The Other Prior: Candice Prior || Divergent Fanfiction

Chapter 20: Jake

Hey guys. I'm not normally doing this, but I need to vent. I've lived on this Earth for 15 years (almost) and it just hit me that I don't have anything to show for it. No achievements. To add to that, there's the stress of figuring out what I want to do with my life, plus a ton of shit in school. Sometimes its just too much. This is my only stress-buster, so I'm going to continue writing. Keep reading:-

 Chapter 20:

"Andi." The familiar voice of Amar calls out to me. I'm one of the last people that are taking their simulation today, so the hallway is fairly empty.

I walk towards the simulation room, walking inside and letting Amar close the door behind me. I sit down on the chair wordlessly, having become accustomed to the routine over the past few days. Amar plunges the needle into my neck and sends me into the fear residing in my subconscious mind.

I recognize the fear immediately. I am standing in a vast countryside, which looks almost peaceful. There are no threats, no worries. But it is only meant to relax me before the inevitable comes. And come it does. The countryside is covered by a shadow storm almost as quickly as I was plunged into the simulation in the first place. It starts raining and storming. Lightning strikes, freeing me of the bonds I didn't know held me. I'm standing on a cliff with raging water below me. It looks like the chasm – the unruly sea and the jagged rocks ready to kill anyone that drops. And I do. Somebody pushes me – Jake, although I don't know what that means, and I plummet to my inevitable death in the water.

I land, the water not killing me on impact, like it should have, my body getting sucked into the freezing water with harsh sounds of radio static made by the pouring rain around me. Lightning strikes. I feel the panic rising in me, but nobody is there to help me. The familiar feeling – the feeling that prevented me from completing my fear landscape – comes again. Panic.

Fear.

I kick and scream, but I am not a strong swimmer, and my feeble attempts are not enough to keep me above water. My head hits one of the rocks as I'm pulled underneath the surface of the water, and the hand that I move up to the place of impact feels hot – blood.

I thrash and scream, but I'm sinking further and further, the light of the outside world fading slowly. And then it goes black.

"What the hell was that?" I scream, forgetting momentarily that Amar is my instructor. I'm blinded by fear, my panic and bile are stuck in my throat. "I come in here, every single day, and you put me through this kind of torture. This isn't being brave. This is torture. It's emotionally, mentally scarring. I didn't know when I signed up for Dauntless, I was signing up for weeks of torture."

"Andi, you need to calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down! I just died in that- that- whatever the hell that was, I just died! You don't get to tell me to calm down!" I scream, not able to control the feelings I'm bottling up any longer. I feel shaken by the simulation. Maybe my sudden outburst is because of the simulation, or maybe it's because of the past week of simulations I've gone through – all of the feelings finally coming up.

"How long do you think you were in there, Andi?" Amar asked silently.

"What?" I say, stunned at his abrupt question.

"How long were you in there?" Amar says, narrowing his eyes at me.

"I- I don't know- 20 minutes?" It felt like an hour.

"Try two minutes. It's the fastest I've seen all week. Including everyone."

I'm not sure what to say to that. I'm the fastest score he's seen all week. Instead of saying anything, I wipe the streaks of tears off my face and rush out the door. I can tell that everybody, which isn't much considering I was one of the last people to go in, heard my fit.