Transparent: A Divergent FanFiction (Book One) ©

Chapter 42

                I’d always wondered if it was possible to measure the amount of bravery contained within a person; and though I had yet to find the answer to that question, I did find out just how our fears were calculated and represented. Seven. That was the number of fears I had; each one worse than the last.

               Four days had passed since Amar had discovered the secret of my divergence, and in that time I’d already experienced each fear at least three times. I’d had to endure my first two fears all over again; being buried alive in the coffin, and being hung from the ceiling by the shadowy figures.

               Along with those, I had also been suspended from my hands over a long metal cylinder filled with bubbling acid. I’d been slowly lowered; this time watched by a group of the dauntless initiates. The only thing that had drowned out my screams had been their uproarious laughter. Death came when the acid was up to my chest. By then my legs had been completely mutilated; with the meat falling off the bone in large chunks, and my feet nothing more than stubs.

                In another simulation Max and, surprisingly, Jack Kang had skinned me alive. Strapped down to a metallic operating table; my arms and legs had been first, and then they’d ripped the skin off of my belly in a single yank, leaving behind exposed muscles that twitched, and angrily torn viscera. I died noiselessly when they cut out my larynx. No, not noiselessly, just wordless; because in my head I’d been screaming bloody-murder the entire time.

                During another, I’d been standing on the roof of a two story building, when suddenly invisible hands grabbed me and shoved me off the ledge. When I’d land on the ground, my head bouncing off the cement and my bones cracking and crunching, I’d had exactly a second to process what had happened before the invisible hands again threw me off. With each fall, my body shattered even further, until I was nothing more than a morbid version of a raggedy doll. I was dropped me more than a dozen times before I died.

                I had a tough time with those simulations; mostly based on the fact that the only way I could manage to stay in the hallucination long enough to avoid suspicion was do just let myself die. Whenever I tried to stop the sim, either with a tool or a tactic, I’d end up getting out too fast and would end up having to go through the experience all over again.

               While others only had to go through their fears once a day, I was going through at least three in the time I was allotted; not stopping until Amar deemed that I’d gotten an acceptable time. It had started to take a toll on me; nightmares plagued my sleep, and there were times I’d notice someone looking at me and I’d have to wonder if they weren’t about to do something sinister.

               I knew if I could only manage to stay in the first hallucination long enough, I wouldn’t have to do the others so often. There were times I just couldn’t help myself though. Once, I hadn’t even been in the simulation long enough to know what fear I’d been about to face; I’d just closed my eyes and willed myself to wake back up before anything happened. Amar had been less than pleased.

               “Are you insane? Huh?” He had seethed. “Do you like to die? Is that it?”

               “No, of course not.”

               “Then stop getting out so damned fast!” He’d shaken my shoulders, his eyes desperate.”Do you think I like having to watch you die over and over again?”

               “I’m trying.”

               And try I did; slowly learning to numb myself to the pain. However, though those fears were certainly bad, excruciating, and all around scarring to my psyche, they were nothing compared to the last two. Oddly enough, it was in these two that I never had to die.