So, I always get a good laugh out of that part in Shrek where he says people are a lot like onions, they come in layers. I will always look at people as if they are a plain cake with different types of fillings, and layers, all wrapped up in a weak, or strong outer layer of frosting or fondant. Some cakes are a dark black with a rainbow of colors inside while others are painted with intricate designs and colors on the outside but just plain boring on the inside all together. Those that followed the ways of their factions tended to put up a wonderful front but lack the flavor of personality inside. Even the smallest spark of something different makes someone's personality stand out.
Even if we have passed the point of war and are on the mend, the faction system is still a very fragile place. Divergent are no longer hunted and have slowly blended back in with society, standing out, only in places like the council where every faction could place a Divergent on there board if they so choose. Secondary genders were still rarely spoken of but had slowly become more prominent in factions like Dauntless, Erudite, and Amity. Dauntless born held most Alpha positions while Erudite rarely produced an Alpha by chance but it did happen. Amity was known for the highest concentration of Omegas which worked out well for the care provided to the food supply and their protection in general.
Those factions were quickly monitored in case of a transfer on choosing day. In my case I went through choosing day a little bit differently then it is done now. It would've been almost four years now I stood up in front of the choosing bowls in my bright yellow skirts and red crop top as my blood dripped down on top of the coals that signaled my new home. Secondary genders don't reveal themselves until the chosen has turned twenty-one, so this didn't always used to be a problem. Now with Amity transfers becoming more common within the city, protection laws are starting to go up to make sure Alphas and Omegas can live together peacefully, with choice.
Dauntless initiation had been a fear I still can't get rid of to this day. I was an Amity transfer, and one of three girls that year. Two of them didn't make it through the fighting stage, which left me as the only female for the fear sims. One week before our final sims I was charged with murder of two of my fellow initiates in defense of my own life. The council had tried to say I would be a hindrance to my faction due to the fact that I could turn out to be an Omega, and there was a high chance. Tori, thankfully, stood in my defense and I stood, listening to her breakdown my training and how they already knew the best place to put me once I passed, not if, but when.
Eric Coulter, one of those rare Erudite Alpha's, made the final call saying he would rather have a soldier like myself then either of the two that died. Of course, the trial did not come without its consequences and I was still on probation for the year that followed. I remember Tori trying to break it to me softly that they wanted me in the infirmary instead of the front lines, probably due to my heritage, more then anything. I also embarrassingly remember marching into Eric's office, bed head still in place along with that pair of super short night shorts every girl owns, but at that moment I was ragging about wanting to be a field medic and I didn't give a shit about what I looked like. Either due to the balls of what I was wearing or what I had said, I will never know, Eric had given me the position I wanted as a field medic on his patrol squad.
Now I did not pick the medicine root because I'm from Amity and I can guarantee I'm not Divergent either. I needed to keep my mind moving and the only constant source of knowledge in Dauntless was the infirmary or even field medic position in general. Ironically enough all of my training came from hands on field experience or books our fearless leader let me barrow. It wasn't until a year later when I took the assistant supervisor position in the infirmary that I got my first real lesson from an Erudite doctor. From there work just took over. I moved into the head nurse position maybe a year later and I was currently helping oversee some major changes with the serum process and the overall care of our initiates during training. It was a hard job, but no one looked at me as some could be Omega. Either way that first Erudite doctor I spoke of, well she gave me an unlimited refill of the best suppressants you could get.
Now four years from my choosing day I could be found at most times of day and or night in the infirmary, at my desk overlooking The Pit. The latest round of initiates had just finished their final fear sims, four of which ended up drugged up around me to recover. The leaders latest monthly update email was open on my screen, chin resting on my knee, my crocs kicked on the floor in front of my chair. The time was around 10:50pm and my relief, Melissa, was to be here in ten minutes to replace me for the night. A three-day weekend was in sight after a long fourteen day stretch of nothing but critical cases and initiate screwups.
Ten minutes until Melissa walked through those sliding glass doors and they open. Ten minutes until my well-planned weekend he walks through my infirmary doors, clearly well rested and on a mission. Eric Coulter was the most complex layer cake to look at. If I had to draw him, I'd assume the cake itself would be two flavors. A dark chocolate cake to accent the bitter man he makes himself out to be. A few layers of a rich vanilla white cake for the soft side I swear is hidden down deep inside. The creamy filling would be a coffee flavor with bits of cookie and maybe some brownies in there as well for the complex mind that was always working behind bright blue eyes. The outside would be covered in a fondant swirled in black and white for the man who walked with the enemy and overcame it. Still a very basic cake for a man who saw the world in black and white.
Ten minutes until the start of my three-day weekend and forty-eight hours from my twenty-first birthday and Eric Coulter, the new head leader of Dauntless, and Erudite Alpha stood just inside my infirmary doors with a smirk plastered on his face. Somedays I wonder if he's more like an onion then a cake after all.