Back To You // Peter Hayes

acrophobia

fear of heights

"You ready?" Tobias asked, I still hadn't found the energy to speak up much after my last fear landscape, "Don't worry, it'll be a different fear to last time." he reassured.

I nodded my head hesistantly and let him inject the serum into my neck.

The room around me changed again, the lights switched off and I was left in total darkness, I could feel the walls shrink around me so I put my arms out, feeling the room around me. The ceiling had curved into a circular shape- a tunnel. A dim light started glowing in the distance so I begun walking towards it, the sound of water echoed against the walls as my feet dragged through it, was I in a sewer?

As I got closer to the end of the tunnel, I heard movement in the water behind me, and tiny squeaking noises. Shit, rats.

I started running towards the light as fast as I could, some of the rats caught up, some were spilling out of the holes in the walls, they started crawling up my ankles and I frantically kicked my legs about to get them off. A few went flying backwards.

One suddenly jumped out of the wall and latched onto my hair, I screamed and swung my arms at my head trying to get it off. It didn't move. I threw my head backwards against the wall, slamming the rat into the bricks and it dropped to the floor. I realised after the splitting pain spiked through my head that it probably wasn't the best way to deal with that.

When I got to the end of the tunnel, there was a door, I ran through and slammed it shut behind me. I turned around, realising I was on the edge of a very very tall building "Woahhhhh" I said and backed myself up against the wall. Heights. Two fears in one go, fun. One of the rats was still scratching at my ankle so I shook it off my boot and it fell off the building, "Sorry." I winced. Why am I apologising to a rat?

A thin bridge appeared in front of me, joint to an opposite building, seems simple enough. I carefully stepped onto the bridge, placing one foot in front of the other and tried not to look down. This is easy. I stayed low, close to the bridge and tried to ignore how much my heart was racing while I basically crawled over to the window opposite me. I felt an immense feeling of relief as I dove through the window, and suddenly I was back in the training room.

"Good job Baby," Tobias said, "You're actually in the top three running for shortest time, after Tris and Uriah."

"Really?" I gasped, I was suprised especially after my first attempt at this,

"Yeah," he smirked a little, gleaming with pride, "You're quick, and that's important. It's almost like you're not even scared at all."

"I guess when you have worse fears, the little ones don't seem so bad." I shrugged and he frowned, but when his face softened, he gave me a look that showed he realised he knew what i was talking about and sort of understood.

"C'mon, I'm going for lunch now, you coming?" he asked

"Yeah sure."

-----------------------------

"So when are you gonna tell Tris you like her?" I teased, watching as Tobias's gaze followed her across the hall,

"What?" his focus snapped back to me, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I've seen the way you look at her Toby, it's pretty obvious and I'm not that stupid." I raised an eyebrow.

"It's not like that," he argued unconvincingly, "besides, if we're talking about obvious, what's going on with you and Peter?"

I almost spat my orange juice out all over the table, "What? Nothing."

"Hmm," he mumbled with a hint of sarcasm, "That's not what it looks like. You guys are obsessed with each other."

"Bullshit."

"Hmm okay," he disagreed, "I've got some stuff to do so I'll see you later." he left the table quickly, as if he was trying to run away from the conversation. He definitely has feelings for Tris - I've got an instinct. And that usually means I'm right. I left the table to go find Will, he was sat at our usual seats near the back of the room, stabbing his fork into some pasta,

"Woah, what did that pasta ever do to you?" I joked,

"Oh hey Baby," he looked up, "Sorry there's just a lot on my mind." he ran his fingers through his hair,

"What's up?"

"It's all this fear landscape stuff, it's really keeping me on edge," he sighed, "But mostly I'm worried about Al, I don't want to sound horrible but I don't think he's gonna make it through initiation. He spends the longest time in his simulations, and he's leaving them so exhausted and terrified, I can barely get him to say a word to me afterwards." I hate to say it but Will was right, there's no way Al was going to make it through, it's a miracle he survived the first stage,

"There's nothing you can do about that Steel, we can just be there for him and hope that he miraculously pulls through at the end." I highly doubted it but I guess I have to give Will some hope.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." he was still pushing the food around his plate with his fork, "There's something else, I've been pretty nervous about it."

"What is it?"

"I think I'm going to ask Christina to be my girlfriend." he let out a heavy sigh, as if he'd been holding his breath,

"Oh my God! No way!" I squealed, "Will that's amazing!"

"I just have no idea what I'm doing, how to do it, is she going to say yes? What if she says no? What if I mess it up? Oh my god-"

"Will calm down, what happened to your 'nerves of steel'?" I joked, "Of course she'll say yes, she really likes you, she's different around you."

"Good different?"

"Yeah Steel, good different." I laughed at him, "you've got this one in the bag. Easy"

"Okay, okay." he calmed down, chuckling lightly at himself.