Seven Sins- Divergent/Eric fanfic Book1-2 (complete)

16~ The Smell Of Burning Flesh

I sat in a waiting room with the other initiates, including the Dauntless-born, tapping my feet in a hopeless effort to take my mind off of everything that had transpired in just one hour. First, Four announced that last night he witnessed Darlene commit suicide over the cameras in the control room, Thackeray was in such a state that he had to be removed. Darlene was dead. She had taken her own life.

We simmered in that information for a little while, until Four eventually popped his head around the second door of the waiting room, the first door was the exit, but we had no idea what was through the other one. Z went in first, and after twenty minutes of staring at the plain wall in front of me, she was brought out by Four and the Dauntless-born instructor, Lauren. Z was a mess, she was shaking and had tears running down her face, I never thought I'd see the bravest person I knew cry, but once I did I wanted to run very far away.

A Dauntless-born was called in next once Four returned, she finished in much the same amount of time as Z, and then it was my turn. I was practically bricking it as I got out of my chair, I had started to sweat and could feel my old self slipping back into my head, the last jumper, she was back, I wanted to run, faster than I ever had before, and then I saw... a chair.

Not a torture chamber like I had expected, instead I found a similar set up to the aptitude test rooms, there was a scary looking chair and a monitor with lots of little wires attached to it "okay, not what I was expecting" I mumbled to myself.

"Sit down, I'll be with you in a second" I nodded at Four and slowly made my way towards the chair, why was I so nervous? Oh yeah, because I just saw Z shaking like a scared child.

My bum was very cautious as it sat down, in case the bottom and the top of the chair snapped together like a Venus flytrap and ate me "have you ever heard the term, face your fears?" Shit.

I nodded "Candor have a similar saying, but it's more about facing the consequences of the truth, you know, if you've done something bad"

He nodded too and pressed a few buttons on the monitor "stage two is literally facing your fears" I narrowed my eyebrows, asking him to elaborate "first I inject you with this" he held up a rather large needle with a honey looking substance inside "this will then send you into a hallucination, like the aptitude tests, only this time you'll be facing your worst fears. In these sessions you'll learn how to either fight them, or to calm yourself down to a point where the simulation ends, you do this by slowing your heart rate, your breathing and so on" I must have been looking quite vacant because he tilted his head and said "you with me so far?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, sim, worst fears, fight or get calm, got it"

He smiled, I think he could tell I was nervous "not only does the serum cause you to hallucinate, it also contains a transmitter which will allow me to view your hallucinations on this screen, the science is a bit confusing but you get the idea" I nodded sheepishly, I really didn't want to do this and the more I looked at that needle the more the last jumper inside of me wanted to run, until the door opened and I felt a strange sense of calm wash over me "Eric, I didn't know you'd be observing today" Four didn't sound pleased, in fact he didn't seem sure why Eric was there, it sounded like he wasn't supposed to be.

Eric shrugged as he closed the door behind him "I've just had a really shit meeting"

"So you thought you'd come and see me have a heart attack to make yourself feel better?" I asked with my eyebrow raised, Four looked at me like I had just offended Eric's great ancestors and looked almost scared for me, but then was overly surprised when Eric didn't get pissed and chew me out.

"Pretty much"

"Great" I looked at Four "can we please get this over with? I don't really want to be here"