radiates from the open top. I empty the whole thing into my gaping mouth, welcoming how the alcohol feels in my throat. When I hand the cup back to Zeke, he says he'll get me some more.
I spend the next hour or so just listening to the chasm make its usual loud noises, letting my ears absorb them, so I don't hear the disturbingly loud chanting. It annoys me how the Dauntless will act after the death of one of their own, but I also feel obligated to stay and see Amar off. I'm also worried for my image, worried that the leadership might single me out as one who isn't "Dauntless enough". Jeanine assured me that she believes in my innocence, but has her suspicion returned? Is she gonna come for me, now that she's caught Amar?
I shove that thought as far down as I can, where I'm sure I won't find it again. Zeke comes back holding two cups, and I see one of Amar's friends teeter as he stands on top of a chair, shouting something meaningless about my instructor being brave enough to explore the unknown.
The mourners lift their shot glasses and chant Amar's name. They say it so many times, the name just becomes a repeated grunt, part of the primitive vocabulary of a thousand-year-old race. Then we all drink. This is how my faction grieves, by drowning their sorrow in buckets of alcohol and leaving it at the bottom of the ocean.
Our final exam, the fear landscape that'll be judged by all the Dauntless leaders, is less than two days away. No one can resist talking about it anymore. So when I walk the hallways of the Dauntless compound, all I hear is "fear landscape" this and "final test" that. I think it's actually comforting, knowing we're all on common ground, each of us injected with the same dosage of fear, from the same needle.
Then I spot Eric standing nearby, and the warm fuzzy feelings fade all at once. I stop in place, crossing my arms and just staring Eric down for a good three seconds.
"You got something to say?" he finally asks.
"I know you killed him," I blurt out. I continue to stare at Eric, my eyes unblinking. "You told Jeanine Matthews about Amar."
"Have no idea what you're talking about," he says, trying to sound indifferent. But it's obvious he knows. I recall the fear on Amar's face as Jeanine interrogated him, and my anger reaches its summit.
"It's all 'cause of you that he's dead," I growl at Eric, as I repetitively open and close my fist. I should probably keep my hands covered, or I could end up punching him on a reflex.
Eric just smirks. "Did you get hit in the head or something, Stiff?" he asks mockingly, the last word emphasized. "You aren't making any sense."
I push him so hard and so fast, his back slams into the wall. I keep him imprisoned there with my arm, then I lean in close to his face. "I know you killed him," I say, my voice rumbling slightly, like a volcano about to erupt for the first time in years. "You just committed murder, but you won't get away with it."
I let him go after that, and he turns and walks away without a word. But I won't forget what I saw on his face while I was talking to him. I stared long and hard into his black eyes, searching for a sign of sanity behind those windows into his soul. But I could see nothing, just the eyes of a dead fish, something impenetrable. It's how I can tell he's simply too far gone.
Tonight, I'm having trouble sleeping.
I change the position of my head on my pillow. I rotate so I'm lying on my left side, then I try my right. I close my eyes and count ten sheep, then one hundred. Still my brain stays on and alert.
At last I heave a sigh and sit up. I'll be pulling an all-nighter, I guess. I squint in the darkness till I locate Eric in his bed. Unlike me, he's resting comfortably, his cheek pressed into the crook of his arm, his eyes firmly closed.
Suddenly this realization hits me. I speak up, addressing the sleeping Eric, though I know damn well he can't hear me. "You didn't tell Jeanine about me," I point out. "Why?"
I don't expect an actual answer from him, of course. But it's true, he definitely could've told Jeanine. Without the hard evidence we lost, it would've been his word against mine, and Jeanine's closer to him than to me.
What motive was there behind his refusal to incriminate me? Was it something like guilt? Regret?
I sigh again, this time out of frustration, not because I can't go to sleep. "Can you just talk to me?" I plead, staring at the still-sleeping Eric.
I mean, I don't expect a reply here, either. But I feel like releasing the floodgates on all the words I've suppressed, and now's a good time to do it. I keep looking at the person who used to call himself my friend. "You wish it ended differently, too," I mutter. "Right?"
I stare in the same direction for a few seconds longer. Then I lay my head back down.
Because it doesn't matter how many hypotheticals I make up, the reality is, neither of us will ever want to speak to the other again.
AN: Sad that Amar's gone, but that was always how his story was gonna end. The two main characters' journey is almost done. Up next is their final exam, and it's gonna come with a lot of drama. How will Eric do compared to his ex-best friend? Read on, and you'll find out!