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My hand bounces off, causing no dae

My heartbeat speeds up What if orked in the first silass unless I’ faster by the second I have to calainst the wall behind ain My toes throb, but nothing happens

I have another option I can wait for water to fill the tank--and it’s already at ainst the wall, shaking my head No I can’t let myself drown I can’t

I ball er than the glass The glass is as thin as newly frozen ice My lass is ice The glass is--

The glass shatters under my hand, and water spills onto the floor And then the dark returns

I shake out my hands That should have been an easy obstacle to overcome I’ve faced it before in siain

What feels like a solid wall hits s, and I fall hard, gasping I can’t swie, this powerful, in pictures Beneath e, slick ater The water pulls atsalt on my lips Out of the corner of my eye, I see a dark sky and a blood-red ainst ainst the stone and wince The sea is cold, butdown e of the rock The water pulls atas hard as I can, but I ah--the water pulls s over my head and my arms to each side, and I collide with the stone,over e of the rock, pulling asp, and another wave hits me, this one harder than the first, but I have a better hold

I must not really be afraid of the water Iout of control To face it, I have to regain control

With a scream of frustration, I throw my hand forward and find a hole in the rock My ar myself forward, and I pull my feet up under me before the wave can take et up and throw my body into a run, into a sprint, my feet quick on the stone, the red one, and my body is still Too still

I try to htly to my sides I look down and see rope wrapped around s rises around round

People creep out of the shadows, and their faces are fa torches, and Peter is at the front of the pack His eyes look like black pits, and he wears a s wrinkles into his cheeks A laugh starts somewhere in the center of the crowd and rises as voice after voice joins it Cackling is all I hear

As the cackling grows louder, Peter lowers his torch to the wood, and flaes of each log and then creep over the bark I don’t struggle against the ropes, as I did the first tiulp as much air as I can This is a simulation It can’t hurt me The heat from the flames rises around me I shake my head

"Smell that, Stiff?" Peter says, his voice louder than even the cackling

"No," I say The flaher

He sniffs "That’s the s flesh"

When I open my eyes, my vision is blurry with tears

"Knohat I shter all around hter that oppresses ainst the ropes, but I won’t, I won’t struggle pointlessly, I won’t panic

I stare through the fla blood to the surface ofthe toes of my shoes

"I smell rain," I say

Thunder roars above ertips and pain shrieks overabovesprawls over the sky and I feel the first drop on my forehead Faster, faster! The drop rolls down the side ofit feels like it’s made of ice or rock instead of water

Sheets of rain fall around hter I smile, relieved, as the rain puts out the fire and soothes the burns on h my hair

I wish I was like Tobias and had only four fears to face, but I am not that fearless

I smooth my shirt down, and when I look up, I stand in ation sector of the city I have never faced this fear before The lights are off, but the rooh the s One of my walls is covered with ht I am not allowed to have mirrors

I look at the reflection in the ray sheets pulled taut, the dresser that holds my clothes, the bookcase, the bare walls My eyes skip to thebehindjust outside

Cold drops down nize him He is the man with the scarred face from the aptitude test He wears black and he stands still as a statue I blink, and two ht, just as still as he is, but their faces are featureless--skin-covered skulls

I whip my body around, and they stand in my room I press my shoulders to the mirror

For a ainst my , not just two or four or six, but dozens of fists with dozens of fingers, slae, it is so loud, and then the scarred in to ith slow, careful movements toward me