Soulmates

Chapter 14: Testing

A/N: FYI, some of this chapter was taken from Divergent, but I edited the heck out of it. It's in the first-person and in italics because we're inside Tris' head during her fear landscape. While much of it is the same as the original, there are some significant differences and things I added, removed, or adjusted to fit this story.

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Four stands just inside a door on the left side of the fear landscape room. Tris walks past without looking at him, still angry from their fight the night before. 

She looks through the glass into the room where Marlene is moving through her fear landscape. A line of people sit in chairs in front of it. Eric is one of them, and so is Max. Judging by the wires connected to their heads, and their blank eyes, they are observing the simulation.

Behind them is another line of chairs, occupied by initiates awaiting their turns. Max, Eric, and a few others shake off the simulation daze, congratulate Marlene, and walk out.

“Transfers, the order in which you go through the final test was taken from your rankings as they now stand,” Four says. “So Molly will go first, and Tris will go last."

The fear landscapes are not interesting to watch from the outside. Molly is moving, but Tris can't tell what she's reacting to. She spends too much time breathing heavily, trying to control her panic. At one point she even screams at the top of her lungs.

Christina is next. Then Will. Tris notices how much time it takes them, and relaxes in the knowledge that they both beat Molly. Even if all of the Dauntless-borns beat them, her friends will be safe.

“Tris,”

She walks to the front of the observation room, where Eric stands with a syringe full of orange liquid. She stares into his grey eyes, gaining confidence from them. “Ready?” he asks. Tris nods and Eric injects her neck with the serum.

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The ground beneath me changes. Grass rises from the concrete and wind tosses my hair. Green sky replaces the exposed pipes above me. I listen for the birds and feel my fear as a distant thing, a hammering heart and a squeezed chest, but not something that exists in my mind. Four told me in training to figure out what this simulation means. It’s about control. Wings flap next to my ear, and a crow’s talons dig into my shoulder.

I crouch, listening to the thunder of wings approaching, and run my hand through the grass. What combats powerlessness? Power, and the first time I felt powerful in Dauntless was when I was holding a gun. I feel something hard and metal in the grass. My gun.

I point the gun at the bird on my shoulder, and it detaches from my shirt in an explosion of noise, blood, and feathers. I spin on my heel, aiming the gun at the sky, and see the flock of birds descending. I squeeze the trigger, firing again and again into the sea of birds above me, watching their dark bodies drop to the grass. I feel the same rush of power I felt the first time I held a gun. My heart stops racing and the field, gun, and birds fade away. I stand in the dark again.

I shift my weight, and feel the smooth glass floor beneath me. I press my hands to glass on either side of my body. The tank again. I am not afraid of drowning. This is not about the water; it is about my inability to escape. It is about weakness. I just have to convince myself that I am strong enough to break the glass.

The blue lights come on, and water slips over the floor. Calm down and focus, I remind myself. I am stronger than the glass. The glass is as thin as newly frozen ice. My mind will make it so. I close my eyes. The glass is ice. The glass shatters under my hand, and water spills onto the floor. And then the dark returns.