I breathe through my nose. In, out. In.
"It's just a simulation, Quinn," Four says quietly.
He's wrong. The last simulation bled into my life, waking and sleeping, the physically pain of the burns only got worse but the feelings I had in the simulation—terror and helplessness, which I suspect is what I am really afraid of. Sudden fits of terror in the shower, at breakfast, on the way here. Nails bitten down so far, my nail beds ache. And I am not the only one who feels this way; I can tell.
Still, I nod and close my eyes.
I was in the zone of the abnegation faction, where I saw myself on one side of the grass and a whole row of people on the other. They were all abnegation. I stood as I heard the cries of children and their mothers standing beside them, reassuring that everything is going to be okay. The fathers being taken away by the other members of erudite and dauntless.
Looking at myself from an alternative perspective, my other self yelled.
"You two over here!"
A young mum and her daughter reluctantly walked forwards, dividing themselves from their people. I noticed that my other self, raised her hand with a gun in clutch. Aiming it to the mother's head she shot her head. The mother immediately dropped as blood began to form into a pool around her hair.
The child screamed from the sight of her mum. Before I raised the gun to the other girl, I ran to me and tackled myself so that I was no longer in sight of the girl.
"What are you doing?" I screamed to my other self.
"This is your future." My other reflection returned.
I stared at her but before I could question any longer, so took the gun from her hand and shot me in the head.
Fear: uncontrollable.
I woke up again but this time I was in a box. I looked down and saw the floor fill with water from the filter below.
Knocking on the glass windows that sealed me in the box I shouted for help, but no one was there.
The water began to fill fast as I continued to knock my hands against the glass.
I tried to kick my feet against the walls but that was no use. The water was nearly filled to the top as I floated above. What is with my fear and water?
I inhaled my last breath from the top before ducking down to the bottom of the tank.
Floating down as I tried to open my eyes to look round, I saw the reflection of myself against the glass.
As I moved towards it and stared the image of myself changed to the image of Parker
"This isn't real." Parker reassured in a slow tone.
He looked down towards the glass and I followed my eyes to where he was gazing at. The glass.
I tried to see what he meant but before I could, he disappeared. Focussing on the glass once more an idea filled my mind. Tap it.
I tapped every so often as the glass gradually began to break. The last tap I did, I held onto as the glass soon broke apart and shattered across the floor. I dropped along with the water and was out of the box.
I gasped for air as I was sucked back into the reality of sitting in the room next to Four by the machine. I raised my back from the seat and lean my arms against my knees as I sigh.
Four turned over to look at me with concern.
"How did you do that?" Four asks.
"What?" I question back.
"How'd you stop yourself from shooting the girl?" Four asks again.
"She shot myself instead." As I thought back to the memory.
He nodded.
"How'd you break the glass?"
"I don't know. I just did it." I was confused by what he was trying to ask.
"You just, did it?" Four mocks, staring intensely at me.
Four turned back over to shut down the machine before, sitting down on a stool next to me.
"What were your test results? Your aptitude test." He intimidated.
I bite the skin of my thumb, still looking at him as I remembered what Parker told me earlier. Don't. Tell anyone.
"Erudite." I exhale.
"I don't think so." He nods his head.
I stopped being nervous as I was determined to look confident by my answer.
"Excuse me?" I squint my eyes to him.
"I think you're lying to me." Four states.
"Why would I lie to you?" I fold my arms.
Before Four speaks, he takes a pause before leaning near me, closing the distance between us. I think he was trying to get inside my head. It wasn't working.
"I'm going to ask you one more time. What were your test results?"
"And I told you. Erudite." I now glared at him.
He looked down to the ground before turning away an opening the distance between us.
"Time for you to go."
I got up from my seat immediately and walked to the door.
"Quinn?" Four asks.
I turned round to look at him.
"Just so you know, dauntless don't break glass like that."
"Then isn't it great that I got erudite and not dauntless in my aptitude test." I sighed as I walked out the door.
I knew I couldn't keep my secret for longer, especially from Four. He already knew without me even telling him. Time was running out and I needed to find a solution. Tori was the only safe option I had.
I walked into the tattoo parlour and I see her standing next to the tattoo seating. I walk towards her.
"Can we talk?" I ask in concern.
"What's going on?" she says. "How are the simulations going?"
"Really well." I nod a few times. "A little too well, I hear."
"Ah."
She looks at me strangely before walking over to the corner of the room, away from everyone else. We sat in a booth that was quiet.
Tori's demeanour changes. She leans back and crosses her arms. Her expression becomes guarded.
"Among other things, you...you are someone who is aware, when they are in a simulation, that what they are experiencing is not real," she says. "Someone who can then manipulate the simulation or even shut it down. And also..." She leans forward and looks into my eyes. "Someone who, because you are also Dauntless...tends to die."
"My brother was like you. During the second stage he got good really fast. Last day of the simulations, one of the dauntless leaders came to watch him. The next morning, we found his body at the bottom of the chasm. They got rid of him" Tori saddened, remembering the memories.
"Who got rid of him?" I asked her.
"Dauntless leadership. You can't let them find out about you." She emphasised.
"I don't know how much longer I can hide it from them though. People are questioning, my friends, Four. There's not much time." I tensed up.
"Then you're already dead." Tori stared at me.
My eyes glistened as I nodded my head and took a deep breath in.
"Is that all it is?" I say. "Just changing the simulations?"
"I doubt it," she says, "but that's all I know."
"How many people know about this?" I say, thinking of Four. "About manipulating the simulations?"
"Two kinds of people," she says. "People who want you dead. Or people who have experienced it themselves. Firsthand. Or second-hand, like me."
Four told me he would delete the recording of me breaking the glass. He doesn't want me dead. Is he Divergent? Was a family member? A friend? A girlfriend?
I push the thought aside. I can't let him distract me.
"I don't understand," I say slowly, "why the Dauntless leaders care that I can manipulate the simulation."
"If I had it figured out, I would have told you by now." She presses her lips together. "The only thing I've come up with is that changing the simulation isn't what they care about; it's just a symptom of something else. Something they do care about."
Tori takes my hand and presses it between her palms.
"Think about this," she says. "These people taught you how to use a gun. They taught you how to fight. You think they're above hurting you? Above killing you?"
She releases my hand and stands.
"I have to go or Bud will ask questions. Be careful, Quinn."