Rebel

Chapter 42

At breakfast, everyone is silent. Everyone's head tilt angle matched exactly as we ate our bland, white bread for breakfast. Everything is incongruous; Abel isn't drinking coffee, Nathans' eating food, Sage isn't sharing any interesting factoids, Uriah and Four aren't socializing, nobody's making out, and Matt is sitting next to Helena. I'm just there, and I just thought of Tobias as Four. So, everything is different today. An absence fills my head.

......

Nathan stands in front of me, creepily watching me as we stand again in the monotonous gray hallways.

"This is our last fear simulation before Stage 3," Tobias announces, directly staring in our direction, causing Nathan to stop nervously tapping his leg onto the pearly white, tile floor with the acrid stench of hydrogen peroxide.

The gray walls are a trap, enclosing us in an environment that is like the inevitable nature of the Antartican desert. This room is as covered in cleaning product as the tiny closet that is buried in the silence of my old Abnegation home. The benches where we all are sitting hang on the tiniest of threads, pleading to be freed from the heavy weight of us initiates.

"KRISTEN!" Tobias yells.

The beginner initiate stalls on her way up to the simulation room. Her blonde, wavy hair flows in and out of her face, showing her beautiful hazel eyes. Her slender frame finally meets Tobias, who's wearing a red muscle shirt. Tobias looks ugly, he should seriously learn modesty. He looks like a male stripper; Rainbow would marry him in a heartbeat. They both walk into the simulation room. Normally, after initiates start their fear simulations, a loud chatter fills the room, but today, there lies an awkward silence, created by solidarity and fear, rather than the lighthearted nature of Dauntless. Us initiates hide our vulnerability here, where it is banned from showcasing. The city has temporarily became a paper town, where no one lives there; the initiates aren't people anymore, acting as if they're robots from a Science Fiction movie.

"HELENA!" Uriah calls.

This red-headed, 6 foot tall giant, decided to stomp her way up towards Uriah. She's a bit more muscular than the other females, about on par with Matt or Nathan. After that, the other initiates are called to the room, one by one, before Tobias calls, "KAT!"

It's my turn. Quite exciting. I look my older brother in the eye. He stares at me in reply, but only for a short second, before he smirks at me, breaking his heck of a creepy persona. I don't know how to respond, so I don't. Tobias doesn't seem to shocked about the dramatically instant change of our personalities. It's like the entirety of Dauntless has morphed into another species, like robots. Forever. We walk in the room together, carrying the only unity we had and leaving it near the high-tech computer in the right-hand corner of the room. The chair stands in the middle, leather starting to peel and stain. The chair screams, telling me not to sit on it, but my free will decides for me to sit on it. As a result, the chair yells in protest.

Tobias stares at me. "You ready?"

I nod. I can feel the liquidated cool serum seeping through my neck and crawling into my bloodstream. My vision becomes hazy.

......

I wake up in a chaotic room of fire, yelling, and fear. I instantly try to jump up, but I can't. I'm tied to the ground. It's like the force of gravity just got multiplied by 1000, but only to me. I can't get up, I'm dying. My inertia is too great for my feet to move me anywhere. The world of Dauntless lies right in front of my eyes with the people Dauntless lighting cigars, strip teasing, getting tattoos, and drinking coffee.

"C'mon, stiff, move it," Peter says, obviously annoyed, or trying to taunt me.

What a jerk...

"I can't!" I yell.

"Just try, Kat." Kristen says, obviously annoyed as well.

Kristen gives Peter a peck on the lips. THEY'RE TOGETHER?!

Zeke and Uriah are nonchalant, Nathan is going crazy with Matt trying to calm him down.

The wall forms around me and Sage carries me out and places me in front of the train. No, I can't die. I can't die. I am too lazy to stop anything.

I wake up on top of a tightrope wire. Jesus, I can't do this. Gravity is going to push me down, and I'll fall, and I'll fail. My thoughts are competing with each other as I see the ground. The ground is an already deepened chest that became an abyss that no one would ever find the bottom of. This isn't logical. This doesn't make logical sense. This isn't real. I have to get through this.

"What would a Dauntless do?" I ask myself.

I slowly tremble my way over to the other side of the tightrope, briskly jumping into the other building. Curling my hands into wrecking balls, I walk over to see what my next fear is.

I'm in a room. The walls are slowly enclosing in on me. I can barely see. I'm pounding on the boxes, trying to make it stop. Next, I use nails to make dents in the box. The box slowly makes my body curl into a tiny ball. As soon as I do, the room is gone.

I know Marcus is going to show up. Please not now, please not now. I'm begging.

I see Tobias walking to me, dark black abysses in place of his dark brown eyes. He stares at me with a gaze that is unforgettable. It's the haze that Marcus has previously used on me when I'm in trouble.

"Tobias?" I ask with utter bewilderment.

"Yes, loser," he mutters.

Tobias walks towards me, taking off his belt. His appearance suddenly changes into one of Marcus Eaton. I see the old man wrinkles carving into Tobias's 16 year old face.

"This is for your own good."

I punch him in the face.

I walk into the room in Marcus's house. Oh god. I see my old, nasty looking father walking down the stairs.

"I tried to teach you better," Marcus says.

He suddenly clones himself and surrounds me. This is worse than Tobias.

"Don't go crying for your brother. He's dead. I killed him," he says proudly.

This can't be real. I just saw him five minutes ago. I can't take it anymore. I just give a sour facial expression to Marcus, bitter with all the past hatred that I have stored for this ruthless man.

"This is for your own good."

I feel the belt rushing across my fragile skin, cutting me with marks. I block the second strike, And with all my might, I run to the window and jump.

......

My eyes flutter open, my body jumping out of my chair. I sprint out of the simulation room.

"Catherine?" he asks, the moment before I leave the claustrophobic room.

"What?" I snap.

"Catherine, are you okay?" he asks me, genuinely concerned.

"Yea," I lie, before I walk outside.

Nathan normally waits for me outside, but the room is empty. Even Uriah, Tris, and Christina are gone. Just Tobias and I are in the building. I exit the building, walking briskly, making sure to walk towards the pit where my friends normally hang.