For sixteen years I have woken up to the rich scent of earth and green grasses. I have spent my days beneath apple trees and open skies and I have been told that this life can bring me every happiness. And it has, for the most part. The people are kind and warm and envelope you in a light so bright that the sun dims and the stars all but disappear.

Today, however, a different sort of feeling permeates the compound. The people are quiet and tense, as if they are waiting for a storm to flood the fields and tear apart the orchards. It is the morning of the Choosing Ceremony, and like every other choosing ceremony day, the members of this faction are afraid that they have disappointed their youth and that their sweet, loving children will flee and join another faction. The parents just want us all to be happy, and to be happy here in this faction. This faction. I don't call it my faction because I'm still uncertain that it is. It is early in the morning, and there is still time for me to decide.

Most of the Amity-born children stay in this faction. After you have spent your entire life being "happy," the thought of choosing an "unhappy" life is absurd. The aptitude tests normally support this. My test, however, did not. I'm not quite sure what went wrong. Maybe my proctor was having a bad day, or maybe I offended them. When I awoke from the simulation, the Abnegation woman was pounding away at a keyboard so frantically that pieces of her tight blonde bun began to fly away. Her face was rigid and her movements were short and jerking. I gently tried to ask what was wrong, and she turned her face toward me very slowly. "You will never mention this to another person, or you and your family will be in great danger." I narrowed my eyes and let my mouth curve upwards, what a silly prank she was playing. When she did not return the smile, I felt concerned. "What are you talking about?" She took my hands in hers and gave them a small squeeze. "Your results were... complicated. I'm telling headquarters that your results showed Amity. They did not. You are equally suited for Amity, Abnegation, and Dauntless. This is uncommon, but not as uncommon as you might think. People with multiple results like this tend to be…removed. You will be safest in Amity or Abnegation. Now go, and do not tell anyone." I stood there entirely rooted to the floor. "What does this mean for me?" Where am I supposed to go? Where do I belong?

"It means that you are Divergent." The Abnegation woman put her hand to my cheek and whispered "You look so much like my daughter." And with that I left. I walked quietly back to the room with the other sixteen year olds and held my tongue until we returned to our compound. Once we did, I took off. I ran as fast as I could possibly run to the outskirts of the compound, to the fence. I stopped there and let the wind rush back into my lungs in heaving, heavy breaths.

I looked up when I heard a crunching in the bushes outside the buzzing wires. A woman with deep creases in her skin scrambled out of them. I thought I heard her say something intelligible through the scratchy wheezes, but all I could understand was "help." Before I could ask who, or what she was, she vanished back into the bushes. Once again I felt my limbs turn to stone and my will to move evaporated. The day's events were unraveling in my mind in tiny little strings, pulling apart the things I thought I knew. For the rest of the night this continued, and I remained abnormally quiet. My parents pretended not to notice (asking would be rude)and I pretended not to be confused about the Choosing Ceremony. The ceremony that would start in a couple of hours. I had time to make a choice, but I would need to make it soon. Maybe the Amity were right, a storm was approaching, and I better have my feet on solid ground.