Gathering some strength but leaving some untouched for my other fears to come, I pick up the cold weapon. Something to the side catches my eye, and I see that it is a faceless Abnegation woman. Maybe that should make this less demanding. She isn't really human, after all. She doesn't have eyes that will drain when I shoot her, or a mouth that will tremble.
                          
"Do it," a robotic voice orders.
                          
But when I raise the gun, my hands start shaking as they commonly do. Will I ever move past this silly, inconvenient dread to hold a gun? What if I come across a situation where I need that willpower; will I freeze up like I did in Amity, when Caleb saved my life because I was too distracted to?
                          
"Do it," the voice hisses again.
                          
If it came down to it, maybe I would be able to defend myself, or take a life in general. But I don't need to cause myself any more unwanted distress by murdering an innocent person in a simulation. It isn't worth it.
                          
So I take the bullet that comes for me instead, sacrificing my life in the way Tobias used to chastise me for.
                          
The room blacks out. Before I can do more than prepare for my worst fear, the one where my friends and family scream for me to save them, I am suddenly in an Abnegation home. I blink again, and I am in the hallway upstairs, standing in front of the mirror. My mother trims my hair behind me.
                          
Confused, I dart my eyes around for some kind of imaginary demon to pop out. Nothing happens though, and I am left to wonder why such a pleasant memory would be in my fear landscape. Seeing my mother again, even in an image produced by my brain, is bittersweet.
                          
Glancing down at my clothes, I see myself in a gray dress. When I look into the mirror, I am unable to tear my eyes away, for I have short hair again, and I am dressed in Dauntless black. My eyes are rimmed with red from extreme lack of sleep, and my face lacks all emotion, except for a grim frown.
                          
"Look at you...I didn't raise you to be this way, Beatrice," my mother says sadly, apologetically, when she meets my eyes in the mirror. She is not the false woman who burned me at the stake just minutes ago, but my real mother, clad in stifling clothes yet wearing a warm smile.
                          
She combs my hair back. "I'm sorry to say that I can't be proud of the choices you have made."
                          
It is impossible to swallow now. Oh, I understand. My fear is not living up to her image, her expectations, her wise example. Everything about her is convincingly deceptive, down to her mannerisms. That is why it is so difficult for me to brush off her meaningless, sim-generated words.
                          
"I'm sorry too," I admit, and I can't stop the tears from flowing. She looks so real. "I miss you, Mom."
                          
"I miss you too. The real you. Who you are right now is a monster; you have murdered and betrayed. You have been selfish."
                          
I nod in agreement, my eyes slipping shut as a sob escapes me. She is right, and it doesn't matter how fake this is. Luckily, that thought directs the simulation into a more positive outlook, based on how my mother would really speak to me if she were here.
                          
"But that doesn't mean that you can't try to be better now, and it doesn't mean that I don't love you."
                          
Forgetting that I am being influenced by a serum, I cry and embrace her. She smells like soap and evenings of sewing by the fire, and the way she holds me reminds me of when she used to tuck me in at night. Sometimes the gaping hole inside of me is consuming enough that I forget about who and what I am missing, and when I remember my parents it is challenging to not cling to their memory.
                          
All too soon, my mother vanishes. I am left to sob to myself, alone, as I grieve for her as I find myself doing periodically. The fear of failure lingers, and I wonder if she would be proud of who I am; I wonder if she would still reflect on the horrifying mistakes I have made instead of the choices I am making now.