I sit, leaning back in the chair and setting my arms on the armrests. Amar prepares a syringe, holding it up to the light to make sure the vial is locked in place. He sticks the needle into my neck without warning and presses down on the plunger. I flinch.
"Let's see which of your four fears comes up first," he says. "You know, I'm getting kind of bored of them, you might try to show me something new."
"I'll work on it," I say.
The simulation swallows me.
I am sitting on the hard wooden bench at an Abnegation kitchen table, an empty plate in front of me. All the shades are drawn over the windows, so the only light comes from the bulb dangling over the table, its filament glowing orange. I stare at the dark fabric covering my knee. Why am I wearing black instead of gray?
When I lift my head, he--Marcus--is across from me. For a split second, he's just like the man I saw across the Choosing Ceremony hall not long ago, his eyes dark blue to match mine, his mouth pressed into a frown.
I'm wearing black because I'm Dauntless now, I remind myself. So why am I in an Abnegation house, sitting across from my father?
I see the outline of the lightbulb reflected in my empty plate. This must be a simulation, I think.
Then the light above us flickers, and he turns into the man I always see in my fear landscape, a twisted monster with pits for eyes and a wide, empty mouth. He lunges across the table with both hands outstretched, and instead of fingernails he has razor blades embedded in his fingertips.
He swipes at me, and I lurch back, falling off the bench. I scramble on the floor for my balance, then run into the living room. There is another Marcus there, reaching for me from the wall. I search for the front door, but someone has sealed it with cinder blocks, trapping me.
Gasping, I sprint up the stairs. At the top I trip, and sprawl on the wooden floor in the hallway. A Marcus opens the closet door from the inside; another one walks out of my parents' bedroom; yet another one claws across the floor from the bathroom. I shrink back against the wall. The house is dark. There are no windows.
This place is full of him.
Suddenly one of the Marcuses is right in front of me, pressing me to the wall with both hands around my throat. Another one drags his fingernails down my arms, provoking a stinging pain that brings tears to my eyes.
I am paralyzed, panicking.
I swallow air. I can't scream. I feel pain and my pounding heart and I kick as hard as I can, hitting only air. The Marcus with his hands around my throat shoves me up the wall, so my toes drag along the floor. My limbs are limp, like a rag doll's. I can't move.
This place, this place is full of him. It's not real, I realize. It's a simulation. It's just like the fear landscape.
There are more Marcuses now, waiting below me with their hands outstretched, so I'm staring down at a sea of blades. Their fingers clutch at my legs, cutting me, and I feel a hot trail down the side of my neck as the Marcus who is choking me digs in harder.
Simulation, I remind myself. I try to send life into every one of my limbs. I imagine my blood on fire, racing through me. I slap my hand against the wall, searching for a weapon. One of the Marcuses reaches up, his fingers poised over my eyes. I scream and thrash as the blades dig into my eyelids.
My hands find not a weapon but a doorknob. I twist it, hard, and fall back into another closet. The Marcuses lose their hold on me. In the closet is a window, just big enough for my body. As they chase me into the darkness, I throw my shoulder against the glass, and it shatters. Fresh air fills my lungs.
I sit upright in the chair, gasping.
I put my hands against my throat, on my arms, on my legs, checking for wounds that aren't there. I can still feel the cuts and the unfurling of blood from my veins, but my skin is intact.
My breaths slow down, and with them, my thoughts. Amar is sitting at the computer, hooked up to the simulation, and he's staring at me.
"What?" I say, breathless.
"You were in there for five minutes," Amar says.
"Is that long?"
"No." He frowns at me. "No, it's not long at all. It's very good, actually."
I put my feet on the floor and hold my head in my hands. I may not have panicked for that long during the simulation, but the image of my warped father trying to claw my eyes out keeps flashing in my mind, causing my heart rate to spike again and again.
"Is the serum still in effect?" I say, clenching my teeth. "Making me panic?"
"No, it should have gone dormant when you exited the simulation," he says. "Why?"
I shake my hands, which are tingling, like they're going numb. I shake my head. It wasn't real, I tell myself. Let it go.
"Sometimes the simulation causes lingering panic, depending on what you see in it," Amar says. "Let me walk you back to the dormitory."
"No." I shake my head. "I'll be fine."
He gives me a hard look.
"It wasn't a request," he says. He gets up and opens a door behind the chair. I follow him down a short, dark hallway and into the stone corridors that lead back to the transfer dormitory. The air is cool there, and moist, from being underground. I hear our footsteps echo, and my own breaths, but nothing else.
I think I see something--movement--on my left, and I flinch away from it, pulling back against the wall. Amar stops me, putting his hands on my shoulders so I have to look at his face.
"Hey," he says. "Get it together, Four."
I nod, heat rushing into my face. I feel a deep twinge of shame in my stomach. I am supposed to be Dauntless. I am not supposed to be afraid of monster Marcuses creeping up on me in the dark. I lean against the stone wall and take a deep breath.
"Can I ask you something?" Amar says. I cringe, thinking he's going to ask me about my father, but he doesn't. "How did you get out of that hallway?"
"I opened a door," I say.
"Was there a door behind you the whole time? Is there one in your old house?"
I shake my head.
Amar's usually amiable face is serious. "So you created one out of nowhere?"
"Yeah," I say. "Simulations are all in your head. So my head made a door so I could get out. All I had to do was concentrate."
"Strange," he says.
"What? Why?"
"Most initiates can't make something impossible happen in these simulations, because unlike in the fear landscape, they don't recognize that they are in a simulation," he says. "And they don't get out of simulations that fast, as a result."
I feel my pulse in my throat. I didn't realize these simulations were supposed to be different from the fear landscape--I thought everyone was aware of this simulation while they were in it. But judging by what Amar is saying, this was supposed to be like the aptitude test, and before the aptitude test, my father warned me against my simulation awareness, coached me to hide it. I still remember how insistent he was, how tense his voice was and how he grabbed my arm a little too hard.
At the time, I thought that he would never speak that way unless he was worried about me. Worried for my safety.
Was he just being paranoid, or is there still something dangerous about being aware during simulations?
"I was like you," Amar says quietly. "I could change the simulations. I just thought I was the only one."
I want to tell him to keep it to himself, to protect his secrets. But the Dauntless don't care about secrets the way the Abnegation do, with their tight-lipped smiles and identical, orderly houses.
Amar is giving me a strange look--eager, like he expects something from me. I shift, uncomfortable.
"It's probably not something you should brag about," Amar says. "The Dauntless are all about conformity, just like every other faction. It's just not as obvious here."
I nod.