A/N: Hello again! I come bearing a new chapter and no new news except for the fact that my trip begins in a few days. I'm hoping to post another chapter or two by then, but, as you've seen before, nothing is set in stone.
Honestly, the nothingness is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I'm doing absolutely nothing, but, on the other, I'm doing absolutely nothing!
Anyways, chapter 26, here we come!
When I wake up the next morning, it is with a smile on my face.
I sit up with the alarm, push my dark hair out of my face, and practically leap out of bed. I don't know where all this extra energy is coming from, but it's not unwelcome.
First, I go to awaken my friends, who are still in bed. It is still an initiation day, and I have no intentions of letting them get in trouble because I couldn't be bothered to wake them up.
Julia and Lavender aren't hard to awaken; Julia used to get up early to study, in Erudite, and Lavender had to do the same in Amity, especially during the harvest season. Of course, like the rest of us, they've fallen out of that habit by now, but at least they know how to deal with the early morning sleepiness. Unlike someone else.
"Waking up this early should be a crime." Ethan mumbles into his pillow, which makes his words come out muffled and almost unintelligible.
"Come on, Ethan," I laugh and shake his shoulder a little more insistently. "We've been doing this for weeks now."
Ethan's only response to that is a groan.
When it's clear that Ethan won't be getting up by himself, I look over at my friends, who are watching the scene with amusement. I catch Lavender's eye, and tilt my head at Ethan in a silent question.
She grins.
Without further ado, I reach over and grab Ethan's arm. Lavender grabs the other. And with one big tug, we pull Ethan off the bottom bunk and right onto the floor.
He squawks in indignation, suddenly wide awake, making the three of us burst into laughter. Once he pulls himself out of the blankets tangled around him, he glares at all of us. But the glare, accompanied by half-closed eyes and bed hair, only makes us laugh harder.
Ethan looks up at the sky with a forlorn expression and questions, "What did I ever do to deserve this?"
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We're still laughing and joking as we sit down in our normal seats in the dining hall, plates loaded with breakfast foods. The four Dauntless-borns don't join us today, much to my disappointment.
The good mood doesn't last for long.
Julia is the first to notice who is approaching us. Every bit of cheer vanishes from her face in an instant.
I swivel my head to locate what has made Julia react this way. My own smile fades as I spot Zayden heading towards our table.
By the time he reaches our table, four pairs of eyes are glaring at him. I can tell, from his body language, that he's clearly uncomfortable, but he doesn't back off.
"What do you want?" Julia's greeting to him is short, monotone, and to the point.
"Nothing." Zayden smiles at us, trying to look innocent.
"Bullshit. What do you want?"
"Cammi," Zayden addresses me, ignoring Julia now. "Have you seen the new articles?"
New articles. He must be talking about the Erudite's attempts to slander Abnegation. Ever since I saw that first one, about me, I've avoided reading them. I don't want to drive myself insane by wondering how they got their hands on true information that they aren't supposed to know, or false accusations that make my blood boil.
I just take another bite of my food, not responding to Zayden.
Zayden doesn't seem to get the message, though. "I'll take that as a no. Here. You should." With that, he tosses down two newspapers, and walks away without another word.
I stare at the articles in front of me. Even though I don't want to read them, my eyes can't help but catch the large titles on the front pages of the newspapers.
Why Should Only the Abnegation Make Up the Government?
Marcus Eaton Denies the Allegations of Child Abuse
The Abnegation Hoard Food, and Refuse to Admit It
It takes me a moment to realize that my hands are shaking.
What do the Erudite hope to get out of this? Why are they antagonizing my old faction with these lies?
They don't deserve it. They don't deserve for their leadership to be questioned, to be accused of hoarding food. Sure, the leaders and their laws aren't perfect, but who is? And the Abnegation are too selfless to hoard food; in fact, I once saw an Abnegation woman get some food out of her own house once she ran out of allotted food to give to the Factionless.
As for Marcus... well, he's the one doing the lying here, but I don't want anyone to know that.
It takes me another moment to realize that my friends are talking to me. "Hey, Cammi, are you okay?" That's Lavender. I look up, to see Julia and Ethan standing behind her, looking worried.
My throat feels like it's been drenched in mud. The only thing I can croak out is a weak, "It's not true."
Julia plucks the newspapers from my hands, takes one look at the articles I was looking at, and promptly pins one end of them to the table with her elbow, using her good hand to rip them in half.
Lavender, Ethan, and I stare at her in silence, shocked by the sudden, violent move.
She glances up at us. "What?" She shrugs. "I know Jeanine, and I know how they make these articles. The "evidence" they provide isn't really evidence at all." Her face takes on barely-suppressed disgust. "But she releases the articles, and the Candor publish them in their newspapers, because there isn't really anything else exciting going on, and they get paid for it."
"Even if the evidence they provide was true," Lavender jumps in, apparently understanding the situation based on Julia's words, "I really hate how they target your dad, Cammi. It's rude to call anyone out like that in front of so many people."
I try to swallow the new lump in my throat. Yeah. Right. My dad.
"Yeah, if the Erudite actually wanted an investigation into your dad, they should have come to the Candor and asked for one. The fact that they haven't, as far as I know, means they have no real grounds to request one."
I am torn. On one hand, such an investigation may have saved our lives, had it been executed a little while before. On the other, doing it then, and even now, would make us the poor, abused kids of an Abnegation leader, and provide even more dirt on Abnegation for the Erudite. Neither Tobias nor I want that kind of attention - that kind of pity - for us or our old faction.
At this point, I'm glad that they haven't launched an investigation. But my friends don't know that. They think I would like an investigation, because it would clear Marcus, and, by relation, my brother and I. And I'm not ready for them to know, not yet.
"Yeah." It is still a little hard to speak, but not nearly as bad as before. "Thanks, for, you know, not believing them."
Ethan is the one to speak up this time. "You're our friend, and the only Abnegation I know. You lived there, and you say it isn't true. How would the Erudite know?"
Lavender and Julia nod along with him, and I manage a smile at their defensiveness.
"Thanks, you guys."
"No problem!" Lavender cheerfully replies, sitting back down. Ethan sits down as well, but Julia heads for the closest trash can, the ripped newspapers in hand.
"Why do you all leave me to do all the work?" She grumbles playfully. "Next time, someone else has to dump the garbage."
With that last statement, I burst into laughter.
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We all face Lauren, who stands outside the fear landscape room with her hands on her hips.
"A year ago," She begins, "I was afraid of spiders, suffocation, walls that inch slowly inward and trap you between them, getting thrown out of Dauntless, uncontrollable bleeding, getting run over by a train, my father's death, public humiliation, and kidnapping by men without faces."
All the initiates just stare at her, gobsmacked. I can practically hear the same thought on everyone's minds. Well, that was blunt.
"The average number of fears in the fear landscapes is ten to fifteen. It is likely that you will fall in between those numbers."
A Dauntless-born initiate that I don't know calls out a question. "What is the lowest number of fears somebody has gotten?"
I smile inwardly as Lauren answers, looking at my brother, who stands off to the side, head down. Typical. "Recently? Four." I see several other eyes glance at him, too, and my smile becomes harder to smother.
"Nobody's going to learn their number today." Lauren continues. "The simulation is set to my fear landscape program, so you will experience my fears instead of your own."
Her statement proves my initial assumption, once I figured out what we were doing, correct. Tobias would never let anyone see his landscape, after all.
"Though, for the purposes of this exercise, everyone will be facing only one of my fears today. This will help you get a sense for how the simulation works."
Then, Lauren begins pointing to the initiates one by one, and randomly pairing the chosen initiate with a fear. "Rylan, spiders. Arya, suffocation."
It goes on like this, until she reaches me, somewhere in the middle of the group. "Cammi, spiders."
Spiders? My smile fades, and a shiver runs down my spine. Spiders may not be insects, but I'm scared of them just the same.
Just the thought of facing thousands of little creepy-crawlies, trying to get out of a situation where they're skittering up my legs and body, makes me breathe a little heavier.
You're not in the simulation yet. Calm down.
I force myself to take deep breaths as I watch each of the initiates go through their assigned fear. Freaking out already will do me no good.
You've done this before, Cammi. You'll be fine.
My nails dig into my palm anyway.
I watch, with increasing anxiety, as the initiates before me go. Chloe is impossibly calm as she struggles with binds that we can't see - presumably the ones holding her to the train track. Julia presses her hands against her body hopelessly, hands splayed wide, trying to stem her "bleeding". Catalina begs desperately as she faces someone, trying to convince them not to throw her out of Dauntless. And, despite how she has treated me, I can't help but feel sorry for her. After all, that is something I worry about, as well.
All too soon, it is my turn.
For the first time in quite a while, I actually notice the sharp pain that spreads through my body with the serum that Lauren pushes into my bloodstream. Maybe it is because of my heightened apprehension.
My surroundings change abruptly, the fear landscape room melting into nothingness. I can see the concrete floor below me, but not the walls or the roof. It is eerily reminiscent of the room in which Tobias was forced to shoot the Abnegation woman, in his fear landscape.
I jump when the first spider crawls up to me.
Resisting the urge to scream, I back away from it, only to realize that there are more spiders coming from behind me.
More of the arachnids keep crawling out from the shadows, surrounding me, getting closer, and closer, and closer.
It only takes a second for the first spider to reach and climb onto me.
It is huge, and black, and slightly furry. Logically, I know that this means that the spider is less likely to be poisonous. But all I can hear is my own panic, yelling at me to get them off, get them off, get them off right now!
I swat at the first spider, knocking it to the ground. But then, there's another, and another, and another, until I cannot swat fast enough to push them all off.
They climb higher, and higher, reaching my waist, my chest, my arms.
My heart feels like it is pounding in quadruple time. I can feel the frightened tears fall from my eyes, can hear the small, scared whimpers I'm making to keep myself from screaming, as the arachnids climb.
No, no, no, get off, get off, get off, please, no, don't, get off-
Their hairy legs brush my skin, giving me goosebumps and making every nerve in my skin scream at me in alarm.
Stop, stop, go away, please, stop-
And then, they begin crawling up my neck.
No, no, no-
This isn't real.
I still my panicked movements as the words come to me.
I'm in a simulation. There are no spiders. I can stop this.
I close my eyes, shutting out the image of the thousands of spiders, and try to ignore the feeling of their spindly legs crawling over me, higher and higher.
I need to calm down. I need to reduce my heart rate and breathing, and then I will be out.
I'm in control here. Not the spiders, not Lauren or Tobias, me.
In. Out. The breaths are harsh and forced, but deep. In. Out.
There are no spiders. There is no huge, dark room. I'm in the fear landscape room, with Tobias and Lauren and the other initiates. I'm in a fear simulation, Lauren's to be exact. There are no spiders.
With one, final deep breath, I allow my eyes to flutter open. To my relief, it is Lauren in front of me, not darkness.
"Good job, initiate." She offers me a half-smile, before turning back to the rest of the initiates. "Next up, Joaquin."
The next initiate, a Dauntless-born, passes me as I stroll out of the room, my heart still beating slightly fast. But I can't contain the smile on my face.
I did it.
I managed to beat one of my actual fears. Sure, I could have done it faster, but at least I did it.
Suddenly, the upcoming final test doesn't feel quite as daunting.
I catch Rowan's eye in the crowd of initiates still waiting to go through their simulation. He smiles at me, a big, bright smile, and sends me two thumbs-up.
My pulse should be slowing down, as the terror of the simulation fades. So why does it suddenly feel like it's going a little faster?
But I am pulled out of that train of thought when a hand is placed on my shoulder. A glance over my shoulder reveals the hand to belong to none other than my big brother.
"Hey." Tobias' voice is soft, probably so nobody else overhears us. "How're you doing?"
I shrug, trying to play off how much the simulation affected me. I don't want to give him another thing to worry about. "Good. Why?"
He levels me with a flat look. "You know why, Cam. That was one of your fears, wasn't it? Insects and arachnids?"
I just nod.
"Well," He squeezes the shoulder his hand rests on. "For what it's worth, I think you did really good."
It is my turn to smile. How does he always know what to say to make me feel better? "Thanks, Toby."
A/N: Spiders! *shudders* They're one of my greatest fears, too.
What time is it? It's time for books! Today's novel is...
Making Bombs for Hitler! (By Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch)
This is a haunting story, based on true accounts, of the horrors the Polish and Ukrainian people had to face during WWII, even if they weren't Jewish. Lida is torn away from everyone and everything she loves, and forced to work for the German war effort. She doesn't want to aid the enemy, but the other option is death. But does she have to build working bombs?
I recall that I absolutely loved this story, as well as its sequel that I read.
Link to the author's page (or, rather, the author's Scholastic page): https://www.scholastic.ca/books/view/making-bombs-for-hitler
The series that this book belongs to has at least five other books in it: Stolen Girl, Don't Tell the Nazis, Trapped in Hitler's Web, The War Below, and Traitors Among Us.
You may notice, this chapter is even shorter than the last one. I'm really, really sorry for that; I want to write longer chapters, but right now, this story is kind of at a lull in the action, where Cammi is just settling into Dauntless and preparing for the final test. Also, I'm not quite sure about the quality of this chapter. I have writer's block right now, probably brought on by the little sleep I got last night. Hopefully it's good?
Next time, Cammi will see the Erudite's increasing boldness for the first time, as well as have a showdown with... who else? One Eric Coulter.
Por estar aqui, mi estrellas, muchas gracias! Hasta luego!