I have attended Amity's initiation ceremony every year except this one. It's a pretty laid back event. In the thirty days leading up to initiation the new initiates try their hands at all the jobs Amity has to offer. We all get together initiates and members, it's almost like a party. Someone, usually the current representative, so my mom this year, reads the Amity manifesto. The manifesto is a short paragraph about trust, self- sufficiency, forgiveness, and kindness. We all eat the fruit that the new initiates have picked. We gather round and sing and drink and just be happy.
The Dauntless are obviously completely different. Initiation day plunges the Dauntless compound into insanity and chaos, and I love every minute of it. There are people everywhere, and most of them are inebriated by noon. If I were not taking my final test today I would be one of them.
I push my way through them to get a plate of food at lunch and carry it back to the dormitory with me. On the way I see someone fall off the path on the Pit wall and, judging by his screams and the way he grabs at his leg, he broke something.
The dormitory, at least, is quiet. I need to clear my head before I take the final test to decide my fate in Dauntless. I stare at my plate of food. I just grabbed what looked good to me at the time, and now that I take a closer look, I realize that I chose mostly fruit and a few vegetables, with a piece of bread, Amity food. I laugh. Sometimes when I'm not thinking I revert back to my Amity ways. But I know that deep down I'm not truly Amity. Everything that I do that could be considered Amity or even Amity adjacent I do because that's how I was raised for sixteen years. It's gonna take some time to break myself of the habits. Dauntless is what I am.
Today I have to focus on what awaits me. In two hours I will walk to the fear landscape room with the other initiates, go through my fear landscape, and become Dauntless. It's too late to turn back. When I finish, I bury my face in my pillow. I don't mean to fall asleep, but after a while, I do.
I wake up to Olivia shaking my shoulder. "Time to go," Olivia says.
I rub my eyes to press the sleep from them. She looks terrified. Her eyes are red as if she has been crying, and she probably has. I think it's finally starting to hit her that she may be factionless after today. I stand up and pull her into a bone crushing hug. The other initiates are in the dormitory, tying shoelaces and buttoning jackets and throwing smiles around like they don't mean it. I pull my hair into a braid and put on my black jacket, zipping it up to my throat.
The torture will be over soon, but can we forget the simulations? Will we ever sleep soundly again, with the memories of our fears in our heads? Or will we finally forget our fears today, like we're supposed to?
We walk to the Pit and up the path that leads to the glass building. I look up at the glass ceiling. I can't see daylight because the soles of shoes cover every inch of glass above us. For a second I think I hear the glass creak, but it is my imagination. I walk up the stairs with Olivia. I'm too short to see above anyone's head, so I stare at Calum's back and walk in his wake.
A break in the crowd reveals what they are all clustered around: a series of screens on the wall to my left. I hear a cheer and stop to look at the screens. The screen on the left shows a black-clothed girl in the fear landscape room, Marlene. I watch her move, her eyes wide, but I can't tell what obstacle she's facing. Thank God no one out here will see my fears either, just my reactions to them, especially because one of my fears is public humiliation. The middle screen shows her heart rate. It picks up for a second and then decreases. When it reaches a normal rate, the screen flashes green and the Dauntless cheer. The screen on the right shows her time. I tear my eyes from the screen and jog to catch up to Olivia, Liam, and Calum.
Four stands just inside a door on the left side of the room that I barely noticed the last time I was here. I knew I would have to see him today, but I'm not quite ready for it. I'm still mad at him for what he said to me. I walk past him without looking at him. The room is large and contains another screen, similar to the one outside. A line of people sit in chairs in front of it. Eric is one of them, and so is Max. The others are also older. Judging by the wires connected to their heads, and their blank eyes, they are observing the simulation. Behind them is another line of chairs, all occupied now. I'm the last to enter, so I'm forced to stand.
"Hey, Em!" Uriah calls out from across the room. He sits with the other Dauntless-born initiates. Only four of them are left; the rest have gone through their fear landscapes already. He pats his leg. "You can sit on my lap, if you want."
"Tempting," I call back, grinning. "But I'm gonna have to pass."
I don't want Uriah to get the wrong Idea. The lights lift in the fear landscape room, revealing Marlene in a crouch, her face streaked with tears. Max, Eric, and a few others shake off the simulation daze and walk out. A few seconds later I see them on the screen, congratulating her for finishing.
"Transfers, the order in which you go through the final test was taken from your rankings as they now stand," Four says. "So Em will go first, and Olivia will go last."
That can't be good for Olivia's nerves. That also means I'm first and get to get this out of the way.
I stand in the back of the room, a few feet away from Four. I will not know how well everyone else does before it's my turn. I can't gauge how fast I can go without it being suspicious. I start speculating about which fears I will have to face, and how many there will be. I just have to remember that I have the power to manipulate the simulations, and that I have practiced it before. All I can do now is get past this obstacle.
I'm pulled from my thoughts when I hear my name, "Em." It's Eric.
I walk to the front of the observation room, towards Eric where he stands with a syringe full of orange liquid. Four and I exchange glances when Eric sticks the needle into my neck. I barely see Eric's pierced face as he presses the plunger down. I imagine that the serum is liquid adrenaline rushing through my veins, making me strong.
"Ready?" Eric asks.
I'm ready. I step into the room, armed not with a gun or a knife, but with the plan I made the night before. Four said that stage three is about mental preparation, coming up with strategies to overcome my fears. I wish I knew what order the fears will come in. I bounce on the balls of my feet as I wait for the first fear to appear. I try to breathe steadily. The ground beneath me changes.
Grass rises from the concrete and sways in a wind I cannot feel. A burnt orange sky replaces the exposed pipes above me. I listen for the sound of the snarling dogs. I try to suppress my fear. It's about control.
I start to hear the dogs. The first one steps out of thin air. This time, I don't try to fight the dog as hard as I can. I crouch, listening to the growling increase around me, and run my hand through the grass, just above the ground. What combats powerlessness? Power. And the first time I felt truly powerful in the Dauntless compound was when I was holding a gun. I feel one of the dogs sink its teeth into my right calf. Another dog bites into my left hip, but then I feel something hard and metal in the grass. My gun. I point the gun at the dog on my calf, and it lets out a whimper before falling to the ground. I then shot the dog biting my hip. I spin on my heel, aiming the gun at the rest of the pack. I squeeze the trigger, firing again and again at the dogs racing towards me, watching their dark bodies drop to the grass. As I aim and shoot, I feel the same rush of power I felt the first time I held a gun.
My heart stops racing and the field, gun, and dogs fade away. I stand in the dark again. I expect something to happen but it doesn't. This one's for my fear of darkness. I stretch out my arms hoping to hit something, anything. I'm afraid of the dark, but I also know that this is about my fear of not being in control. It is about weakness. I just have to convince myself that I'm strong enough to break the wall. I start to hear the voices like last time, one at first but growing more and louder every second. I start to stumble forward hoping to find a wall. I finally feel something in front of me. I slam my fist into the wall as hard as possible. My hand bounces off, causing no damage. My heartbeat speeds up. What if what worked in the first simulation doesn't work here? What if I can't break the glass unless I'm under duress? I try again, this time kicking the wall. I have to calm down. Calm down and focus. I try again and again, but nothing happens. I have another option. I can wait it out and try to calm down. I won't do it though. I won't let myself stop fighting. I can't. I ball my hands up into fists and pound on the wall. I'm stronger than the wall. My mind will make it so. I close my eyes. I hit it again, and again. Then the wall shatters under my hand.
And then the light returns. I shake out my hands. That should have been an easy obstacle to overcome. I've faced it before in simulations. I can't afford to lose time like that again. I look around and realize I'm in the pit. I see Liam, Calum, and Olivia surrounded by the other initiates as well as Four and Eric. I run towards them, but I run into what feels like a solid wall forcing the air from my lungs, and I fall hard. I slowly get up from the ground holding my nose, and I'm surprised it is not bleeding from how hard I ran into the glass. Everyone looks at me and starts to laugh. Okay I'll admit someone running into glass is pretty funny. But they don't stop, they just keep laughing and pointing. Then I realize what fear this is, public humiliation. I look down and realize I'm completely naked. I know that the only way for me to overcome this is to try and convince myself I'm not humiliated by this. I stand up not bothering to cover my body. If I don't let this bother me, the fear should change. I look at everyone standing in front of me and they stop laughing.
"I knew I forgot something when I left the dorm this morning, I just didn't realize it was my clothes," I joke.
They all laugh and then I'm plunged into darkness again.
When the light comes back I realize I'm holding onto the side of a cliff. Beneath me are rocks with jagged edges, slick with water. I'm not that high from the ground, only about 25 feet. I've been afraid of falling, ever since my brother's death. I know that I can fall and survive if I don't hit my head on the rocks. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a dark sky and a blood-red moon. I know that I can't hang here forever. I only have two options to try and climb the five feet to the top or to drop off and hop for the best. I know how to swim, but I've never climbed a rock face before. I decided on climbing. I think just falling off would look weak. I bring my right foot up trying to reach my left arm up to a small ledge in the rock. I reach it and keep repeating the same process over and over until I reach the top. I pull myself up and over the edge and lay on my back. The darkness comes over me once again.
This time I'm standing back in Dauntless, again. I turn around and I'm alone. Then I hear it. A trigger clicks in my ear. I feel the heft of a gun in my hand and curl my fingers around it, slipping my index finger over the trigger. A spotlight shines from the ceiling, its source unknown, and standing in the center of its circle of light are my mother, my father, and my brother.
"Do it," hisses a voice next to me. It is male and harsh, like it's cluttered with rocks and broken glass. It sounds like Max.
The barrel of a gun presses to my temple, a cold circle against my skin. The cold travels across my body, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I look at the man through the corner of my eye. It is Max. His eyes are empty of feeling, not the usual for Max. Max from the little I have seen of him is definitely one of the softer leaders, his eyes usually hold some type of happiness or anger, but they are never void of emotion. My worst fear: that the death of my family in the case of my father and brother was my fault and that the death of my mom will be my fault.
"Do it," he says again, more insistent this time. "Do it or I'll kill you."
I stare at Owen. He seems so real, like I could reach out and touch him. If I hug him and never let go they would have to cut the simulation after a while.
"Go ahead, Emmie," he says softly. "I understand. It's okay."
My eyes burn. "No," I say, my throat is so tight it aches. I shake my head.
"I'll give you ten seconds!" the woman shouts. "Ten! Nine!"
My eyes skip from my brother to my father. The last time I saw him, I was five, everything was simpler back then.
"Emmeline Rose," my father says. "You have no other option."
"Eight!"
"Emmeline Rose," my mom says. She smiles. She has a sweet smile. "We love you."
"Seven!"
I can't say anything, I can't wrap my mind around this. I have to do it. I can shoot them. They understand. They're asking me too. They aren't even real. This is all a simulation. My father has been dead for almost ten years, and my brother for two years.
"Six!"
It isn't real. It doesn't mean anything. My brother's kind eyes feel like two drills boring a hole in my head. This isn't how I wanted to see him again.
"Five!"
I have no other option. I close my eyes. Think. I have to think. The urgency making my heart race depends on one thing, and one thing only: the threat to my life.
"Four! Three!"
Selflessness and bravery aren't that different.
"Two!"
I release the trigger of my gun and drop it. Before I can lose my nerve, I turn and press my forehead to the barrel of the gun behind me. Shoot me instead.
"One!"
I hear a click, and a bang.