The world is a different place Things have changed and reverted back to the way they were before long before the Purity War. There are no factions here. And everything is valued. No one person is just one thing anymore. With the help of the United States Government, the world has started to rebuild itself to what it once was. Roads have been repaved and cities rebuilt. The walls around the city of Chicago have been knocked down. For the first time in over a hundred years, there is peace.

NATALIE

"Natalie!" Mom calls up the stairs. "Time to get ready for school!"

I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. It's the first day of my last year of school. I don't know how I feel about that. I hate school, but then again the idea of going off into the real world and finding a job is intimidating. I don't know what I want to do after school. I don't know what I'm good at, or if I'm even good at anything to begin with.

Things are better now, compared to what they were like before I was born. The wars and the fighting...they made it better for us. I've see the records and the archives and I know that I shouldn't complain about my life and not knowing what I want to do. I have it good. My generation got it easy. My father likes to tell me that he did all this hard work just for me. But my dad's weird. Actually, both of my parents are weird. Sometimes I don't get them at all.

"Nat, get up!" Mom calls again. "Or your father will come in there."

I groan. When my dad has to come in here to wake me up, he literally lies across my body making it difficult for me the breathe. And he doesn't get up until I finally tell him that I'm getting up. And he comes back to check on me to make sure that I am in fact dressed and ready do walk out of the door. I hear his footsteps and his deep throated chuckle coming up the stairs and I quickly jump out of bed and run to the door opening it. He stops on the top step and glares at me.

"I'm up," I tell him. "I'm up."

"Oh hello up, I'm-"

I slam the door.

"Hey!" he says. "You didn't let me finish!"

"I've heard that joke before, dad," I tell him. "You're going to have to come up with some new material!"

He makes a noise like a whine and then I hear him go back down the stairs. I open my door just in time to hear him talking to my mom.

"She says I need new material," He says.

She laughs. "Well..."

"Not you too!"

I shake my head and close the door. I walk to my closet and pull out a paid of blue jeans and a red tank top. It's still warm enough early in the day that I can leave the house in a tank top, but I have to take a jacket with me for later in the evening. I grab my bag and head downstairs to the kitchen where my father is drinking coffee and my mother is making eggs on the stove.

"Good morning," mom says smiling at me. "You hungry?"

"No, thanks," I say grabbing a mug from the cabinet and pouring myself some coffee.

"Are Uriah and Hayley coming to get you?"

Uriah and Hayley are my best friends. Uriah is a few months older than I am and he's the son of some of my parents friends and Hayley is my cousin on my mom's side. We're all pretty much the same age so we've done nearly everything together. And that includes the first day of school.

"Yeah," I say, finishing off my coffee. I look up at the clock on the wall. "They should be here soon..."

"Okay good, we have time then," dad says.

"Time for what?"

"For me to test my new material on you."

There is a knock at the door and I make a face. "Oh too bad," I tell him grabbing my lunch from the counter and kissing his cheek. "You'll just have to wait on that."

He sets his head on the table and groans. "Why are you so mean to me?"

I look at my mom and gesture to him. She shakes her head. "I'll handle him," she says, waving him off.

"Okay good," I say before kissing her cheek. "I'll see you guys later."

"Have a good last first day."

I frown. "I don't like the sound of that."

"Well that's a good thing, " dad says, lifting his head. "because it's the last time you'll hear it."

"Hear what?" I say.

"Have a good last first day," he says. "Damn!"

I grin. "Have a good day!" I say before heading outside. Uriah is leaning against the side of the house. He looks up as I walk out and I can't stop myself from smiling. Is it bad that I have a thing for my best friend? Is that totally and completely cliché? Either way, it's probably not even possible for him to see me as more than just a friend. We grew up together; he literally knows everything about me.

"Where's Hayley?" I ask him pulling my backpack onto my shoulders.

"I came here first," he says. "Figured we'd go get her together."

We walk across the grass toward the house right next door to my own. The houses in what used to be called the Abnegation sector look alike in structure and on the inside, but over the years, people have started painting their home to put their own spin on it. I was four when my parents decided to paint our house blue from the dull Abnegation grey. They recruited me to help and I remember being so excited to color somewhere other than paper. It was extremely exciting. It took us way longer than it should have because I kept wanting to draw things on the walls. Eventually the gave up trying and that is why on our home, on the wall right next to the door is a three foot high drawing of a house. Of our house. It's really hard to tell because it's blue on top of blue, but if you look hard enough, you'll see that it's there.

I hop up the steps to knock on the door.

"Come on in!" I hear my aunt's voice coming through the door and I push the door open with Uriah at my heels.

"Hey Aunt Chris," I saw walking down the hall to where she's sitting at the table with Uncle Caleb eating some toast. I sit down next to them and take a sip of her orange juice. "Uncle Caleb."

"Either of you hungry?" Caleb asks.

I shake my head. "I had coffee."

"Oatmeal," Uriah answers.

Caleb narrows his eyes at me. "You just had coffee?" he says. "Your mom let you leave the house like that?"

"I'm not hungry in the mornings," I say.

He shakes his head. "If I make you some toast, will you eat it?"

"Probably," I say. "But really if you give me any food, you know I'll eat it."

"True," Christina says with grin. Caleb walks over to the counter to put some bread in the toaster. Christina rubs my back and I pick at the fruit on her plate. "Are you guys looking forward to your last ear of school?"

"Definitely," Uriah says. "I'm looking forward to start working."

I look over at him. He's always known what he wanted to do. He wants to follow in his dad's footsteps and go into protection around the city. It's always made me jealous that he knows what he wants to do after school. Hayley knows that she's want to go into medicine and work with people in the old Erudite building. Me...I just have art. But there's nothing you can do with art. You can't make a living like that. Even if things are different here, I know that being an artist doesn't pay well.

"What about you, sweetie?"

I shrug and pull my focus from my thoughts. "I'm still working on that," I say.

"You've got time," Caleb says handing me a plate. "Eat this."

"Okay, okay," I say. 'Thank you."

"Stop forcing people to eat dad, jeez," Hayley says with a grin, as she walks into the kitchen and setting her backpack on the counter.

"It's the first day, she's gotta eat," Caleb says. "And so do you, he says handing another plate to her.

"I'll take it to go, or we're gonna be late," Hayley says grabbing a napkin to put the toast on. I get up from my chair and head for the doorway.

"We'll see you guys later, for dinner right?" I ask. "I think dad's cooking stew."

"Yeah we'll be there."

"Uriah sweetie, are you parents coming tonight?" Christina asks.

He nods. "Yeah, of course," he grins. "Mom loves getting out of cooking for a night."

We head out of the house and start on our way to school. I hold out the last piece of toast to Uriah. "Here eat this," I say.

He takes it and pops it into his mouth and chews it with a smile. One of the many things I love about Uriah is that if I can't finish something, he will finish it for me. And he always does it with a smile. It's one of the reasons he and I get along so well. We both love to eat. I hate wasting food. My mom always told me to be sure not to waste food because there are still people who are not as lucky as we are. The don't have access to as much food as we do in the working class. The factionless are still factionless here because they don't know how to emerge back into society after being neglected for so long. Mom and the other volunteers are still helping them, but sometimes I wonder if it's worth it.

"I almost didn't wake up today," Hayley says looking over at us as we walk down the street toward the Hub.

"I was awake but I didn't want to get out of bed," I reply. "Then dad threated to lay on me."

"He still does that?" Uriah asks.

"It's really the only effective way that I'll get out of bed," I say with a grin.

"I was up early this morning," he says. "I went running with my dad."

"When are you not running?" Hayley asks him.

"Right now." He grins.

Sometimes I wonder about their relationship...if there's something more between the two of them, but I would never ask point blank. Plus if there was, the answer would probably devastate me. Devastate is probably a strong word, but I can't really think of another way to describe the way I'd probably feel.

"Wow you are an idiot," she says rolling her eyes. She comes to walk next to me and loops our arms together. "Did you draw me anything pretty?"

"You mean since I last saw you?" I ask. "Last night at dinner?'

"Yes."

"No." I tell her. She pouts at me. "But I'll get you one by end of day."

She grins and bounces on her feet.

"What about me?" Uriah asks. "Do I get anything?"

"You got my toast," I say.

"Yeah, well now it's gone. I want something that lasts forever."

"Well my friend, I don't anything like that. Paper eventually becomes dust."

"Wow. You're so dramatic," he says chuckling.

"I thought you'd be used to it by now," I say. I look at Hayley. "You're used to it, right?"

"Definitely used to it," Hayley grins.

He groans. "Are you really teaming up against me? You know that's not fair, right?"

I loop my arm with us. "But you love us anyway, right?"

He looks down at me with a that smile on his lips. The smile that drives me crazy. "Always."

I can't contain my grin as the three of us walk the streets of New Chicago heading toward the Hub to start out last first day of school. Life would be completely different if our parents hadn't gone through what they had seventeen years ago. Life would be different and I know for sure that I wouldn't be the same person that I am now. I don't tell them enough that I am grateful for what they did for my generation. I look up at Uriah and bite my lip when I see him looking down at me and then were share a smile before we head into the building to get ready for orientation. This year is going to be fun.