The Other Prior: Candice Prior || Divergent Fanfiction

Chapter 18: The New Tattoo

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I'm standing in the confines of the gray-colored cube that held me prisoner for so long. My home. Everything is just how I remember it. Not a fabric out of place. Neat. Gray. Forgettable. Not for me. I smile as I see Bea and Caleb skip down the stairs together, being overly polite as Abnegation children are raised to do. My mother follows them down, it's her turn to make breakfast. She walks calmly to the kitchen smiling to herself as she watches her two kids interact politely while getting ready for school. My father comes down the steps a few minutes later in his Abnegation approved clothing, brushing his hair to keep it neat. Bland. Forgettable. He sits down on our modest dining table beside Caleb and starts to eat the bland meal that my mom puts in front of him.

I don't want this to end.

I miss this.

But this is a fear simulation. Something I dread is laying wait behind the heart-warming scene. I don't care. This is the only document I have of my parents. The only way that I will never forget what they look like. I don't care if it causes me to hurt inside every time, I need to see them.

Bea gets up from her seat at the table, relinquishing the seat to my mother, who takes a seat. Bea heads toward the living room, where I am standing and watching the scene in my new Dauntless clothing. I look so out of place in my old home. Anybody can notice it. The contrast of black on gray is startling. Bea approaches me, apparently unaffected by my presence to get the bag which is kept neatly on the floor behind me. She walks right up to me and walks through me unwaveringly. She doesn't see me.

I know what this about now. I feel the dread, the fear, rising up in my throat in the form of bile as it has done many times before. But this time it's different. It's impactful. I look around. There is no sign of me ever being present in the house. No smell of burnt toast, no scattered bag, no imperfection.

I feel a tear slip down my cheek. There are two types of fear. The fast, rapid, panicky type of fear, and the slow burn, dread-filled type of fear. The latter is more harmful, more painful, and much more disturbing. Tears keep coming. My family. The people that I cherish above all standing in front of me as though I don't exist is painful. It's inexplicable.

I sink to my knees, violent sobs taking over my body as I'm wrenched out of the fear simulation.

I'm tired.

I wipe my tears from my eyes and emotionlessly get up from the chair. I turn slowly and walk out the door. I feel dead inside. Five days of facing one's worst fears can take that toll on them. It does on me. I walk past the row of initiates lined up to face their fears again today. I see Tobias, Mia, Jake. Mia and Jake sit together, gazing at each other fondly, their legs touching slightly. Eric sits in a corner with bags under his eyes. He's gotten more new piercings over the course of these five days than many Dauntless have got in a lifetime. I'm too tired to rip my eyes away from him. He looks back at me, but somehow, we don't make eye-contact. We're avoiding each other's gaze.

I have faced 4 fears in total over the course of these five days. Spiders. Needles. The rest are harder to explain. One of my fears involves me sitting in a blank room, before Dauntless start to fill it. The fill it, but somehow, there is always distance between me and them. I am always surrounded by Dauntless people, but there is always a distance. That is one of my fears. Another one is this one. The fear of fading away. The fear of never having existed to the people I love the most.

The rest of my batch are tired too. Some cry in their sleep. Some eat a lot. Some don't eat at all. Some take anti-anxiety pills. We all have different methods of dealing with this. Of dealing with being plunged into our worst fears on a daily basis. Mia and Jake seem to act as stress busters for each other. Looking at them makes me feel some hope, even if I wish I could have someone to look at the way Mia looks at Jake. They deny it on a daily basis, but it doesn't fool anyone. Anybody can see that they are in- "like" with each other.