I didn't return to the rooms that night and instead stayed on Four's bed instead.
I felt a weight lean beside me on the bed and an arm that soothed my bare arm.
I blinked repeatedly to adjust to the light.
Being able to open my eyes fully I saw Four already looking at me, not in a creepy way though.
"What time is it?" I asked him as I touched his hand that leaned against my waist.
"Just after six."
I nearly felt sick to my stomach as I heard the time, but as I was ready to move back into the comfortable position I was in, Four began to speak up again.
"Come on, I'm going to show you something."
"I don't have a choice, do I?" I stretched my arms above my head.
I quickly got ready as what Four wanted me to see seemed important.
We walked out of one of the exit doors from the top of the dauntless building as we walked across to the other side of the wall.
"What are you planning on actually showing me?" I impatiently asked, stepping over a pillar.
"This." Four said as he looked out over the wall.
I moved beside him to see what he was staring at.
I froze.
"Erudite." I managed to say, still frozen from my position.
"Yeah, they are here every morning. I've been watching them for weeks." Four looked over again.
My breathing began to quicken as reality settled back in. However, Four didn't seem to realise my panic.
"They're loading in supplies, computers." He continued.
"No, they're not." I nodded my head in disagreement still staring at the people at the bottom.
I eventually looked back to Four as he brought something out of his pocket. It was the serums.
The serums I was scared to see one again.
"How'd you get that?" My tone more serious.
"They were loaded from the back someday, I managed to take one to get a better look. I think it's some kind of cognitive transmitter. You inject it like a serum. It's supposed to make you more susceptible to suggestion. As many as they have, they could create an army."
"How do you know all this?" I interrogated him.
"Why do they want to do this?" He asked me.
"To kill." I looked up at him.
"I have to tell Will." I worriedly said.
"Wait, why?" Four questions.
Before I could respond a man on the PA announced, "Attention. All initiates report for final testing. All initiates report for final testing."
I look down back at the serum. This was not the right time. Four moved my hair slightly away from my face.
"You're ready."
I looked up to him.
"They'll be the judge of that."
I walked back into the building and made my way for final testing. I tried to look out for Will or even Sarai but I couldn't see them. As I walked closer to the final testing, Tori stood beside me.
"Have you seen Will anywhere?" I asked her.
"I don't think finding Will should be your biggest concern right now." Tori said guiding me along the hall, filled with other initiates.
I walked into the huge hall, Tori behind me. I noticed Eric glaring at me. I glared back. From the other side of the room, I could see my mum looking at me as well. Her face filled with concern; she noticed that I was nervous.
Four quickly came over to me.
"They can see your hallucinations on screen. So, you get past your fears the way a dauntless would, but do it quickly."
"Right. If I'm too good, then they'll kill me; and if I'm too slow, then I'll die." I couldn't help but look back over to my mum.
"Right. Goodluck" Four replied before leaving me.
I walked up the stairs to the glowing orange chair and layed down on it.
"Good luck, Quinn. I hope you make it." Tori last said before injecting the serum at the side of my neck.
I relaxed back and allowed the serum to take its toll.
I opened my eyes to see me sitting on the chair in the middle of the ocean. I got off the chair as I floated around. My fear only grew. I looked around me like I had done before, instead of screaming for help, I tried to swim to the top of the surface myself but it was no use, it was like last time. I instead looked to the bottom as I saw the dark bottomless pit of the ocean. The colour however began to turn black. Ink. I looked closer surrounding me and realised that I was in a bubble. Looking for any sharp objects in my pockets, I felt a pen sticking out. Grabbing it, I popped the bubble, creating a hole for me to crawl out of and swim to the surface.
As I prepared my mouth to take a breath when I reach above water I am repositioned into another place. Inside a box as water plunged out from the bottom. What is with me and water? Looking to the glass I was ready to tap it but then I couldn't make it that easy for myself. The water started to fill fast, with time ticking I was only wasting time. I looked to the water filter and took off my jacket. I took a deep breath and reached to the bottom of the tank where I stuffed my jacket into the hole to stop any more water from entering. Rising to catch a breath the water had stopped, I sighed in relief.
I was in an abnegation house and was faced with my own self once again, with the same mother and daughter. Before my other self could shoot towards the mother, I tackled her to the side of the wall and squeezed her neck. She began to jerk from the cut off oxygen and tried scratching me but I dodged each time.
"Why are you doing this?" I ask her.
"You mean why are you doing this?" My reflection challenged me.
"You are the one who is doing this." She taunted to me.
I shook my head no.
I noticed from the corner of my eye her arm was raised beside my head with a loaded gun.
"You first?" She smiled.
"No, you." I argued. Grabbing her gun as it fired opposite the wall, missing me and the other woman and child.
I pointed the gun to her head and without thought I shot her. I watched my own reflection drop to the floor, her head bleeding through and her eyes remained open and emotionless. I turned back behind me to see the other woman but they were gone and I wasn't in abnegation anymore. I was in Dauntless headquarters.
And then Four is standing in front of me.
But I'm not afraid of Four. I look over my shoulder. Maybe there's something behind me that I'm supposed to focus on. But no—behind me is just a four-poster bed.
A bed?
Four walks toward me, slowly.
What's going on?
I stare up at him, paralyzed. He smiles down at me. That smile looks kind. Familiar.
He presses his mouth to mine, and my lips part. I thought it would be impossible to forget I was in a simulation. I was wrong; he makes everything else disintegrate.
His fingers find my jacket zipper and pull it down in one slow swipe until the zipper detaches. He tugs the jacket from my shoulders.
Oh, is all I can think, as he kisses me again. Oh.
My fear is being with him. I didn't know how deep that wariness went.
But this obstacle doesn't feel the same as the others. It is a different kind of fear—nervous panic rather than blind terror.
He slides his hands down my arms and then squeezes my hips, his fingers sliding over the skin just above my belt, and I shiver.
I gently push him back and press my hands to my forehead. I have been stuck in the ocean and had to shoot myself in the head; I have been set on fire by my own mother; I have almost drowned— twice —and this is what I can't cope with? This is the fear I have no solutions for—a boy I like, who wants to... have sex with me?
Simulation Four kisses my neck.
I try to think. I have to face the fear. I have to take control of the situation and find a way to make it less frightening.
I look Simulation Four in the eye and say sternly, "I am not going to sleep with you in a hallucination. Okay?"
Then I grab him by his shoulders and turn us around, pushing him against the bedpost. I feel something other than fear—a prickle in my stomach, a bubble of laughter. I press against him and kiss him, my hands wrapping around his arms. He feels strong. He feels...good.
And he's gone.
The moment fizzled.
I was in erudite. I'm certainly making the stops today, aren't I?
I opened one of the lab doors to see a body on the floor, I rushed down to see who it was. It was Will. My eyes widened as I noticed the pool of blood that oozed beside him. This was only recent.
I stood up to look at the tables and what he was working on. I saw the slight pigmentation of a biuret like solution seeping on the table. It was the serum. Rushing out of the room and sprinting to my mum's office, I opened the door where it brought me outside into a long pillar high above the sky. My mum's office nowhere to be seen.
I walk forwards along the narrow floor and look down. We were too high above the sky to even see anything.
"Looking for this?" Parker appeared behind me.
"You killed Will." I glare at him, "Why?"
"Because I know you wouldn't, so I had to." Parker replied emotionless.
"What did they do to you?" I ask.
He walked to me as I continued to step back away from him. I notice that he was carrying the serum.
"You want the serum?" He saw me looking at his hand.
"No." I gulped.
"Then why do you keep looking at it?" Parker pushed me back as he said.
"I told you, I'm not."
"Is it your little prized possession?" He teased, waving it above my head.
I looked back to see that I was nearly at the end of the line. Ready to face my death.
"Parker, Aurora!" My mother's voice called from a distance by the door.
Parker turned round but I grabbed him by the shoulders and swapped positions with him.
"I'm sorry." Was all I could say before I pushed him off the end of the wall as he fell through the clouds and disappeared.
I gasped from my position as I was brought back into reality and was sitting on the chair. Parker didn't die.
Four was next to me as he touched my shoulder, "Are you alright?"
I didn't respond and instead turned to my mum as I saw her talking to the others before looking to me.
Four looked to where I was looking, "It all looked good to me, okay?"
"Come on let's go." He tells me as he helps me up.
"No." I shake my head.
"What do you mean?" He asks.
"I'm not leaving until I talk to her." I said without motioning who I meant.
I could sense that my mum noticed that I wasn't moving and so I could hear her steps follow up behind me.
"Aurora, are you okay?" She whispers to me.
Four looked confused but realised that he interrupting us so he walked back to the main district of dauntless.
I turned to her, "Were you in the simulation the first time I took my test?" I ask her, my eyes pleading for her to tell me the truth.
"Yes." She looked down.
"Why?"
"You know why." She looks to me knowingly
But I have no idea what she means.
"Trust the process Aurora." She tells me.
"Yeah," I nod to my response before she walks back to her position.