When I wake up, it is barely light out. It is just dawn. I usually wake up early, but something about this morning is...different.
Every morning, I hear the older Dauntless going by, yelling and daring each other to do ridiculous things, and not at all considering the rights to sleep of the others. But today, it is near silent.
Naturally, the first thing I do when I notice this is to look out of the window at the Pit. I'm not sure what I'm expecting to see, but whatever I imagined, it wasn't it.
Rows of black-clad figures march, leaving the Dauntless headquarters. This was eerie enough by itself, but on top of that, they march together, stepping together, turning at the same places. I stare at the ranks of Dauntless soldiers, reminded of a book about war that I once read. But the thing that's different about this is the children. In wars, children usually aren't on the front line. But here, I see children my age - 11 - and children as young as three, all carrying guns, all walking in unison.
Why are they like this? What happened to them?
I remember the shot from the other day. The people came to school and injected a tracking device into each of us. Tracking device...what if it was a bit more than a tracking device? What if it controlled where you went, too? The Erudite can do that, surely. They can do anything.
But why am I not with them? I know I'm different, I'm not the average Dauntless girl. I've been told I belong in Erudite, but I hate selfishness, so perhaps I belong in Abnegation. But I have some traits of Dauntless, too. I'm brave. Sort of. But I don't see how that relates to this. The important thing is that I'm not a zombie here.
Footsteps march past my door. I fling the door open. It's my brother, marching blindly past. I reach out and try to pull him back. No luck.
"Where are you going?" I shout at him. He doesn't respond, or even show any sign that he heard me at all. "Stop, please! Tell me what's happening!"
He marches out of my grasp, then out of my sight. Then my parents come out of their room, eyes glazed over, marching together.
I tug on my father's arm. "Father, please! What's going on?" He continues marching, dragging me along with him, though my feet are digging into the ground, trying to keep me there.
"Mother, what's happening? Please, Mother! Why am I not affected? What are you doing?"
My parents disappear, too. I go back into my room, confused and uncertain. I resign myself to sitting on my bed, staring at the procession taking place below me, staring at the zombie parade.