Aberrant

Seven: Brooke

The man and the bus disappear and I'm suddenly left standing in an empty field. The skies open and rain begins to fall, quickly drenching the my clothes. I shiver and wrap my arms around as I walk forward cautiously, my shoes sticking in the mud. 

Suddenly, a hand grabs me from behind. I try to scream but another hand presses against my mouth. Struggling, I look down and see my attacker's feet next to mine. Judging by the shoe size, whoever is attacking me is huge, and I stamp down on their brown shoes. 

The person curses, and I grab the hand that's covering my mouth and push it off me. Turning round to face my attacker, I see that I was right- they are literally a giant. They're burly and their glare sends literally shivers down my spine. They lunge forward at me again, and I feel adrenaline course through me as my instincts take over. 

I pommel their chest whilst attempting to give them an uppercut to his jaw but they're simply too big. They looks at me, impassive, and just grabs the cuff of my shirt and shove me into the mud...

...I awake, and gasping, I find that I'm back in the aptitude test room. I do a double-take, making sure that I'm not still in the simulation, but as I look around, I see the Abnegation woman, Natalie, sitting in her chair. 

She's studying me carefully. 

"So, what did I get?" I ask, casually, trying to break the silence, and then I'm hit with one of my worries, "I didn't get Factionless, did I?"

Natalie smiles reassuringly, "No," but the smile doesn't reach her eyes. She takes a deep breath, and says "I'm going to go through all the aspects of the aptitude test so you understand how we get the results."

I blink, startled that she's not going to tell my result outright, "Ok," I agree hesitantly. 

"Ok," Natalie begins, "So first of all, you have to choose between the knife and the cheese. The cheese would have got you an Amity result, but as you chose the knife, I could cut off Amity as an option." 

I nod, relief instantly flowing through me. My family would have been furious if I'd got Amity.

"Next, we have the dog," Natalie continues, "Instead of using the knife, you  instead crouched down when faced with the dog, which would suggest Erudite."

"So, I got Erudite?" I cut in. Erudite's not too bad. It's not an amazing result like Candor, or even Dauntless which Candors have a healthy respect for, but at least it's not a result that would bring instant disgrace like Abnegation or Amity. Erudite's neutral. 

"Yes and no," Natalie answers. 

"But..." I protest, confused. 

Natalie holds up a hand, placatingly, "I understand that this is frustrating for you, but I promise you, everything will be explained." I nod. Natalie continues, "Next, the girl was introduced. The fact that you didn't try to save her crossed off Abnegation."

"But if I'd thrown the knife at the dog, I could have hit the girl," I defensively. 

"Therefore, it was perfectly logically not to do anything," Natalie smiles, "Then there was the man on the bus. You didn't tell him anything so I'm afraid that crossed off Candor." She looks at my sympathetically. I just nod. I knew Candor wasn't an option when I heard I'd got Erudite. What confuses me is that Natalie didn't announce that I got Erudite immediately. 

"Now, under normal circumstances," Natalie continues, "The simulation would end there. Or it would end even before you had the man on the bus. However, there was just one more thing I needed to check. Even though you didn't fight the dog with the knife, I still couldn't cross Dauntless off the list so I had to devise another test,"