The quiet of the moment is usurping. I am staring at the picture we once took. Hand in hand, in Dauntless compounds before everything fell away and we were never together again. I wipe a tear and glance around, I am standing in the middle of what was left of the Dauntless grounds after the war. They stripped the factions away, and with it a part of us. I like this new world though, where I am more than a 'Stiff' as Peter still reminds me. I am not Abnegation. I am not Dauntless. I am not Divergent. Everybody is.
I remember his touch, the way we press our lips against the other's. It's overwhelming but I hold myself together.
"We really should leave, you don't want to get caught" Peter calls and I turn to face him. He has remained unchanged. Time has battered me, the death of Tobias has pulled me into a scarred world of my own and I know it shows. I am twenty one but I still look small, I still look like the girl without her parents, whose brother betrayed her and whose only family left-Tobias was killed in War.
I let Peter hug me as he watches me brush away a tear.
I realize, in so many ways I am different now, at least I have stopped despising Peter. We arent particularly close, but we can survive each other's presence now.
"I thought you weren't going to come, Tris" Christina voices and I spin around to see her.
Her satiny chocolate face lifts up at the sight of me, her eyes twinkle and so do mine. A ghost of a tear forms again and I suppress it. We haven't seen each other since the war, it has been years.
"Christina" I call and meet her halfway, our arms link and we hug in a Dauntless manner, a distant yet understood manner.
They can take away our factions externally, but the factions in us will live forever until one day, when we're dead, nobody will remember the way the factions worked. The craze of the Dauntless. The kind in the Amity. The curiosity of Erudite. The brutality in the Candor truths. And the simplicity of the Abnegations.
It will all be gone, even what's left of it.
But this world is better, I tell myself every day, this world is free.
"I thought you'd chicken out" Christina tells me truthfully and Peter snorts.
"Of course not" I say, grinning clumsily. I open my backpack and bring out a lighter.
"The place is doused in kerosene and scotch" Christina informs me.
"Socotch huh?" I say questioningly.
"Wasn't enough kerosene" she sighs and I let myself smile.
I don't know what I want. Whether I am glad that this is over, that a new world is under progress or that I secretly despise this new world. But I know there will always be a Dauntless in me, breaking rules and breaking things.
"Let's burn this house down" Peter announces excitedly and I nod.
This isnt the end, this is the start.
We all celebrate the new world but we murmur quietly of the corrupt leaders taking over.
And the Dauntless forces secretly assemble, not to restore factions. But whenever crazed leader rose, we fought. And we will again. So along with another eightly men and women, children and adults we stare at the quarters and begin to file out.
I recognize faces. I know they're not just Dauntless. I see Erudite and Candor and Abnegation. And believe it or not, even Amity.
A new war has begun. And we will fight. This is the inception.
I flip my lighter open and the others nod at me in the dark of the night. I flung it and everyone clears out to safety but I watch it burn. I watch the headquarters go up in flames. The tongues of fire lash against the black of the night, complimenting the moon.
This is war. And I will fight. Not as Abnegation, not as Dauntless. As Divergent again. Only now, everyone will be too.