You only see what I've allowed you to see.

"Stop!" The word, it blurted from my mouth like word vomit. "You think you know me. You don't!! You only see what I've allowed you to see. No more...and no less. You think you've got me all figured out?
That I'm cold. That I don't care...I'm anti social... That I don't understand  your fears and what drives you?" I frowned rising from my chair to watch her retreating back. "You could never be more wrong!'

Dauntless was quiet this time of night.  Everyone was sleeping.
And it was just as well for what I had planned. I had no idea how I'd try and explain it, if we got caught. Let alone what we doing in the  simulation test rooms.
"You want to know me....truly know me? Understand what drives me? There's only one way you'll know what I tell you is the truth." I told them both bluntly and pushed the examination chairs closer together.
"You have to experience it for yourselves! Immerse yourselves in my mind!" I continued and held out the small  Velcro monitors, which when stuck upon each of our temples would allow them to enter my mind, my fears.

I watched, waited for them to be seated. Part of me hoping all the while, that they'd back out. That I wouldn't have go through it. Expose myself. My true self, like I was about too.
It doesn't matter who you are, or where your from! To lay yourself bare, for other to see, to judge the real you, your past, your fears,  Your dreams or what drives you. It's a universal fear.  The fear of not being good enough. The fear of rejection.
But sometimes, the fear of rejection, it's worth taking the risk. Its worth putting everything you are on the line. Because the fear of loosing those you love. Of them walking out that door and never coming back... is far greater.

I tried not to think as I picked the syringes filled with serum. I was determined not to back out. I was going to see this through. Wait for the last chip to fall and see where it left me. Carefully I felt for the external jugular veins in their necks and positioned the syringe so the injection, the serum flowing into their blood supply, their brain, would be painless and fast.
Then reaching for the last syringe, I injected myself.
I'd done it a thousand times before, I didn't need to think. I could feel it already starting to work as I  took my seat and laid my head back.

It always starts the same way. It's like you close your eyes for a moment. A single moment. And when you open them, your some where else. My fear-scape, it always started here at this point, this place. It never changed.
The wind was the first thing I'd notice. The way it whipped against my body, my face. Slowly I opened my eyes to see them staring at me.
"Fears aren't always represented in ways that are obvious" I frowned and slowly rose to my feet.

It was hard to keep my balance while the cabled pipeline swayed beneath our feet. I knew if I looked down, the ground would be so far below. So far that if I fell, for a moment maybe two I'd almost feel like I was flying. The air would rush upwards across my body. How fast my heart would skip and miss beats as I fell.
How I'd have no control.
I knew where the flight would take me...the only thing that was waiting for me when I hit the rocky bottom. I felt myself sweating, my heart begin to race. I knew my fear for what it was....not what it looked to be.

"I used to dream about flying, being free. Getting so high, that my fears, my sorrow would never be able to find me."  I tried to explain. "But now, I'm more scared to fall. If I fall, I know what awaits me. I know I wont come back from it." I admitted and looked away so I didn't have to see their eyes.

Quickly I made my way along the length of the pipeline. I didn't know if they were following. I couldn't bring myself to look. I had to focus on something, anything even if I knew what was waiting for me next, was just as bad.
As I climbed across the balcony to safety I knew it was already changing.
 I knew that as they followed me across, I'd be different. Younger. A boy no older then fifteen.

"We have to find a way out.." I told them, as I heard them come to stand beside me. And the walls suddenly began to close in around us, turning from stone to metal.
"I used to come here to feel safe. I'd try and hide away from the world so no one would see me cry. So no one would know how truly lost and alone I was. At first, it worked, it made me feel safe." I frowned and pushed hard against one of the walls and trying in vain to stop the slow and painful feeling of suffocation that was building up inside me.

The room was now no bigger then a six foot wide steel box. And it was still shrinking.

The only way out was up. A small oblong flap, that let in a single crack of light above us.
"In here, I wanted to die." I admitted as I stared up at the flap. " I'd sit hours and think about taking my own life. It scared me, how close I came so many times. It scared me that no one would notice, That there was no one to care or see; no one to stop me." I struggled to get the words out as I  forced by body upwards using the confining steel walls as leverage for my feet.
Again I didn't look back. I knew they would be safe.
 It was after all my mind, my fears. My darkness, not theirs.

Twisting, I pushed my head and shoulders through the oblong opening before using my hands to push back against the cold steel panel on the outside of the box and pulled my body and legs through.
As I dropped, rolling across the ground. I heard them, Dylann, Harrison, once again beside me.
The boy I'd once been, for now was gone.
But he was a part of me. He never stayed away for too long.
And as I got to my feet and turned to face them. I knew they would see me, recognize me for the man I was now.
I wasn't sure what I saw in their eyes. My heart was beating so fast. In so many ways, what came next- It struck a fear in me greater then any of my other fears!
"They're waiting in there..." I nodded towards an open door.
You couldn't see through the windows on either side of it. They were smeared to heavy with the filth, the shame of my own guilt.

I walked into the room. She sat there. Tied to a chair.  She wasn't one person, but many. Their faces distorting, changing like the sound of their voice as they began to plead with me.
 Begging me not to hurt them.
Upon the table, there was a gun and I know that it is loaded.
Taking a deep breath, I made way over to the table and picked it up.



 "She's done this... You should hate her. Hurt her. Kill her! "  The other voices start.
The sound of their conviction, it echos off the walls, and vibrates within my head.

"He didn't care. He didn't care he hurt us or so many others. Hurt him back. Kill him!"  They command me. 
"Prove your our friend.  Prove your Dauntless! Sacrifice your own sanity, your own morale's. Do what we demand. What we expect. What we want you to do! Show us your worthy to be Dauntless.  To be our friend!"
Turning I looked at Dylann, at Harrison. I wanted to explain.

 "Everyday, not just in Dauntless, it can be any of the factions and the simplest of things. People, we hurt real easy and we hurt others.
We're all different, but we all have our insecurities, or weaknesses. We all hurt. We all want to be accepted for who we are, what we are. Whether its  for our dreams, our future, our past or our present, no one likes to get hurt. Or feel scorned by another.
Wounds they cut deep. Some have the ability to kill you inside!
They, these voices echoing off the walls, they want me to hurt her. To hurt him. To kill them! 
If i don't,  if i refuse...I'm not Dauntless. I'm nothing, I'm alone. They will say I'm no better.  These voices... they then, will send someone else to try to hurt me. To kill me.

She, he, they are the guilty ones. They are guilty of what the others say they have done. I know that! " I frowned and turned my head to nod to the figure tied to the chair.

"Still I can not look at them, without wondering if there is hope for them. Wondering if I wouldn't of done the same as they have,  if I was in their place." I frowned.
"I always hesitate. I fear that if I pull this trigger to quick, I could be hurting someone, killing someone inside who doesn't necessarily deserve it.
That maybe I'm the one who's wrong. That I'm only doing it, because others expect it of me " I continued, as I made my way to stand next to the chair.

"I have to turn away." I frowned and lifted the gun, letting it's nuzzle rest against the figures temple. "I turn away because I know I've done worse." I admitted and turned my head as my thumb squeezed hard against the trigger.

As the sound of gunfire ricocheted around the room, I lowered my hand and let the gun drop to the floor. I didn't look back. I didn't want to see it was my dead body slumped and tied within that chair.

"Come..." I coaxed Dylann and Harrison, wanting them to follow me. I'd come so far. They'd seen so much. There was no going back!
The hallway grew narrower and we rounded a corner.
Before us was a staircase it grey stone and narrow. I recognized it straight away. It was lit up by a single short wide window. But the light it cast wasn't warm. It was cold, foreboding. It was my childhood home.



I stopped.
I could feel it. the apprehension building again in my heart.
I could hear my voice in my head. It screaming it didn't want to be here! Begging, pleading for me to turn and run to escape. To end this nightmare before it began.

Nervously I glanced towards Dylann, Towards Harrison. All paths led here because this was where I first learned, understood what it meant to be hurt. To feel alone and be afraid.

Taking the stairs in twos I made my way up and around the stairwell.  My bedroom door, it was the first door on the right.
I don't want to reach out and take the door handle within my hand. But I know I had no choice. That it is a fear I have to confront. I have to learn to face and live with if I want to be all that I want to be.

I want to be brave enough to  protect anyone else from such deep embedded hurt. I wanted to be selfless enough to help anyone else who was faced with such fear, hurt or betrayal. I wanted to be intelligent enough to help them understand what they were feeling. And honest enough, to risk exposing my own fears in a bid to be truthful. I wanted to be kind! I wanted them to know I cared!

The door swung open easy within my hand and I stepped into the room.
He was there.. my Father.
 He was always there. Leering over me.  The child that was me. Admiring his handywork. 
I could see the welts, the bruises already forming upon my bare back, my arms, my face as I tried not to look at him; As I tried not to give him an excuse to continue.

I saw the blood smeared across my sheets. My pillow. I saw a child who'd lost hope. A faded spent shell of what it should of meant to be innocent  and I wanted to cry.
I wanted to scream and damn the world.  Condemn it, because there was no one but me to save him.
I wanted to step forward, hit my Father, drop him so hard, so fast he wouldn't of known what hit him.
 But I knew if I did, I wouldn't be able to stop there. I wouldn't stop until I'd killed him.It was after all the Dauntless way. It was the cold blooded killer some only wanted me to be.
That was the fear I lived with.
The fear that made me seem aloof, cold, distant and uncaring. It wasn't that I didn't care. It was I struggled, because I cared too much.