I close my eyes and let my body succumb to the sedative, I look around and notice my reflection in one of the panes in the control room. The tattoo on my spine is visible from the collar of my vest and it shimmers jet-black in the sun, a flame burning in the palms of a pair of outstretched hands, the child of my old faction, and my new. And beneath those hands, the words Courage. Compassion. Connection.
I turn on my heal and head toward the reclined seat in the middle of the room, and there shut my eyes slowly. My back and my arms and my legs go numb as they sink into the leather of the seat and I drift off listlessly. When I finally open my eyes, I am engulfed in a blanket of black. The fear of the dark I say to myself. My heart races a bit, but then I remember how I dealt with the dark when I was a child. I reach out my arm and feel my way through it. "Embrace the darkness" my grandmother once told me, and that's exactly what I do. I shuffle into the abyss with my fingers acting as receptors and my ears as radars. In no time my eyes adjust to the darkness and they make out the silhouette of a neighborhood at twilight. As I walk, I notice a street form before me and a row of grey houses take shape on my left and on my right. It looks familiar. It is familiar! I'm in the Abnegation section of the city ,and I am walking down the street where my old house is. The street is deadly quiet, save for the distant noise of dogs barking which echo off the chalky walls.
I walk down the street with certainty, I know that I am here for a reason, I need to find something. I turn left down into an avenue, and there I hear the screech of a gate swinging open. The sound is followed by a plethora of low growls, and as I turn back I notice a pack of rabid dogs charging toward me with their mouths foaming. I run, even though my legs turn to jelly. The fear of dogs I hear myself say . I can't get far with my baggy grey pants which weigh me down, so I stop, turn and face the onslaught. The first dog that reaches me dives for my leg, and tears away at the hem of my pants, the second one leaps up and goes for my throat, but I stick my forearm out and let it grab a hold of that. An act of sacrifice I suppose. I wrestle with the hell-hounds until I remember what FOUR told me in the cafeteria: stay calm and breathe, the mind knows what to do. The body will follow. So I count to four, ironically, and swing a kick into the ribs of the dog tearing away at my leg, and it lets go if my pants in a painful cry. As for the dog that is dragging me down by arm, I grab a hold of its hind leg with my free hand and fling it upward, sending it hurling into the air. It lands on its neck painfully and the landscape changes. I was in the Abnegation section for a reason, and that reason was to find my courage.
The world changes once more and now I am in The Pit, and it is crowded with the faces and the bodies of the Dauntless. They laugh boisterously, and I smile too as notice their smiles, but as I approach them their faces turn to stone and they turn their backs on me in disgust, sneering as they do. "What's happening?" I ask a girl in a leather jacket to my right, who doesn't respond but who instead yanks her shoulder from my outstretched hand. "Why are you even here?" she spits "You don't belong here Stiff!" she finishes, before her friend beside her who has a large nose ring adds: "Go away! We need people who will support us and help us grow!". I feel the pang in my chest where my heart is at those words, and I begin to crumble from within. I want to curl up and shrink, but I clench my fists, stifling my shaking hands instead. I know this fear, but I don't announce it and I choose rather to lift my head up and walk through the crowd of faces. My worth is inherent, and is not dependent on factors without I whisper to myself.
The crowd of Dauntless evaporate into a cloud of grey smoke, which gets darker and thicker until I find myself sitting prostrate in a dingy room that has a faint fecal smell to it. The floor is ice cold and the walls around me stand ominous like a barrier separating me from my freedom. It is dark in here, I can't even make out the outline of my hand. I hear something growling to my left, that sound is followed by another growl to my right, and finally as I turn to look ahead I see a pair of great yellow eyes staring straight at me. The three beasts approach, cloaked in fur and fury. The fear of being ambushed. I shake, but then I recall what FOUR expressly instructed us to remember during training: Adapt. And so I do. I wait for the first attacker who dives at me, trying to grapple my arms. I duck and launch a well-time kick into the things mi-drift, the wretched thing heaves as I parry a blow from the creature to my left with my arm, and punch it in the face. The monster recoils in pain as it falls defeated to the floor. I stand waiting for the final attacker to launch at me, but it simply looks at me with it's treacherous eyes, and I notice it's countenance change into that of a docile, defeated thing. It then shrinks away into the darkness in a whimper. When you have the courage to face your fears, they have no power over you
I slouch down against the wall and lay my head against the stony barrier thinking of a way to escape this imaginary prison. I close my eyes and allow my thoughts to carry me off into the blissful paradise that is my happiest memories. I smile as I recall the smell of the closely cropped grass on the lawn before my house. I chuckle silently as I draw from my mind the sound of my mother's laughter on the bright summer mornings as our family broke our fast over plain bread and unsweetened oatmeal. Memories are the scribe of the soul I read somewhere, and never has it been more true than in this moment. The memories linger for a time until I hear the sweet sound of a bird chirping above. I open my eyes and notice a red robin perched between the bars of the window. The bird then floats down into the cell and circles there as if it were looking for a place to land. I smile and stick out my hand, and the bird picks up the Que and places it's feet delicately on my fingers. The bird of paradise alights itself on the hand that does not grasp, I say to myself. The red robin prances about my palm and I laugh as it bobs its head as it slowly creeps up my arm until it finds it's way to my shoulder, and then finally to my ear where it whispers: The Brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all! The beautiful bird then floats away as the walls around me crumble and fall into an ocean that has become wild beneath a stormy sky.
I now stand upon a jagged rock in the ocean, the storm above me rages and the water from above pours down upon my naked body in droves. I squint my eyes against the storm and notice before me a great wave that is making its way toward the tiny rock I'm standing on. The wave looks like a black curtain topped with a crown of white foam, it descends, my whole body tenses, and I can't make sense of what to do. I close my eyes, spread out my arms and welcome the wave as I would an old friend. In that moment I recall what the red robin told me. "Be Brave" I announce, as the water comes crashing down on me.
I wake up in the chair in a cold sweat with my heart is racing. I wipe my brow as I look about, still dazed, until it dawns on me that I have just faced my fears. I am Dauntless!
"I'll say it one last time: Be Brave"- Veronica Roth
T.B
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