Duplicity [p.h]

chapter one || i look like a tomato

WHAT IS FEAR?

According to the dictionary, it's an "unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat."

I only know that because I spent 16 years in Erudite.

But, like pain, I believe fear is an illusion.

For some, it can be a force that pushes them to the brink of their sanity, harder and harder, until they fall right off the edge and crumble. Their fear is their doom.

But your fears should not consume you.

Fears should be the things that push you to the edge, so you are only left with two options.

Either you fall, or you fight back.

Either you let your fears control you, or you control them.

See, becoming fearless isn't the goal. First of all, that's impossible, and second of all, it's not what you want to do.

Fear is an instinct for you to wake up. It tells you when danger is about to slap you in the face so that you can punch it first.

It's not about being fearless.

It's about controlling your fears, and learning how to live alongside them.

It's about being brave, even when you don't want to be, because you have to.

It's about freeing yourself from their grasp, but still knowing they're there. Somewhere.

That's the point.

And after everything that's happened to me in the past few weeks, I'd have to say I've gotten to know fear pretty well.

But for the record, that's not just because I transferred to Dauntless.

My name is Jacqueline "Jax" Lorelai Taylor. I'm 16 years old.

Two months ago, I was in Erudite. Yesterday, I was in Dauntless.

Today, I'm on a train. I have a few good reasons to be scared of where I'm going.

Not geographically though. Right now, this train is headed to happy-fun-time-farming land, also known as the Amity compound. Basically, it's the farming district in the middle of nowhere.

• • •

THE FRIGID WALL OF THIS TRAIN has been pressed against my spine for about an hour or so, and the only glimmer of hope that keeps me from collapsing is that we should be reaching our destination soon. As of right now, I'm standing next to Peter Hayes, a fellow Dauntless initiate (technically) and my... well, my special friend, for the lack of a better term. I'm also feeling a little light-headed, but that can be attributed to what I've just been through. I would like to feel relaxed now that we're going to a land full of kind hippies who grow food for a living, but I have other things plaguing my mind.

Allow me to expand on that.

The reason I got on the train with a few others – Peter Hayes, as mentioned before; Four... last name unknown, my instructor at Dauntless, sort of Divergent; Tris Prior, fellow initiate, also Divergent and Four's girlfriend; Caleb Prior, Tris' brother and a transfer to Erudite; and Marcus Eaton, ex-leader of the Abnegation and leader of our society – in the first place was because I needed to leave. The Dauntless and Erudite have been working together for a while now, and their plan was to eliminate the Abnegation faction for reasons unknown to me. How, you may ask? The Erudite created a simulation that was injected into every Dauntless member two days ago, that would act similarly to mind control. The Dauntless wouldn't be able to control what they did, unless they were Divergent. They had to blend in with the rest of the population, or else they'd be shot on the spot.