I guess this is my own take on Veronica Roth's short stories. I'm trying to keep very true to the books. Hope you enjoy. :)
"This is for your own good child. You won't regret it" he spoke through his gritted teeth, belt tightly clutched in his hand, the muscles on his arms throbbing with adrenaline. He twitched his mouth to form a slight smile. A mark of his victory. Ever since my mother died, his violence now focussed on me.
What was it supposed to achieve? Guilt? Humiliation? Shame? Fear?
With my eyes squeezed shut, quivering and waiting for the first blow.
With the first lash, pain surged across the bare flesh of my arms that were protecting my face. The close confinement of the room was closing down on me, forcing me to gasp for air..
It was over. He stood back and looked at me, fiery hell deep in his eyes, and he spoke with a mocking passion,
"Tobias Eaton, you coward, I am ashamed to call you my son." I promised myself each and every time he said those words that I'd prove him wrong.
Years passed and I found myself in line to choose my faction that I'd have to stay with for the rest of my life. From my aptitude test, I found out that I was Abnegation. Textbook Abnegation. It could have been any other faction but mine. The choice now stood before me and I knew that I couldn't choose to be what my aptitude claimed I was. I had to escape and so my mind slowly ruled out every possibility:
I couldn't be Amity. They're too open and I would hate to be open with them. I admired their carefree ways though- the ability to forget your own problems just like the Abnegation would forget themselves, yet I couldn't imagine making daisy chains and strumming banjos in their company.
I couldn't be an Erudite- Even though I may not have proved to myself that I am smart enough, I knew that I would hate being confined to one room, doing research- I needed to be free.
Candor was truly ruled out for me. I heard their initiation had something to do with taking truth serum. Oh no, I couldn't do that. I couldn't blurt out my secrets of Marcus and how such an important government official, let alone an Abnegation, could beat up his own son. I couldn't possibly show his selfishness or otherwise my, his, faction would be jeopardised.
Abnegation would have seemed like an obvious choice but I couldn't possibly imagine eating my first meal as an adult with Marcus after passing initiation. What would I have done? And what would HE have done? Beat me up again? Terrorise me with his remarks of me being a coward? I really needed to escape this faction.
Finally my name was called out by Jeanine Matthews. This was the moment that I would transform my life.
I came up to the podium and I received the knife that I would have to cut my hand and swear my allegiance to a faction. The feel of the knife in my hand is unfamiliar but somehow comforting. It shows that, in that brief moment I was much more important than my father. Slowly, I ran the blade down my hand and I felt a warm stinging. It wasn't much, I was used to worse. Much worse. For a moment I looked on the pool of blood gathering in my hand and I tilted my hand, allowing the blood to run.
And all I could hear was the sizzling of burning of coal upon receiving fresh blood.
"Tobias Eaton, you coward..." I heard my father's words and I allowed myself to smirk to myself as I joined the Dauntless, cheering me on. A coward, Marcus? Not anymore..