Chapter 30

This is it. Tris's Fear Landscape. She has mentally prepared herself, so she feels as ready as she can be. First fear? Birds. She has realized that this fear isn't about the birds, rather it is about a lack of control. In order to face the fear, she must feel like she has control over the situation. She remembers the power she felt the first time she fired a gun, and just like that, one materializes near her. She busts caps in those dang crows! First fear? CHECK.

Second fear? The glass tank. She isn't afraid of drowning, she is afraid of being too weak to break the tank. It seems all of her fears are related to some form of self-doubt. She hits the glass, expecting it to break like it did the first time she faced this fear, but something is different. It doesn't work. It isn't until she imagines the tank is ice that she is able to escape. Second fear has been faced as well.

Third fear? Another one dealing with feeling out of control; being swept away by the ocean waves. Her body is being slammed into a rock and she is trying desperately to cling onto it to prevent herself from drifting out to sea. Finally, she convinces herself that she is strong enough to climb atop of the rock and run inland. Her third fear dissipates.

Her fourth fear is one she has already faced before; being burned at the stake by Peter while the other initiates simply watch it happen. As the fire is creeping up the pole she is bound to, she realizes she just has to think it through. She can't actually get hurt. "Smell that, Stiff?" Peter cackles. He is just trying to get in her head. "I smell rain," she retorts cleverly. Suddenly thunderclouds appear overhead and rain drenches the fire.

The fifth fear she encounters confused me a lot. She is back in the Abnegation sector when she is confronted by dozens of faceless beings, trying to attack her. I have no idea where this fear came from, or how it connects to her mentally. She picks up the gun she imagines is in the closet, only to find that she won't have enough bullets. Bodies are pouring into the room from every opening. She retreats to the closet. When she notices the door she thought was a wall, she escapes from that unusual fear as quickly as she can.

Not going to lie, I know I'm immature, but her sixth fear is really funny. She is afraid of becoming intimate with Tobias. To put it in simpler terms... She is scared to have sex with him.. Sorry to be blunt, but it gets my point across. Awkward for Eric and the others watching her simulation. I couldn't take this fear seriously at all. She tells him she isn't going to sleep with him, and then starts kissing him.. I don't know how that turns out to be the way she gets over that fear, but she did something right.

Finally, she is being held at gun point and will be shot if she doesn't shoot her family. The woman holding the gun turns out to be Jeanine. Figures. I knew she was bad news. She beings counting down and Tris can't tear her eyes away from her family. They are all willing to take a bullet for her, even Caleb, being they came from Abnegation. She tells herself she can do it. It is the only way to get over her final fear... Or is it?! Impulsively, she drops her gun, and presses her forehead to the gun Jeanine is holding. Jeanine's count reaches one. "I hear a click, and a bang." WHAT?! Is Tris going to die? Certainly she can't, this is only a simulation, right? RIGHT?!

"I have to take control of the situation and find a way to make it less frightening."