I take the needle, not bothering with the antiseptic wipe, and plunge the syringe in my neck. I close my eyes and when I open then I am standing at the edge of a very high building. Heights again. I jump and think of jumping with her.
I am still claustrophobic so the next fear is the box. I think of her cramped up against me and the box breaks. I am not expecting the next fear.
I see her, in front of me, resisting the death serum and then being shot to death, while saving us, now she is on the floor and her killer leaves but she stays, on the floor, bleeding to death. I cant see this, i can't, i am panicking, i cant panic, i can't, but fear overwhelms me and i can't move, i drop to the floor, my hands soaked in her blood. And then I hear it. Her voice. "Tobias, it's alright" she whispers with a weak voice.Just hearing the voice again just sends a wave of emotions through my body.I feel like I want to drop to the floor and curl into a ball or punch the people that did this to her or both. But I just concentrate on how beautiful she is. Just like her voice calmed me during the simulation. It is crazy to fear the worst when the worst has already happened but yet here she is.I move on to the next fear, Marcus, after what I just experienced I move through this fear easily. Then I wake up, still four fears, I sigh. It was me who told her that what she saw in the simulations wasn't her literal fear playing out in front of her—Well, are you really afraid of crows?—but something deeper, more symbolic. Still, it's difficult not to take my third fear exactly as it is, with her wide blue eyes staring up at me from the ground, their spark gone out.
***
I hear a knock on the door and I see my mother coming in and when she sees me take a step back. I can only imagine how I look, sweaty, breathing in short breaths.
"Are you okay Tobias ?" she asks.
"Yes," I answer, a little bit too harshly.
"You know you can talk to me right ?"
I sigh, I know I can, it just feels abnormal even after our lives are supposedly back to normal although how could they be ? She isn't here. That's all that matters.
I am about to open up when she says "Oh well, you know where to find me" and leaves.
I stay in the fear landscape room for a while and I am still frustrated when I leave.