Chasm

Chapter 8

TRIS POV

The stone halls are darker than usual, the blue lights that line them flickering dead as I walk past. My footsteps are the only noise that reaches my ears; everything else is distant, like the roar of the chasm, but it grows louder each second.

A sharp clang distracts me, and I look down the hallway to my right to make sure there is no threat. Just as I do, a chill travels down my spine, and a pair of arms grabs me from behind. A hand muffles my petrified scream. I can't struggle out of their grips.

Not again. Not again.

The mantra repeats in my brain as I wake myself up, screaming into my teeth with fear. Once I realize that I am doing it, I silence myself and flip over on my bed onto my stomach, begging the trembling to cease.

Exhaustion seeps through me. Every single night this happens. All I want to do after initiation is crash in a dreamless sleep, and it is impossible thanks to my troubled mind.

Sighing, I wipe the sweat off my forehead and glance around the dormitory to make sure that nobody saw or heard me. Thankfully, it is mostly cleared, with the exception of a couple sleepers and a few people dressing.

I sit up and scan the room closely. It doesn't seem like everyone left in a hurry, and Christina would have woken me up. Do we not have training today? What is going on?

Just then, Christina walks in with a sullen expression, taking a seat on her bunk.

"What's going on?" I ask quietly, since now seems like a time for quiet voices.

"Someone jumped. Last night," she breathes.

That is four suicides this week. This week. And it is worse because this feels like Al all over again, feels close to home since it happened in Dauntless.

"Who was it?" I croak.

She shrugs. "I don't know. He had a family though—a wife and two little kids. I can't believe someone would do that to their family."

Because I can't help myself, I snap, "Some people have their reasons, Christina." Because sometimes when you feel that death is the only way out, you stop caring about things like family, as important as they are to you. At least, that is how I felt when I was suicidal, like nothing could save me.

Shocked at my defensive attitude, Christina's face softens. "I didn't mean it like that, Tris. It's just—"

"It sucks. I know." I take a deep breath. "So what about training? Are we not having it today?"

"No, we are," she answers. "But Four is letting us eat breakfast first, and it's starting at ten instead. I think he said we were working on resistance training and cardio and stuff, to take a break. Or as much of a break as that is."

I need something to distract me. From my nightmares, from the suicides. From the constant fear of impending danger looming over my head.

"Let's go to breakfast," I suggest.

Once I am dressed, we walk through the solemn halls to the cafeteria, where Dauntless members are already well on their way to getting drunk. This happens every time there is a death here, even if they weren't familiar with the deceased.

"Hey, sorry we're late," Christina says in greeting to our table, including Uriah, Justin, and Dez. She jabs her thumb at me. "I had to get this one out of bed."

And none of us are in a joking mood, yet it is what everyone needs to alleviate the dim atmosphere of grief.

Justin carries out the joke. "I didn't take you to be a lazy person, Tris," he admits with a cocked eyebrow.