Divergent: A Cimorelli FanFiction

17- Long Needles and Furry Creatures

Sitting in a hallway full of other initiates, waiting for our names to be called up to the door, was what the second stage of initiation seemed to be all about. No one spoke a word and I was finding it hard not to scream out in impatience. Theo told me that he would get to see all of my fears in this stage of initiation and I tried to think of how he could do that. The only logical thing I could think of was that he was going to see through my mind, but even that seemed a little silly to me. Why would anyone want to look through anyone's mind? Who even wanted to see all the deep, dark secrets that someone held?

The door finally opened and a few guards carried a pale and shocked Ariana out of the room and down the hallway to the dorms. I shivered underneath my black sweater and prayed that I wouldn't end up like her.

"Dani," Theo called out. Dani carefully walked across the hallway to the door where Theo stood and then he closed the door. I started counting how long she would stay in there.

It was around 20 minutes by the time she finally came out, screaming and crying for her life. The guards had trouble holding her down but I couldn't stand up to go and help her. No, I was frozen in a state of shock. What was causing all of this?

"Lauren," Theo called out. As I walked to the door, flashes of Ariana's and Dani's faces kept replaying through my mind.

"Take a seat," he ordered. I looked around my surroundings as Theo closed the door behind me and I was welcomed by the familiar look and atmosphere of the aptitude test room. This was not going to go well. "Today, you're going to literally face your fears in a simulation," he explained.

"You told me how you were going to see my fears in this stage but I didn't know it was going to be through a simulation," I blurted out.

"How else would I see your fears?" he asked as he connected a bunch of wires together in a complicated way.

"I don't know."

"Lauren, other people are going to see these simulations too so you have to try not to manipulate the simulation. You're going to know that you're in the simulation but you have to do what the Dauntless would do to try and get out of the situation that you are in. If other people see that you manipulated the simulation, they're going to know that you are Divergent," Theo explained.

"Oh." Theo then came up to me, holding a long needle with this thumb against the plunger. He gently lifted his fingers up to brush away the hair covering the side of my neck and pushed the needle against my skin. I tried to hold in the pain that threatened to come out from my mouth and I succeeded. After all, looking like a fool in front of Theo was the worst thing I could do.

"The serum will take effect in sixty seconds. Be brave, Lauren."

His words echoed through my mind as my eyes slowly closed and a blackness surrounded me.

*

I slowly opened my eyes to see that I was not in the same place that I was a minute ago. I was laying down on the wooden floor, unaware of what was going to come at me. I sat up and wondered what this fear was going to be. Even I didn't know all of my fears. Were the Amity-born even supposed to have fears?

I heard a light sound of something crawling across the wooden floor. I froze in my place, unable to turn around to see what the source of the noise was. I hoped that there weren't any spiders in here.

My hopes were all gone when I felt a spider crawling up my arm. A clutter of spiders roamed around my feet and my breathing became uneven. I didn't know what to do. Should I scream? Should I laugh since this was just a simulation? No. I couldn't laugh. This whole situation felt so real. 

I squirmed as I felt more spiders crawling up my body. A scream escaped my mouth as I frantically ran around the room, trying to get the spiders off of me. When I opened my mouth to gasp, a spider came inside and I accidentally bit down hard, tasting something foul and furry. I almost puked at how real the spiders felt. I lost it when a spider got caught in my messed up hair and I began to pound my fists on the walls, screaming for help. Someone had to be here to help me. Where was Theo when I needed him? I cried and screamed even more as tears ran down my cheeks. I couldn't handle this anymore.

This isn't real. This isn't real.

I tried to calm myself down after I realized that this whole thing wasn't actually real. What would a Dauntless do in this situation?

I racked my brains, trying to come up with a way a true Dauntless would solve this situation. The only thing that came to my mind was to kick all the spiders or squash them with my feet but even that seemed a little too silly for a Dauntless to do. 

I couldn't do this on my own. I had to get out of this the way the Divergent would even though it could hurt me. I sat down on the floor with my head in my hands and counted down the seconds until freedom. 

Get me out of here. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...