As far as I can tell, the second stage of initiation involves sitting in a dark hallway with the other initiates, wondering what's going to happen behind a closed door.
I don't even think I know my worst fears.
I hear only muttering from the room at the end of the hallway, and I suspect this is another part of the game they like to play with us. Terrifying us at every opportunity.
The door opens, looking up from where I sat, Molly was being held by two other people as she is muttering to herself.
"What did they do to her?" Sarai asks.
Four looks out from the door, looking around before he lands his eyes to me, "Quinn."
I stand, and walk past the other initiates. Drew sticks out his leg to trip me, but I hop over it at the last second.
Four touches my shoulder to guide me into the room and closes the door behind me.
When I see what's inside, I recoil immediately, my shoulders hitting his chest.
In the room is a reclining metal chair, like the one I sat in during the aptitude test. Beside it is a familiar machine. This room has no mirrors and barely any light. There is a computer screen on a desk in the corner.
"Take a seat," Four says.
He walks over to the machine and picks up a huge needle.
"I'm going to inject you with a serum that stimulates the part of your brain that processes fear."
"Great." I huffed, trying to remember what Hunter said previously as I attempted to relax against the seat.
"It induces a hallucination, and then transmitters in the serum, allowing me to see the image in your mind" He continues.
Despite us Erudites being the ones to create this serum, I never recalled a time in which it enabled others to see what was going on inside our brains.
"You can see inside my mind?" I questioned.
"Mhm-hmm." He stares blankly at me.
Walking over to me he uses his arms to push my shoulders back against the chair. "Lean back." He whispers.
I touch a wavering hand to my forehead. Simulations aren't real; they pose no real threat to me, so logically, I shouldn't be afraid of them, but my reaction is visceral. It takes all the willpower I have for me to steer myself toward the chair and sit down in it again, pressing my skull into the headrest. The cold from the metal seeps through my clothes.
"Do you ever administer the aptitude tests?" I say. He seems qualified.
"No," he replies. "I avoid Stiffs as much as possible."
I don't know why someone would avoid the Abnegation. The Dauntless or the Candor, maybe, because bravery and honesty make people do strange things, but the Abnegation?
"Why?"
"Do you ask me that because you think I'll actually answer?"
"Why do you say vague things if you don't want to be asked about them?"
His fingers brush my neck. My body tenses. A tender gesture? No—he has to move my hair to the side. He taps something, and I tilt my head back to see what it is. Four holds a syringe with a long needle in one hand, his thumb against the plunger. The liquid in the syringe is tinted orange.
"Now, you're going to be facing your worst fears, Quinn. Most people have ten to fifteen really bad ones. You must calm yourself, slow your heart rate and your breathing and deal with what's in front of you. Be brave." He said as his words started to disintegrate in my mind.
I try to follow his words, but my thoughts are going haywire. I feel the trademark symptoms of fear: sweaty palms, racing heart, tightness in my chest, dry mouth, a lump in my throat, difficulty breathing. He plants his hands on either side of my head and leans over me. I slowly close my eyes to which I'm no longer in the room.
I open my eyes where I'm under the dark ocean waters. I hold my breath as I try to swim to the surface of the water, but I'm stuck. Looking beneath me, I'm not stuck by anything but I am faced with the dark waters. Anxiety shoots as I lose oxygen and struggle to keep my breath in.
If I don't do anything now, I'll drown. Screaming from the inside of my mouth I try to call out for anyone or anything that could be in sight. Looking to my left a dolphin came speeding towards me but as I looked below me, I was getting deeper and deeper. Luckily, the dolphin came just in time but instead of helping me, they just stared at me. That's when it hit me.
"It's not real." I spoke to the dolphin as I nodded my head.
My eyes fell back into darkness.
Waking up I was in a blank dark room. The smell of moisture filled the air, but then again, I was in a dark room, only me being there. A body however, appeared from a distance. Each time I blinked they got closer and closer. It was my mum. Suddenly I was summoned to a chair. I was sitting on it with my hands locked in place along with my feet.
"I don't want to hurt you." My mother speaks in slow motion.
It felt too real for it to be fake.
"What do you mean?" I motioned back yet again in slow motion.
"I'm sorry." were her last words to me before she pressed a button that was under her thumb.
Immediately the smell of sizzling erupted through my nose and the intense shock of burning was felt on my back. I screamed from the pain as it wouldn't stop. I could already feel each skin cell die as it felt like a hot iron was pressed against my lower back and it wouldn't stop.
I was morphed back into reality in the little room with Four standing beside me with his shoulder already on my arm. The burning sensation didn't go away as it stung there. I gasped as the tears started to form from my eyes but I bit my lip to try and stop them from being released.
A hand touches my back, and I fling a fist out, hitting something solid but soft. "Don't touch me!" I shouted.
"It's over," Four says. The hand shifts awkwardly over my hair, and I remember my father stroking my hair when he kissed me goodnight, my mother touching my hair when she trimmed it with the scissors. I run my palms along my arms, in hope of a distraction from the burns.
"Quinn."
I rock back and forth in the metal chair.
"Quinn, I'm going to take you back to the dorms, okay?"
"No!" I snap. I lift my head and glare at him, though I can't see him through the blur of tears. "They can't see me...not like this..."
"Oh, calm down," he says. He rolls his eyes. "I'll take you out the back door."
"I don't need you to..." I shake my head. My body is trembling and I feel so weak I'm not sure I can stand, but I have to try. I can't be the only one who needs to be walked back to the dorms. Even if they don't see me, they'll find out, they'll talk about me—
"Nonsense."
He grabs my arm and hauls me out of the chair. I blink the tears from my eyes, wipe my cheeks with the heel of my hand, before walking towards the door Four stops back over to the machine, looking at the screen.
"How long do you think you were in the hallucination, Quinn?" He furrowed his eyebrows.
"Half an hour." I managed to puff out.
"Three...Including the one that I couldn't pick up." He looked over to me.
"Four times faster than the average. I've never seen anyone do that so well the first time."
"Well, have you seen anyone feel like they got burnt?" I stubbornly answered.
He ignored what I asked, "How did you get out of the water?" He looked back up.
"Umm...The dolphin helped me up." I spoke. That sounded so dumb of me.
"Where did you go after? The image blanked out completely." He further interrogated.
I uncomfortably sat as I recalled the image of me in the room, with my mum, as she willingly burned me.
"I was in a black room and my mum was there, she pressed a button that burnt me." I took a breath.
"Interesting..." Four said as he looked like he was thinking.
"Well...next time it will be a lot easier." He smirked, looking down at the screen once more.
"I have to do that again?" I debated.
"Yeah, you have to practice several times before the final, but you're a natural. You got nothing to worry about." Looking at me.
"Only if I get burnt each time."
"We'll take you through the back entrance to get to the rooms." Four replied. He knew I didn't want anyone to see me like this.
He touches my back and guides me toward the dormitory. I feel his fingertips through my shirt. Their gentle pressure makes me forget about the aching burns.
"What was your first hallucination?" I say, glancing at him.
"It wasn't a 'what' so much as a 'who.'" He shrugs. "It's not important."
"And are you over that fear now?"
"Not yet." We reach the door to the dormitory, and he leans against the wall, sliding his hands into his pockets. "I may never be."
"So they don't go away?"
"Sometimes they do. And sometimes new fears replace them." His thumbs hook around his belt loops. "But becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it, that's the point."
I nod. I used to think the Dauntless were fearless. That is how they seemed, anyway. But maybe what I saw as fearless was actually fear under control.
"Anyway, your fears are rarely what they appear to be in the simulation," he adds.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, are you really afraid of drowning?" he says, half smiling at me. The expression warms his eyes enough that I forget he's my instructor. He's just a boy, talking casually, walking me to my door. "When are you ever in water?"
"Never, I guess," I think about stepping closer to him, not for any practical reason, but just because I want to see what it would be like to stand that close to him; just because I want to.
Foolish, a voice in my head says.
I step closer and lean against the wall too, tilting my head sideways to look at him. As I did on the Ferris wheel, I know exactly how much space there is between us. Six inches. I lean. Less than six inches. I feel warmer, like he's giving off some kind of energy that I am only now close enough to feel.
"So what am I really afraid of?" I say.
"I don't know," he says. "Only you can know."
I nod slowly. There are a dozen things it could be, but I'm not sure which one is right, or if there's even one right one.
"I didn't know becoming Dauntless would be this difficult," I say, and a second later, I am surprised that I said it; surprised that I admitted to it. I bite the inside of my cheek and watch Four carefully. Was it a mistake to tell him that?
"It wasn't always like this, I'm told," he says, lifting a shoulder. My admission doesn't appear to bother him. "Being Dauntless, I mean."
"What changed?"
"The leadership," he says. "The person who controls training sets the standard of Dauntless behavior. Six years ago Max and the other leaders changed the training methods to make them more competitive and more brutal, said it was supposed to test people's strength. And that changed the priorities of Dauntless as a whole. Bet you can't guess who the leaders' new protege is."
The answer is obvious: Eric. They trained him to be vicious, and now he will train the rest of us to be vicious too.
I look at Four. Their training didn't work on him.
"So if you were ranked first in your initiate class," I say, "what was Eric's rank?
"Second."
"So he was their second choice for leadership." I nod slowly. "And you were their first."
"What makes you say that?"
"The way Eric was acting at dinner the first night. Jealous, even though he has what he wants."
Four doesn't contradict me. I must be right. I want to ask why he didn't take the position the leaders offered him; why he is so resistant to leadership when he seems to be a natural leader. But I know how Four feels about personal questions.
I sniff, wipe my face one more time, and smooth down my hair.
"Do I look like I've been crying?" I say.
"Hmm." He leans in close, narrowing his eyes like he's inspecting my face. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Even closer, so we would be breathing the same air—if I could remember to breathe.
"No, Quinn," he says. A more serious look replaces his smile as he adds, "You look tough as nails."