Chapter one- Weeping Willow

This was the day. This was the day I had been waiting for my whole life. I was so excited I had barely slept (partly for the rush of anticipation and partly because my brother's heavy snores echoed through the cold damp walls of our flat). I loved this house. We were about two blocks down from the canteen, so we were always first to get breakfast. It was smaller than usual because only my mum, my brother and I lived here. And, finally, I lived right next to my best friend Shauna.

Shauna was a half cast girl with striking brown eyes that you could feel on you if she was standing a mile away, she was a tiger stalking her prey. She was tall, skinny and her hair was a deep shade of brown that stood out in crowds due to the dyed blonde ends. She wore a pose that represented her calmness but also showed the sharpness of her speech, however, mostly it suggested her determination that she never lost.

We had known each other ever since we were born. We were born 5 days apart and we were always in the same classes; it was as if we were twins. In fact, most people thought we were twins due to our dark skin and shadowy hair, though most people thought this because we were both surprisingly tall, even for Dauntless. She had a little brother also named Hector and a younger sister, who was the same age as Uriah, called Lynn.

I had got up so fast, that I put my shirt on the wrong way round and it wasn't until Hana told me I changed it- I wouldn't have noticed otherwise. I had also put on black jeans with several pockets to I could sneak food into school. My black hoodie had apparently been owned by my dad when he was a young Dauntless. Hana had once told me that he wore it when they first met and during his aptitude test. It was a bit small, but I had to wear it today as Hana had said it would bring me luck.

I met Shauna outside of her house a minute later so we could walk to the canteen to pick up breakfast. As we waited in the short queue, we noticed how extremely quiet it was today. Aplitude day had been a bank holiday for years, but it had never been this quiet before. It was just a coincidence, probably.

I grabbed a blueberry muffin and two chocolate chip muffins for later. Shauna, who cared too much about her appearance, only took a rogue apple delivered by the Amity trucks earlier today. That could be me in a week. We ran up the many steps to see daytime; it was still dark. We sat in our usual spot on the log bench, made by us as kids, camouflaged behind a tree with a hunched back.

We first discovered this place by accident, by playing kiss chase with our whole class on one of the days it snowed so hard that the trains couldn't run. I was on and I started after Shauna. She didn't know where she was going and neither did I. She got to ground level and trekked through the extraordinary mountainous snow, abandoning deep footprints behind her; I made it my goal to walk in every single one. Her feet were slightly smaller than mine so I had to constantly look down, therefore I didn't see it when she stopped. She stood

gazing at the endless sheet of rural land. The view was magnificent and we sat here, on our homemade bench, every day.

Now we refer to it as the Weeping Willow so no one else can find us when we hide from people or talk about people. But most of the times we go there is because we can actually talk there safely, away from everyone else. The silence was deadly as we thought to ourselves.

"Are you scared?" I hadn't realised until then the perfect, unbroken silence that had hardly ever been made by me and her. Sometimes, silence is the best way to communicate. Sometimes, silence is more torture than noise.

"Hardly," I answered, "And you?"

"I'm just hoping we haven't been too confident." I hadn't thought until just now. What if I didn't get Dauntless? What if I am told I have to move away from home and not return? What if I have to move away from Shauna and Uriah?

"I can't afford to think like that," I said, and we sat on our bench taking tiny bites out of our food.