Chapter 2: Welcome to Dauntless.
The train is skimming past buildings when a short girl with long, black hair smiles at us with a sense of wicked in her nearly black eyes.
"You all plan on being Dauntless, huh?" she says breaking the silence and backing to the door on the train car. With a grin she says "We'll see who can make it off the train." she jumps.
We rush over and look back at her. She's standing perfectly fine on a building, motioning for us to jump as well. Noticing nobody moving, I sigh.
"If you stay on this train you're going to be factionless. So risk your death or sit here and be sent to a place that's worse than death." I say as I look at the building coming up and jump. I land on my side and feel a pain in my arm and face as I slide across the cement. The girl from before walks over and helps me up.
She studies me for a moment before turning to watch as nineteen others jump from the train. We started out with 24 just moments ago, looks like the factionless have gained four new members. Cowards.
Alan stands and dusts off his black pants, he jumped right after I did but didn't come out with a scratch. I, on the other hand, can feel the blood dripping from a cut above my eyebrow and know I'll have a bruise on my arm tomorrow.
The woman guides us to the edge of a building and looks down at the pavement that has a dark hole in it, she smirks.
"Is this the only way in?" The stiff asks.
"Is that a problem?" the woman narrows her eyes at Ava then looks around. "Who's first?"
Again, nobody is moving. I roll my eyes and step onto the ledge. Looking down, the hole seems endless. It's a dark pit of nothing. I feel the wind tugging on my yellow shirt and smile as I let myself drop. This is what it's like to be free. All I've ever wanted was to be free.
I fall onto a net and laugh, a man helps me roll off and shakes my hand.
"Welcome to dauntless." he smiles and sends me over to a wall to wait for the others.
One by one they all drop, the last being Ava. She screams until she hits the net and then sobs. The man helps her out of the net and waits for the woman. The woman drops but instead of on her back or stomach she drops feet first and hits the net like it's a trampoline. She jumps out of the net and looks us over, smiling.
"My name is Shae, I will be your trainer for the next three weeks." we clap and she leads us down a hallway. "Stage one is combat, stage two is finding your fears, and stage three is facing them." she pauses and turns to face us as she walks, "Any questions?"
A girl from Erudite with long, curly hair you could lose your hand in raises her hand and Shae chuckles.
"Yes, Erudite?"
The girl turns red and stutters. "H-How will we know what our fears are when we see them?"
Shae's face goes cold. "You'll know, trust me." with that, the girl nods and Shae leads us into a room with cots spread out.
"Pick one, it's going to be your bed for the next couple of weeks," Shae calls out. "Get changed and meet in the dining hall. You have ten minutes." she leaves and closes the door behind her, leaving us to rush for our bed. The cots would come to the hip of any other person that's 5'6 or taller, but for Ava, at about 5'1 she has some trouble.
I pick one in the corner and Zach picks the one beside me. I watch as Ava struggles to get up onto her bed which is against the wall in front of mine. She looks over at me and blushes, crossing her arms over chest. Alan walks over and sets a bucket in front of Ava's bed so she can step onto it. He smiles at her and takes the bed beside hers.
I take off my shirt and brown pants and replace them with a pair of black pants and a black, form-fitting shirt. In Amity you wore what was comfortable, which rarely meant tight. I slip on a leather jacket and look over at Alan, who is sneaking a look at Zach. I smile to myself and sit on my cot.
"So... I don't know either of you..." Ava says, watching Alan and Zach.
They shake her hand, introducing themselves. I tie my shoes thinking life is going be okay, now.
We all stand and walk down to the dining hall. Alan is giving a piggy back ride to Ava because she's too short to see over everyone, and we don't exactly want her trampled. We sit at a table in the center and fix our plates. At Amity you didn't eat meat, it wasn't nice to kill animals. I think of this as I fix something called a hamburger.
A man with piercings in his face and a strong jaw line stands at the balcony and calls out "HEY! LISTEN UP!" he motions to a dark skinned man that has tattoos on his neck
The man speaks, his voice is deep and sounds like a hum. "I'm Max, the leader of Dauntless. I welcome all of the new initiates to hell." he smirks. "Have fun," he walks off, leaving the pierced man to speak.
"We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, and courage that drives one person to stand up for another. Respect that." the man with the piercings state. The room explodes into cheers and calms down after a moment. He continues. "Initiates, you need to be in the training room no later than eight AM and you will leave no sooner than six PM, unless you are unconscious." he smirks, the metal in his lips pulling as he does. "Be brave, be Dauntless." another cheer breaks the silence and he walks off.
"Who's that?" I say, looking at Shae, who has just sat down.
"Eric." her voice is cold as she speaks. Obviously this man is no good.
She passes me a piece of brown bread with some spread on it, I raise my eyebrow. "What is this?"
She gasps. "Have you never had cake before?"
I shake my head. "Sugar isn't good for the body... especially processed... Amity is all about natural food and being good to the body." I say mockingly as I stab the cake with a fork and mumble. "Fuck Amity." I take a bite and fall in love with Dauntless. I hear the girl from Erudite giggle. She blushes as I look at her.
"What?" I ask.
She bites at her thumb nail. "You're a mess. You do realize that you have blood on your face, right?"
I feel my face get hot as I reach up and touch the scratch from later, it's still a little bloody. I sigh and stand, Shae leads me to the infirmary. The nurse cleans the scratch that is better described as a wound. She pulls a few rocks out of it and sews it up, then smiles at me.
"You're the Amity boy, Dean, right?" she asks
I nod. "But I'm Dauntless now."
She laughs. "You'll even have a scar to prove it."
She sends me back to the dorms, but by the time I'm there, everyone is in a circle talking and getting acquainted. I sit between the Erudite girl and Zach, seeing how that's the only other place to sit, and realize I trapped myself in a game of Candor or Dauntless. Fuck.
A Candor boy named Damian looks at me and grins. "Candor or Dauntless, Dean?"
"Candor." I sigh.
He clears his throat. "A few years back I heard a story of a rape in Amity, a boy's uncle was executed because he had been raping the boy since he was 6. The name of the boy was Dean Canton. What is your last name?"
My face turns red and I can feel my hands shaking, I look around and open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out. Instead I stand and walk out of the dormitory. I am not free.