Emergent || Chapter 1

"Woohoo! Yeah, baby!" Christina hollered over the chasm. The waves echoed behind her voice, bouncing off the cold, stone walls of the place that took Al away from us. No, he took himself away. I felt my anger fill up my heart, again. All the voices are faded, and the only sound that I hear is the water furiously crashing into the walls. My mind is distant, and I stand still. Suddenly, a hand is placed on my shoulder, startling me.

"Congrats, Stiff," said a sober Four. I can't feel my cheeks reddening, but by his expression, I know they must be blushing like crazy. I can't kiss him or hug him, now, and it's killing me. He brought his lips next to my ear.

"I'm proud of you, Tris," he whispered. The words tickled my ear, and I let out an involuntary giggle. Christina whipped her head around to look at us. Her smile transformed to a half-smile.

"I guess Four's bringing out the Amity in you," she retorted. "Anyways, Tris we gotta go." I looked at her, my expression blank. She raised her eyebrows. Then it hit me, Uriah's party. I totally forgot. Christina wants to buy me some clothes because first of all, all my clothes are baggy on my 10 year old boy body, and second, she's weird. I am perfectly capable of getting nice clothes on my own, but "no" is not in Christina's vocabulary. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of the halls to a store. I sat in a chair near one of the rooms with a mirror. Chris went crazy. She basically pulled everything off the shelves.

"Go, like now," she ordered. Heavily, I dragged my body into one of the rooms and began to try stuff on. I stared at myself through the mirror on the wall. It was weird, seeing myself. In Abnegation, this was frowned upon. Looking at yourself for vanity reasons, mine, though, were just curiosity reasons. I examined the shirt Chris gave me. I guess it looked good on me. Like seriously, all the dauntless looked the same to me. All they wore was black. Except dauntless initiates wore hints of orange, and Dauntless leaders wore accents of purple, this showed there position in the compound. I reached for a leather pair of shorts on top of the pile of clothes. I slipped them on, along a jacket with lace, or at least I think it was called lace. My tattoos were showing, it made me look tough.

"Open up, Tris," Chris demanded. I swung the door open and walked out. I felt stiff. My eyes shifted to meet Christina's. A smile crept on her face.

"Oh my Gosh! Tris, you look hot," she stammered. Heat filled my cheeks, giving them a hot pink color. I gave her a shy smile. I looked down at myself, and all the clothes Chris gave me, hugged my body so nicely. I guess you could say I was "hot." Time passed, and we ended up getting me everything I tried on. Ugh, there was so much to carry. We went over to my room and got ready.

I walked over to the dresser, finding a note stuck on it. It was pink and had a little red heart sticker that kept it closed. The note read:

Wear layers, we r gonna play Dauntless or Candor. C u later.

xoxo, Mar

I showed it to Chris.

"Ah crap!" She let out.

"What's Dauntless or Candor?" I asked her. She looked at me and laughed. When she realized that I wasn't following, she stopped.

"You've never played Dauntless or Candor?! It's like the game of our childhood!" She screamed. I shook my head.

"Games were thought of as self-indulgent and despised upon," I answered. She slowly nodded.

"Well, rules are simple. Someone will ask you one of the options. If you choose Dauntless, you must complete the dare that's given to you. If you choose Candor, you have to answer whatever is asked to you, honestly," she explained.

"And if you don't want to do either?" I asked.

"You take off a piece of clothing," she responded. I nodded slowly, still trying to process all the information she threw at me. There was an awkward silence.

"Okay, loser. Get in there and put these on," Chris said, breaking the silence. She tossed me my clothes. I managed to put on the leather pair of shorts from earlier, lace stockings, black tank top, a leather jacket, and these scary, black heels with spikes on the back. As I put on this black liquid around my eyes, I felt a change in myself. I felt a pang of guilt in my stomach. I should be with my parents right now, making dinner. I looked up at the mirror and saw a different person. The person in the mirror was unfamiliar to me. She looked older, more mature, darker but not evil. I lifted my head up and whispered to myself.

"Selflessness wasn't for you."

Author's Note:

Hey! For all of you guys who are wondering why we moved the "Emergent" story to fan is because our

chapters were too long for the comment limit. I hope you'll still read it!

Thanks for the support guys!

ILYMTTLHDC

(I love you more than Tobias loves his Dauntless cake)