CHAPTER 1

"Caleb Prior."

I hear my name; I feel it vibrate around the room, connecting me with the crowd. With my parents. All long I felt as though I haven't ever been able to fully get to know my parents, because of the expectations of the Abnegation, of my mother and father. The tricky thing about Abnegation is that everyone is so busy trying to forget themselves, there is nothing left to focus on. You cannot focus on yourself because that would be self indulgent, and you can't focus on anyone else because there's nothing there to concentrate on, as they are busy making themselves as small as possible.

Life becomes a little pointless when you have nothing and no one to focus on, no one to talk to or to share information with you. The Abnegation live to breathe the life out of a human, producing specs that are unconsciously fighting over who can be the least selfish, who can ask so many questions that their selflessness becomes less than the other's around them. I guess that's selfish in itself. The abnegation are just one big contradiction.

My hands shake even more now. This has just made what I am about to do a little more imminent.

But I now know that I was wrong about my parents. We might not have connected in a physical, or an emotional, or a conversational level, but there is connection the Abnegation cannot break. And that is family. When me and my mother make eye contact I will always get the same feeling. When my father says my name, it will always be the name he gave me. When I see the fierce burning and bravery in Beatrice, I know she will pick dauntless because sometimes family see things in you that you cannot see yourself, especially when you can only look into the mirror every three months or so. That is family, and even after I drop my blood into this bowl, I will not loose this connection. My family will not evaporate, like water.

Then suddenly I realise that I have already walked down the steps, received the knife from Marcus, and made my way towards the bowls that I will soon drop my blood in. I will loose a part of myself to my faction. I will loose the blood handed down by my family. But soon I will loose more of my family than that.

I drag the knife across my palm, a little too much it seems, the blood begins to drip over my hand. I need to be quick, before make too much of a fuss in front of the crowd, I can already feel their eyes burning into me, like they know what I am about to do. I straight away dismiss such an Abnegation way of thinking. Maybe I won't leave my family behind the way I am currently thinking- dead to them. They will always live inside of me, I will never be able to ask questions while at the dinner table.

I walk, half leap over to where the Abnegation and Erudite bowls stand. My eyes flicker towards the pebbles on my left, then to the water on my left. I can feel their eyes on me, their heartbeat living inside mine. How could I betray them like this, how? But I have to do it, faction before blood, right? I feel a laugh brewing in the pit of my stomach, partly because of the nerves, and partly because it is ironic how my whole life I have comforted myself for the selfishness and thirst for knowledge I have had my whole life with that one line, yet now I will be using the blood my parents gave to me in order to select a faction. But that's the point; it's a reminder, a test.

I reach my hand out, more blood spilling over the sides of my cupped hands. Its time. My hand hovers over the bowl. When I see the bowl that I have reached out to, I can feel the pleasure of my parent's eyes on the back of my neck, and the sudden fury as I move my arm to the right, and drop my blood, our blood into the bowl of water.

Erudite, I am home.

The room is silent, and can almost year the drops of blood fall into the pinky water. Years later, I hear the first gasp. I know it that was. Not my father, not my mother- Beatrice. She looked as scared as I was, indicating that she will also turn away from the grey pebbles of Abnegation. But this means that her choice has become harder, and for the first time, I do not care. For the first time in my life I do not have to care about anyone else in the world but me. Not even my sister. I will not be a spec anymore; I am going to be something big. I will change this city; I will change the lives of the people living here. Perhaps I will give life to this empty Abnegation.

As I walk over to the collection of Erudite initiates, I watch my sister rub her hands on her jeans, then hear Marcus call out her name. I feel her connection as I hear it. She walks down the steps, grabs the knife and makes a small cut on her hand. I suddenly feel a sharp sting in my hand, from where I made the cut too deep. Perhaps I could give my sister this one moment before I begin to act selfishly… she stands in the middle of the grey pebbles and the burning coals. I get a pang of doubt. Maybe I was wrong about her. Maybe she isn't brave enough for Dauntless. Is she going to choose Abnegation because I chose Erudite, so she isn't strong enough to leave our parents? I feel a tiny bit of guilt before dismissing it. I could get used to this.

Her hand hangs in the air, edging towards Abnegation. Just as I lost all hope that I had enough knowledge of my sister, I see her face falter, and her arms moves left. She tips the blood from her hand, and it sizzles on the coals. She looks surprised, but relieved. I was right. She was dauntless. Now that the burden of leaving my parents is on both mine and my sister's shoulders, I muster the courage to look at my mother and father. My mother seems happy, relaxed, almost oblivious, but my father is broken, and tears well up in his eyes. He looks at neither of us. I was right about my sister and right when I suspected my father would react badly. Yes I have chosen Erudite, but I still know more about my family than they know themselves.

That is why I belong here. Erudite will now also be my family.