Item from Divergent by Veronica Roth
Erudite's most terrible creation — a serum that kills within minutes through simulated death that the brain makes real, unless you're Divergent enough to reject the simulation entirely.
The death serum is the logical endpoint of Erudite's simulation technology: if you can make the brain believe it's afraid, you can make the brain believe it's dying. And if the brain believes it's dying, the body dies. It's deployed in the Bureau's Weapons Lab as a final security measure — anyone who enters the sealed chamber without clearance is exposed to aerosolized death serum. The expectation is absolute lethality. No one survives. Tris survived. Her Divergent neurology recognized the death simulation as a simulation and rejected it. She walked through a room full of death serum, released the memory serum, and changed the course of the experiment. The death serum is the ultimate proof that Divergent minds operate on a fundamentally different level — they can look at death itself and see through it.
A dark green liquid in a sealed vial, administered via aerosol in the Weapons Lab or by injection. The effect is a simulation of death so complete that the brain shuts down the body's vital functions. The subject experiences drowning, or falling, or crushing — whatever their mind constructs — and the body follows the mind into death. It takes about two minutes.
Also known as: Death Serum