Hey everybody, so this is a new story idea I had, I wrote this chapter in about a night because I was so excited :) It's pretty much a mixture of ideas from both The Hunger Games and Divergent with most of its influence coming from Divergent, so I hope you all like it!
But first, some boring disclaimers. First, all the word-building and events and etc. (pretty much anything you recognize) belong to the two wonderful ladies Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth, and I'd like to credit the idea for the plot to my two best friends Lili and Lucy, I love you guys :)
~Desime


Aidan looked down at the street below him from the window of his bedroom. The streets were mostly empty, no people bustling through or kids running around, just as he expected it to be. Today was "the First Day" or, as some called it, "the Last Day", because it was, in a sense, both. It was the first day of the annual Faction Games, the annual event where all 16 year-olds were shipped off to some unknown location and forced to survive on their own. The only rule is not to kill anyone, but people didn't always follow it.

The first day of the Faction Games often went by several nicknames, actually. One of them being "the First Day of Hell", because after the Faction Games are over you still had to go through the initiation ceremony of whatever faction you were picked for. Aidan could only imagine how bad that would be. In his faction, Dauntless; well, Dauntless initiation was what had started the "hell" saying. Some people, like Aidan, thought of today as the last day, because it was. It was possibly his last day in his faction, and thus with his family.

Today, there would be a huge introduction in the town square, and after that a bunch of prep before his family would watch his struggle for survival on local television. Aidan clenched his fist, worried, but not for himself. For him, a place in Dauntless was nearly assured. He was already a great fighter and very brave, things his faction taught him. No, he wasn't worried for himself; he was worried for the others. What about the people who did not show signs for any faction, or for more than one faction?

Most people his age didn't know about Divergence, but Aidan witnessed it firsthand. His sister, Amanda, was Divergent. She tested for multiple factions equally, though Aidan didn't know which ones. Divergence was bad. Aidan didn't know why, it just was. So Amanda was shipped off-along with all the other divergents- to, well, God knows where. Aidan had heard his parents talking one night about Amanda, and he'd heard them mention "Why do they want the divergents outside the fence anyway?" That scared him.

He never considered the possibility that he could ever be divergent, even though he was told it's a common trait shared between siblings. Aidan just always thought he was too dauntless to get any other result.

"Aidan, if you don't hurry we'll miss the train!" His mother called as she entered his room.

His mother made a cooing noise as she approached him. She wore a plain black T-shirt with sleeves that showed off the dauntless tattoo on her arm. Her tattoo was one of a flame, which was the symbol of their faction. Aidan thought he might get a similar one when he started initiation, to show his love for his faction. It has become a common thing in his family to have that tattoo somewhere on their body, since he was the third generation in his family to be dauntless-born, and he expected he'd stay there.

"My baby, you're growing up so fast!" She looked to be on the verge of tears as she grabbed him in a tight hug.

"I'm not going anywhere mom, I'll still be here." Aidan reassured his mother, and she stroked his hair.

"I know, sweetie."


The rest of the day trudged on whether Aidan was ready for it or not. At the square the faction leaders read excerpts from their faction's manifestos. Then, they introduced all of the tributes-the 16 year-olds- and explained the rules and history behind the faction games. This was the ultimate test, the real-life simulation. The faction leaders would watch the games and choose who they felt would do well as an initiate in their faction. The tributes didn't get any choice in the matter, other than what they did in the arena. Someone wanting to get Abnegation, for instance, would be helpful and make allies in the arena. Someone wanting Erudite would try to be as clever and witty as possible. Although, Aidan assumed that the faction leaders would be able to tell who was trying to act a certain way, and who really was that way.

After the long ceremony, the new tributes were all escorted to a preparation area. There were people doing hair, people giving out clothes, and people taking pictures that would be used for tribute scoring and aptitude. Tributes would get scored in five areas: bravery, intelligence, selflessness, kindness, and honesty. The scores would help decide what faction people were in and would also factor into starting points in initiation.

This part of the session whizzed by and before he knew it, Aidan was on board a train again, this time heading for the arena. All he knew was that it was somewhere outside the fence, which didn't help much at all and could still be anything.

People were talking happily around him, all curious about what would happen, but Aidan kept to himself. He was in a car towards the back of the train with the rest of the dauntless tributes, and as far as he could tell, his car was the rowdiest. He tried to tune out the rest of his classmates and notice details about where they were going, but it was a failure. All he could see were little glimpses of trees or grass here and there; the newer Erudite-invented train was designed so nobody could see in or out. Aidan's view was limited to small cracks in the wall that he could only see through if it wasn't blocked by the black of a dauntless teen's clothing.

Suddenly, the train jolted to a stop and most of the people standing, Aidan included, were thrown forward. Aidan quickly stood up, now excited to finally see the arena where he would be spending the next week. But that wasn't what he got. What he got was more walls. Everybody was escorted into a large room with five hallways branching out from it. Each hallway had a faction's symbol over it. Aidan walked over to the hallway with the dauntless flame over it and followed it down. He noticed doorways with people's names on them. He followed the hallway until he saw a door with the name "Dunlap, Aidan" on it, and he went inside.

Aidan's room was all black, which made sense considering it was supposed to be dauntless themed. He often thought that it was kind of boring for the dauntless color to just be black, but then he would wonder how that thought would make the Abnegation feel, considering their color is even more boring. He looked around the small room, which contained only a large tube in the center, leading out from the ceiling. The tube would take him to the arena, where his future depended on his performance. Aidan stepped in.


Well, that be it. I hope you guys liked it, please review if you did J. The next chapter will be covering his days in the arena, so it will be longer and may take a while for me to put out. I'm only planning on this story having three chapters, but I may extend it if it gets popular and I still have things to do with it.