The Voice Said That She Still Has It

Christina stared down at her boiled peas and bread like it was something she could murder.

She didn't want to eat.

She didn't want to look at all the people in the dining hall. People made her sick.

Right now, she just wanted to sit in an empty hallway. Just sit. Not cry or scream or wail for her loses. Because that wouldn't change anything. (She had tried). Because that would not bring back Tris. Or Uriah. Or Will.

'What will?' She wondered.

Nothing.

There it was again. Nothing. She hated this word. She hated what it might mean. What can she do after everyone she cares for is dead? Nothing. What can she do to hug Tris one last time? Nothing. What is left of her life? Nothing.

Nothing, Nothing, Nothing.

'Stop it.' She ordered herself.' Just stop it and eat something. You are starving.'

That's how she was staying alive. She split her mind and her heart into two, named Tina and Instructor. Tina was a lifeless, broken thing scarred by the terrible deaths of her loved ones. The other, Instructor, was the only sane and rational part left in Christina's brain. It ordered her to do everything that a normal person would do.

Tina and Instructor were constantly at war. Tina wanted to sink in a corner and cry until no more tears came out or run away as fast as she could and never come back or just die. Instructor wanted her to eat and sleep and drink and basically carry on with life. Which wasn't better, because Instructor just wanted her to......live. Nothing else.

Tina won most of the time. No, Tina always won.

And why wouldn't Tina win? It was so easy being Tina. After all, dying is kind of easy, if you put your mind to it. All she had done after joining the Dauntless was difficult and arduous. She wanted peace now. She wanted easy.

'Yes, yes. That sounds good.' Said Tina. 'Dying sounds good'

Her mother and sister could make it without her. Didn't they already, when she left them to join the Dauntless?

Just as she was contemplating the least painful way to die, she heard it- a voice. Or rather, voices. Will's and Tris' and Uriah's.

'Is this how you would repay us, by letting go?'

**************

She registered three things at once.

One, that she was clearly hallucinating, because the voice was in her head. Two, it was a voice so clear and true that it knocked the breath out of her. It was as if icy cold water and boiling hot water was splashed over her at the same time. Whatever the voice was speaking, It was the truth. It was reality. She was an ex-candor, she would know it.

And three, the voice was angry, outraged. But why would Tris, Will and Uriah be angry at her?

'Answer us!'

She was faintly aware that this was still a delusion, but it was too much to hold back and stop imagining. Oh, how sweet their voices sounded, even in anger! She wanted nothing more than to talk back. And she did.

'What are you doing here? Are you alive?'

'You know the answer to that. But we have not come for idle talk. Why are you trying to die?'

'Because I can't face it. I can't live without all of you.'

The voice laughed mercilessly. 'Running away, are you? Too weak to face life?'