Born to be Dauntless

Chapter 42

It's my turn. Just breath. You can do it. You're Dauntless. Face and conquer your fear!

I looked to my side where Mason gave me an encouraging smile. No need to drag this out. I took a deep breath and followed Four into the room. It looked like the test room in the school; plain. The walls and floor weren't decorated in any way and in the middle of the room stood some sort of dentist chair.

I sat in the chair and waited for Four to give me some sort of instruction. He messed around on the computer.

I saw him fill in the results of the last person. In the top corner was the picture of the girl with next to it her name: Tayna. Her time was just a little above ten minutes and she had nine fears total. Four clicked the submit button and opened a new file. This one was basically an empty render with a black background and a green grid.

"Is that where you'll see my scenarios?" I asked him.

He turned around with a questionable look. "Dauntless don't ask questions... but yes that's where I'll be monitoring your progress."

Get better at losing your leftover Erudite traits. Noted. I nodded and waited for Four to continue. He grabbed a needle from the box next to the computer and approached me.

"You have to either beat your fear or get yourself calm enough. Understood?"

I nodded again and Four injected me with the serum. The needle stung a bit but it wasn't that bad. I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. The quiet buzzing from the computer slowly stopped and I heard the dull thuds of knifes hitting targets. I opened my eyes and saw that I wasn't in the trainingsroom like I'd expected, I was in the pit. The other transfers were standing next to me with their throwing knifes already in hand.

"What are you waiting for Rogue?" Eric said on his usual threatening tone.

I looked at my hand in which I had six throwing knifes. The targets were on an average distance from us so in normal scenarios, I'd have no trouble hitting them. But these were no normal scenarios; the pit was filled with people who were watching us preform!

My palms became sweaty and my heartbeat increased.

"Do it, initiate." Eric said on a menacing tone.

I gulped once and turned to my targets. You can do this. Just a couple of targets. You've done this before. I pulled my hand up and threw the knife. It flew through the air and hit the target but much lower than it should've.

People around us began to chuckle. Ignore them. I can do this. Just try again. I raised my second knife and threw it. This one bounced off the target as if I'd never done this before and more people began to laugh.

Dammit! This can't be happening!

Next to me I saw that the other transfers were doing okay to very good. None of them had a knife on the ground and most of them had hit the middle at least once.

Ignore it!

The crowd was getting to me. My eyes involuntarily shot left and right while I should've been focusing on my target. I released the knife and, with luck, it hit the target in the side.

What's with me? This is an important test and I'm failing miserably!

"This is not the quality I expect from you Rogue." Eric said dangerously.

The crowd began to talk to each other about my incompetence. "She's the first place holder?" "How did that happen?"

Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! I proved myself that's how I got first place!

Then again they are right. At this moment I'm far from first place worthy.

I took a deep breath and shut everyone out. I raised my hand like I'd practised and threw the knife. It soared through the air and hit the middle with a dull thud.

I turned around to see how the crowd reacted but instead of seeing the crowd, I saw grass. I turned back to the target but instead of a target I saw a rock. Everywhere I looked was grass.

A little trail of ants came crawling towards me. I stepped back to get away from them but instead hit a wall with my back. Immediately the feeling of little paws crawling on top of me erupted and I shrieked in terror.

"GET THEM OFF!" I shouted randomly since I knew that there was no one near me.

I tried to wipe them off with spastic movements but the bugs only got on my hands. They began to crawl up to my shoulders. Little black bugs crawled up my legs and proceeded to go up to my face.

"No! No get them OFF!" I shrieked again as I frantically began to wipe them off. Nothing worked. Every time I wiped my hand over my arm, they either jumped over or regrouped after a second.

Their little creepy paws gave me goosebumps. I didn't know what to do so I just kept backing up. In a few seconds they would reach my face! My breathing quickened because of the panicky state I was in and I did the only thing that seemed logical to me at the moment; I dropped to the ground.

I couldn't even feel the grass through the creeping of their little paws. I made some high pitched screams of terror and began to roll around. Slowly the bugs got squashed until I couldn't feel any of them anymore. The only thing I could feel were the wooden planks of the floor I was laying on.

I looked around me in confusion. I knew this room, this had been my home for the first sixteen years of my life. I'd been laying just behind the couch.

I pushed myself up and sprang to my feet. I looked down to see what I was wearing but I still wore the black Dauntless clothes.

Did I come back? Why would I come back? Did Kayli do something again?

The front door creaked and I heard someone enter the house. My heart rate increased as I waited in anticipation. Who came in? Am I in trouble for being in Erudite while being Dauntless? I should run for it, shouldn't I?

Just when I decided to sneak out through the window, I heard the creaking of the floorboards behind me.

"Oh it's you again." My mom said disapprovingly and clearly annoyed.

I turned around and saw her shaking her head with disappointed eyes. "You just can't do anything right, can you?"

"Wha-"

"I always knew that you'd be the fucked up child. I always knew it."

She trod closer until she was less than two meters away.

"Just look at you. You were basically the test-child. We all knew it."

She slammed her hand on my shoulder. I wanted to close my eyes to shut her out but that would be showing her weakness. I couldn't.

"I should've pursued the plan I told you a few years ago. Just kick you out and be done with it. You have always been useless-"

"No... Shut up!" I said while I started to choke up. She made me way too nervous.

"Don't talk back to me, you ungrateful child!" she said angrily.

"And how dare you disgrace my name" she continued "Just think of what my neighbors will think! Oh what would my boss Janine think! You've put me in such a difficult position here!"

My brain thought of a million different things and none at the same time. I could picture multiple ways that this could end. She could get me in trouble, she could call Dauntless, she could get me arrested for trespassing, she could make Kayli's life a hell. And those were just a couple scenarios.

But at the same time I couldn't think of anything to do. What could I do? What should I do? There's nothing I can do.

All my muscles were alert by the amount of tension in the air. My throat was dry of nervousness and my heart was about to jump out of my chest.

"You know what?" she said with her well known smug smirk that I knew way too well "Since you're hopeless, I guess I'll just have to teach Kayli to make better decisions."

I gasped for air as I shot up in the chair.