CHAPTER ONE

I wake up.

Wait, no, I'm still asleep.

I close my eyes against the piercing moonlight, but I can still feel the breeze on my back, the pavement beneath my shoes, the gun in my hands.

The gun in my hands?!

I look down at my hands, and I can't believe it. There really is a gun, clenched in my fingers. The metal surface glistens in the crescent glint of moonlight.

I look up, frightened, and my eyes register the scene around me. I see square grey houses which clearly indicate I'm in the Abnegation sector. I see my fellow faction members, my family, standing around me with guns in their hands, looking as confused as I feel. I see the grey-clad Abnegation members kneeling on the ground, crying and screaming.

And I see the bodies. Bodies on the ground, dressed in grey and red.

Grey and red?

I blink and I now see that the clothes are not red, they're grey. Grey clothes.

The red is blood.

Blood, because the people are dead.

I start to shake, wanting to tear my eyes from the scene, wanting to close my eyes and escape, but I cannot.

I have a gun in my hands, and there are dead men, women, and children at my feet. I have a gun in my hands, and there are dead men, women, and children. I have a gun in my hands.

I have a gun my hands!

I drop the weapon as if it is a bomb, ready to explode. A few Dauntless turn to look at me, but the rest are too consumed with processing what has happened.

I, too, am trying to process what has happened.

There are dead people lying around me, and a gun in my hands. Well, it's on the ground now. But I can still feel it, the strain of it still on my hands.

I stare at my hands, at the ground, at the gun. I try to think of what has happened, what to do. But all I can think is: How did I end up here?

My life was ordinary enough, up until this point. Dauntless-born, I was raised by a single father since my mom died soon after I was born. Even this was not remarkable—when you're Dauntless, these things happen. At his Choosing Ceremony two years ago, my older brother Tiago decided to remain Dauntless and is now stationed by the fence, keeping guard. He comes back to visit every now and then, but he doesn't stay long. I don't mind though, because he is rough and mean, always pushing me around and calling me a chicken. He pushes the other children around too, beats up on them just so that he can make fun of me when I rush to their aid. Which I always do. "You're gonna be a stiff soon, aren't you chickey?" he would tease me, "Don't know what tough is!"

The truth is, I want to be a stiff. Regardless of what the Aptitude test says, Abnegation is what I planned to choose at my ceremony next year, if I was brave enough. Which would be hard, because I'm not brave often.

That's why I want to choose Abnegation in the first place. To me, they always seem to exhibit their own type of bravery. Walking around quietly, always thinking of others, helping the Factionless, running our government despite the Erutide's constant taunts, isn't that a type of bravery too? That, at least, is a type of bravery I can handle. Zip-lining across the city, shooting a gun, throwing knives, and jumping off trains isn't for me. In Abnegation, I could finally prove to myself that I am brave.

Just a different type of brave than my faction expected me to be.

How ironic that I stand here now, acting like the rest of my despised faction, surrounded by the ailing faction of my choice, a faction hurt because of me.

I've not been under simulations before, but I know what they are. Sometimes kids would sneak into the training rooms to try out the "fear landscapes" that initiates use in training. They would race each other through, seeing who could make it out the fastest and laughing when each of them emerged pale and shaking. My brother tried to get me to go with him once, when we were younger. Said it would knock the stiff out of me. I didn't go.

I'm aware that I was under a simulation, that it was a simulation that brought me here. But I also know that this isn't a fear landscape. This is reality. Somehow, instead of reaching the age of 16 and choosing Abnegation at my ceremony, I instead find myself with a gun, a weapon I despise, in my hands, acting just like the cruel and violent faction I abhor. Can I really not break free from the faction into which I was born? Do I have no choice at all, is this who I am?

The still-living people around me start to come to life. The Dauntless slowly realize what has happened and react in various ways: shock, anger, worry, confusion, and, I despise the noises which indicate it, pride and celebration. The Abnegation are getting over the confusion of the simulation's sudden stop and begin to stand up, move around, process those who have been killed and those that are still alive.

I stare at the gun. At my hands. At the ground. I don't know what else to do.

When I finally get the courage to look up, my eyes catch a little brown-haired girl, in an oversized-grey dress, waddling between two sleeping figures. She, like me, looks blank, as if she's not sure how to react.

When our eyes meet, we decide together. We both begin to cry.

"Daddy!" she wails, "Mommy!"

I want to wail alongside her. I know I am too old to be calling for my parents, but I don't know what else to do. I never was brave. "Daddy!" I scream, the sound of my voice mingling with hers.

No one answers the little girl, and no one answers me.

For the little girl, the reason is obvious. Her parents lay slain by the door, probably, I shudder at the thought, because of me and the gun in my hands.

I don't know why no one answers me. I may be a monster, with the gun in my hands, but so are all the other Dauntless. I can't believe they don't acknowledge me as their own.

"Daddy!" the little girl wails on, and I can't stand it, I can't stand here and listen to her or I will start too, start crying and crying and crying until someone comes and saves me.

So I run to the little girl, grab her in my arms, and run. Run and run and run as fast as I can away from the confused, sad, excited Dauntless, the weeping Abnegation, the dead bodies.

Away from the gun on the ground, running with the little Abnegation girl in my hands.