Thick rays of sunlight gleam through the slightly dusted over glass of my bedroom window. The soft beams of natural heat against my skin should be a soothing gesture of the earth, but today it only reminds of the hour I'll have to face. The day I don't want to wake up from the nightmares. The day my name will be entered in eight times along with other Dauntless teenagers to be picked by the Summit. The day I have a chance against my will to be sent in luxury to my own agonizing death.

I rub my groggy eyes, and then sit up in bed. My family is not rich, nor are we poor. When my little brother Tyson is old enough, we will share the same room. But for now, in his little two year old toddler body, he remains in his crib in my mother's bedroom. This morning he whines, but through our houses thin walls I can hear my mother lulling him back into a calm state. I dress quickly in a black shirt and shorts, the color of Dauntless. In my faction, we value bravery. Which is why most Dauntless don't live a very long life, or they become Factionless. At least, that's how it used to be, when bravery meant going to extreme and drastic measures.

I tie my long, wavy dark brown hair back into a ponytail and put on my baseball cap, adding a touch of dark eyeliner to my waterline and a heavy coat of mascara to my lashes. The typical look of Dauntless teenage girls. After lacing up my old smoke jumper boots that flipped outwards a couple inches above my ankles, I step outside into the hallway, walking down to the living room. I found my mother there, sitting on the sofa feeding Tyson a bottle of formula. She smiles, and I think of how beautiful she looks compared to me. We have the same body structure- tall, lean, and muscular like most Dauntless, only her hair is in curly black ringlets, and her skin is an even tone of olive. I must have inherited my looks from my father, whom I've never met.

I ate a quick breakfast, kissed my mother and Tyson goodbye, and then left out the door with my leather grip metal bat. The bat is so fresh and new, just recently stolen from District 11's sports shed. You see, girls don't have all the same rights as boys do in District 11, even if we're Dauntless. We're not allowed to play sports here. We can't even buy the sports equipment for those games unless we're accompanied by a male who actually plays. That's why I have to steal bats and gloves from the school's sports shed, as does my best and only friend Kelli take her baseballs. She was a mad pitcher, with enough power and speed in her swing for the ball she threw to go through a couple layers of skin, make you bleed, and give you a welt. And that's why I love her.

I walk down the dirt road the way Dauntless normally do, arms swinging at my sides, brows raised, eyes a third of the way closed and a slightly hunched back that made us look like we were scouting out prey. I make my way to the old diamond secluded by woods and wheat fields, where Kelli already stands on the pitcher's mound. She throws her baseball back and forth between her left gloved hand and her right throwing hand. She looks up at me once I make the clinking noise of opening the fence gate that borders the diamond.

"Hey, babe." she greets in a sarcastic voice with a sinister grin across her lips.

"Hey, hun." I replied with the same tone and facial expression. I take to my place at home base, widen my feet to shoulder width apart, lean over just a bit, and grip my bat tightly with both hands, hovering it just above my right shoulder. Kelli and I didn't waste any time when it came to playing baseball- we got right down to it since we knew we only had so much time to play such an exciting sport. I hadn't known about baseball until the Faction Island came to Panem and the factions spread out among the districts. So now, after six years of learning, I'm a hardcore player. Kelli can pitch better than any boy baseball player in the district, probably even in all of Panem. She's like a mad, fierce knife thrower when it comes to hurling that ball.

Well for me, my strength is batting.

The white sphere laced with red came whizzing up into the air, and then straight at me. Upon instinct, I swing my metal bat off my shoulder and through the air like slicing right through a tree with a heavy ax. The ball cracks and the bat clings as the two make strong contact, and the vibrations are distributed through every bone and nerve in my body. A slight shudder goes through my spine, but a good one. The kind you get from just the right hit of adrenaline.

Kelli's baseball repels right back toward her through the atmosphere, and flies about fifty feet over her head, barreling itself into the dirt thirty yards away from the fence that encloses us into the diamond. It takes us a few moments to realize what just happened, but when we do, we turn to each other with grins curled all the way up to our eyes.

"Best damn players all the way to the Summit!" Kelli shouted, and whipped her glove to the ground. I chuck my bat into the dirt and begin to jog to first. With two fists in the air, I holler excitedly as I reach second, and then let my arms go loose as I come around third and then back to home. I haven't hit a home run like that in over a year.

We threw in a couple more hits before it was time to leave. I started walking across the sandy dirt and met Kelli halfway between the pitcher's mound and home base. I knew I'd woken up late so Kelli and I would only have so much time to play, since it's a mile walk from our houses to here. My mind stayed on that wonderful bat. Only I can take a pitch like that. Her throw would have knocked any other baseball player to the ground.

We grip our right hands together and hold them between our chests. People say Kelli and I look a lot alike, only her hair is longer than mine and a lighter shade of brown, as it is less of a mix between curly and wavy. Her eyes are much lighter, such a faded blue that they almost look grey. We have the same pale skin, though. Only, I guess we aren't all that white. For District 11 citizens we are, but compared to people in other districts we have a nice tan going on.

We are the same height, the same weight, and we look it too. Tall, lean, and muscular. Somewhat wide hip bones and long, thin legs with big feet. I look into her eyes, my grin still baring, "That was a hell of a pitch." I say, and then suddenly I remember something important, and my expression grows serious. "How many times?" I ask, and I can see she knows exactly what I mean. She looks down at her shoes, and her other hand goes up to her chest and fumbles over her silver chain necklace that holds half a skeleton skull with cross bones behind it, and the letter F dangling just below it. This is what she does when she's nervous- I've known her for too long.

"Sixteen." she mutters, and refuses to stare back at me. Sixteen? It was so unfair. Kelli lived in a family of seven, and even with all her siblings working and her parents too, she still has to take tesserae, even though she's the youngest at the age of fourteen and this would be only her second Reaping, like me. I only live in a family of three, so my name has been entered eight times. I know that me and Kelli's name would be entered in with thousands of other Dauntless, but still- there are Dauntless out there the same age as us that only have to be entered in twice.

"Well," I say, beginning to change the subject. "We better part ways. Moms probably have something laid out for us and we need to get washed up." I tighten my grip on her hand and let go. My fingers start to caress my own necklace, a replica of hers only it's the left half and instead of having an F below it, it has the letter B. Kelli nods and starts walking towards the gate behind home plate, while I walk opposite of her to the one behind second. We both exit the diamond at the same time, and I jog over to where the ball had landed. After picking it up and dusting it off a bit, Kelli comes around the side of the gate just enough for me to underhand the ball all the way to her. Then, we wave goodbye and walk in separate directions. Her way, through an invisible path in the wheat fields back to her house, and me through the woods that I know like the back of my hand to navigate me all the way back to the gravel roads of the more modern side of District 11.

When I begin to see my house over the hillside, my mother must have sensed me and walked out the screen door to our front porch. As I get closer, I can tell that she's holding Tyson, who must have just fallen asleep in her arms. It's probably a good thing, too, because the last Reaping he went to he bawled the whole time. Last year was my first Reaping, so both of us weren't there to soothe him. My mother and I would be parted once again, and I can only hope that he won't cause another disturbance.

Despite the upcoming events, though, my mother wears a big smile across her cheeks. She leads me inside and to the bathroom. "Get washed up, honey. I've already laid something out for you." she says in her old soul voice. She's only thirty two, but her speech makes you sometimes think you're talking to a wise old lady. I do as she says, entering the bathroom and to find a tub of warm water already drawn for me.

I strip and wash my body immediately, scrubbing all the grime off my skin, the muck out of my fingernails, and the sweat from my hair. When I'm done, I brush my teeth, wash my face, and enter my bedroom in nothing but a towel.

I find a satin brown dress laying on the blankets of my bed, with no sleeves but thick straps instead. It's plain and thick, and lying across from it is a wide black belt. Sometimes I felt odd wearing other colored clothes since Dauntless mostly wear black for reflecting our bravery, but even so, I like it. My mother knows I liked earthy colors like brown, dark olive green, and terra cotta red. After zipping on the dress and wrapping the belt tightly around my waist, I come to find that the dress swayed just down to my knees, and that against my bedroom mirror are black flats. Like any other Dauntless, I can't stand heels.

My mother enters the room and stands behind me in front of the mirror, gesturing for me to sit down while she does my hair. She twists and braids two strands of dark brown waves on either side of my head and ties them in the back, leaving the rest of my hair to flow as it pleases. She reapplies my dark make up as I slip into the flats, and for the first time, I realize that this dress completely reveals my tattoo. My mother and I have matching ones of a belladonna lily on our left upper arm. My mother got hers when she was pregnant with me, when she was seventeen years old.

She told me that when she was a teenager she belonged to a gang of women called the Belladonna Lilies, known for their immense beauty and manipulative attractiveness. But if you got too close, their "toxic" would kill you. When I was born, my father couldn't stay for long. Apparently he was an Erudite, the faction that values knowledge, so my mother and he could never be together. But when the Faction Island hit Panem, he promised her that when he got just enough money, he would come and live with us in District 11 as his family had pulled him to District 5. I've always longed to see him.

Tyson has a different father, whom I've never met either. Sometimes I get mad at my mom for that, for going and getting knocked up by guys that won't even help out with the family or the house, but I can never stay mad at her for long. She and Kelli are my best friends.

We walk along with the rest of the crowd to the Town Square, a mix of all the factions. Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite. Today, we all could be considered equal, as if the division never even existed. We are all dressed in colors that don't resemble our faction. But by the way you walk, talk, and stare, it's easy for me to point out who's from which faction. Amity, who always have that bounce in their step. Abnegation, who walk with their arms straight at their sides, looking nowhere but forward. Erudite, most wearing glasses that they don't even need. Candor, looking bored with their eyes half closed and their arms crossed over their chests.

Once I'm in the line for signing in, my mother kisses my cheek gently while trying to keep Tyson asleep. She heads off into the spectators section, and then after getting my finger pricked and stamped next to my name, I file in along with the other fourteen year old girls. I find the Dauntless and blend in with them, meeting up with Kelli. We do not speak with each other, but we link our arms together and that was just enough to get us through. Once everyone has made their way to the square, a large screen flashes with light against the Justice Building. There, they tell the long and boring story of how the Faction Island came into contact with Panem, and how the Divergent Games were created. Then, the screen switches over to a young man sitting at his desk with the Summit flag hung up just behind him. Sabastian Vaughn, the Head Gamemaker. He's been announcing the tribute names ever since the Divergent Games were created. He greets us with a nonchalant hello, and then gets down to business.

Soon, he has burned through the names of Abnegation, Amity, and Candor. No one from District 11 has been called yet, which I'm feeling pretty good about. After he says two Dauntless male names I do not recognize, his voice perks up.

"Cameron Janson, age 16, District 11." he says, and I immediately know who it is. The best batter of one of District 11's baseball teams, the one I have always wanted to join. We both hate each other. He mounts the stage with pride, as any Dauntless would, though I know he's desperately scared. Sabastian reads another name, a girl from District 4, and then my heart stops, and soon everyone is staring at me.

No, they're staring at Kelli, aren't they? The Dauntless girls have all spread out around us, leaving Kelli and I standing in an open circle surrounded by watching Dauntless, with only one path that leads up to the stage. I turn my head and look over at her, but she's already staring back at me. Her lips are slightly opened, and I can tell her big eyes are about to spill. But I know she's holding it back, because crying shows cowardice to most teenagers of Dauntless, while adults will disagree. I glare down at our crossed together arms, and then at her necklace. We're supposed to be together. Always. That's what the necklaces symbolized when we got them. That no matter if we were in a fight or we were depressed or people were holding us away from each other, we were always whole. Now I know that we are going to be separated. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the screen flash off. Officials are searching the grounds to find whoever was called, and a few of their eyes fall on Kelli and me.

"You-" Kelli chokes out through the lump in her throat. "You better get up there, Renee Belladonna." and I can't tell if she's trying to be a little hopeful by saying my full name, or if she's just repeating what Sabastian had said. I nod, and slowly, I start to walk toward the stage.

Two tributes from one district is normal. But two tributes from the same faction as well as district has never happened before.

Me and Kelli's intertwined arms began to turn into us holding hands, and then I have walked just far enough away from her that we are no longer touching. I make my way up to the stage escorted by Officials, and as I stand there watching everyone from high grounds, my vision begins to blur together. I hear a baby crying over the silence, and I know it's Tyson. I start to get dizzy, and then the next thing I know, my head has banged against the wooden floor boards of the stage and I can't see anymore.

End

Chapter One

The Divergent Games

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