[Disclaimer: I do not own Divergent. Veronica Roth does.]
Previously:
"First jumper, Tobias!" the woman, One, shouts. A Dauntless-born falls down, and on to the net. Everyone is laughing by now.
One puts her hand on my shoulder, and says, "Welcome to Dauntless."
One POV
One by one, each initiate falls down. Black and white, black, grey, and blue clothing lands on to the net. No Amity this year. I'm not surprised. We have 11 transfers, and 9 Dauntless borns. Five initiates will be cut.
(I am only going to list the basics of Veronica Roth's characters. I'm going to be more specific of my characters.)
Transfers: 1 Abnegation, 5 Erudite, 5 Candor
Tobias: Male, 1st jumper, Abnegation, 6'2, has a spare upper lip, full lower lip, deep-set dark blue eyes, brown hair.
Edward: Male, 4th jumper, Erudite, 6'3, bulky, blonde hair, holding hands with Myra.
Will: Male, 5th jumper, Erudite, 6'0 blonde, celery green eyes, drooling over Christina.
Christina: Female, 6th jumper, Candor, 5'8, admiring Tobias, totally oblivious to Will, making friends with Celeste.
Celeste: Female, 7th jumper, Erudite, 5'7, seems to be like Christina, becoming friends with her, but not as squealy, seems nice and gentle enough. Hair is underarm length auburn hair, has blue eyes. Pretty.
Eric: Male, 8th jumper, Erudite, 5'10, cocky, arrogant, has greasy black hair.
Drew: Male, 9th jumper, Candor, 5'9, has hair of an old carrot, currently glaring at everyone he sees. Built like a boulder
Allison: Female, 10th jumper, Candor, 6'4, broadest of the initiates, seems timid, checking out Tobias, has long mahogany hair, brown eyed, all features on her face is large.
Estelle: Female, 11th jumper, Candor, 5'6, slutty, lowering her dress even further to show off cleavage to Uriah, rude, cocky, annoying, red waist long hair, green eyes, large bust, curvy.
Myra: Female, 17th jumper, Erudite, 5'7 mousey brown hair, holding hands with Edward. Looks weak.
Molly: Female, 20th/last jumper, Candor, 5'7, bulbous nose, crooked teeth, eyeing Drew like a piece of meat
Dauntless borns: 9 (I'm not going to type their persona because I'm feeling lazy.)
Lynn: 2nd jumper
Marlene: 3rd jumper
Alyssa: 11th jumper
Nita: 12th jumper
Michael: 13th jumper
Scarlette: 14th jumper
Benjamin: 15th jumper
Nathan: 18th jumper
Once all the initiates are on solid flooring, I gesture to them to start following me, along with Peter and Zeke. We all go through the narrow, but large tunnel. Large enough to fit 15 grown adults, horizontal. Every 1 yard, there is a lamp that glows light enough so that you can see ahead at least 3 meters. I stop, abruptly, and glance behind me to see the initiates. Everyone had stopped walking, seeing that I had stopped. I see that Tobias hadn't noticed that we stopped, and he accidentally smacked his face onto an Erudite's back.
"This is where we divide," Zeke says. "Dauntless-borns are with me. I assume you don't need a tour, obviously because you were born here."
He grins, and beckons towards the Dauntless-born initiates to follow him. Soon, there are only 11 of them left.
"Listen up!" I say, "My name's One, and this is Peter, your trainer for the next 2 months. I am one of your three leaders. Most of the time, Peter works in the control room."
"One? Like the number?" Christina, I think, asks.
"Yes. Is there a problem?" I say as I raise an eyebrow.
"No." She says quietly.
"Good. Now, before I was interrupted, I was about to tell you about the Pit, which we are going to go to right now, and you will someday learn to love. It-" I began to explain, when I was cut of for the second time.
"The Pit? You couldn't think of something better? Sounds so lame." A different Candor laughs.
I get annoyed. I walk over to her, and everyone clears a path. I lean close to her. I am towering over her.
"What's your name?" I ask her quietly.
"Es- Estelle."
"Well, Estelle. If I wanted to put up with your fucking Candor smart-mouths, I would have joined their faction." I hiss at her. Everyone laughs at Estelle as she turns bright red. "The first lesson you will learn from me is to keep your mouth shut and your stupid thoughts to yourself. Got that?"
Everyone, including Estelle, nods.
"What an asshole.." I hear her mumble. Good.
Tobias POV
"What an asshole.." Estelle mumbles. I realize, now, that I should be careful around One. She's beautiful, yeah, but she can snap back like a rattlesnake.
One opens the double doors ahead of us, and we walk into a large cavern she called "the Pit."
"Wow.." someone whispers.
The "Pit", is an enormous cavern. It has to be at least 1 mile long, because from here, I can't see very far. The walls are rock and uneven, and rise several stories above my head. Into the stone walls, are places for food, supplies, activities, and clothing. There are paths with no barriers to keep people from falling over. Dangerous. The roof of the Pit is glass, letting light in, with some lights on the ceiling that aren't turned on. They turn on when it gets dark, I suppose.
Everywhere I look, there is people dressed in black, all noisy, laughing, talking and shouting. Many children are running up and down the path, so fast. I want to yell at them to be careful, so they don't fall off.
"If you follow me," One says, "I'll be showing you the chasm."
She waves us forwards, and I see that she has a tattoo peeking out from her tank top and crawling up her neck as she strides. She leads us to all different directions, until I see water splattered on the ground and the crashing roar of water, hitting rock. It's loud enough that One has to shout.
"The Chasm is the fine line of bravery and idiocy! A daredevil jump off this ledge will end your life. It has happened before and will happen again! You've been warned. Any questions?" No one raises their hand.
"Good. Dinner is just starting. Follow me."
When we get closer, I see a dining hall filled with people and hear clattering silverware and utensils. Once we get in, all of the Dauntless stand. They applaud, stamp their feet, shout, bang their cups against the table. When they quiet down, One tells us to stay at the doorway when dinner ends.
Us transfers look for empty seats. All 11 of us find a empty table at the corner of the room. We sit down, and the center of the table is platters of food. I see vegetables, brown sponge-like slices smothered in brown stuff, condiments, and round slices of beef. I see One walking towards us and sit in the empty seat next to me. No one acknowledges her. I begin to pick at the strange beef slice that I had taken.
"It's beef. Put this on it." One says, passing me a bottle filled with red sauce.
"You've never had a hamburger before?" asks Christina.
"Is that what it's called?" I ask.
"Stiffs eat plain food." One says to Christina.
"Why?" Will asks.
I shrug. "Seasoning is considered self-indulgent and unnecessary."
"No wonder you left," Christina says. "I mean, no offence, but I'm surprised that Stiffs don't eat. Too selfish, right?" I don't say anything to that. I begin to wonder what faction One came from.
"Were you a transfer, or a Dauntless-born, One?" I ask.
She stares at me, as if I had grown two heads.
"Are you kidding?" she finally snaps, "What makes you think you can talk to me like that?"
"It must because you're so approachable. You know, like a bed of nails." I say flatly.
She stares at me again, and I look at her back. This isn't the aptitude test, she isn't a dog. Looking in her in the eye is a challenge.
Heat rushes to my cheeks.
"Careful, T." One says.
My stomach drops, like a stone falling off a cliff. A Dauntless man at another table calls for her, and she gets up to leave. I turn back to my table, and Christina raises both eyebrows.
"What?" I ask.
"I'm developing a theory."
"And it is about?"
"That you have a death wish." She says, grinning, and throws a flirtatious wink at me.
When we finish dinner, we go to the doorway, and wait for One. Instead of One coming, an older man walks over. He guides us to another door, stops, and turns around.
"For those who don't know who I am, my name's Peter," he says. "I am your instructor for the next two months.
"We have some ground rules for initiation. You have to be in the training room at 8 o'clock AM everyday. You train from eight to 6 pm, with also a break for lunch. You can do whatever you want after six. Also, you get some time off after each stage of initiation. Breakfast begins at 7, lunch at 1, and dinner at 6:30.
"You are only allowed to leave the compound when accompanied with a Dauntless member. Behind the door, is your dorm, where you will be sleeping until initiation ends. In the first stage, we keep the transfers and Dauntless-born initiate rankings separate. Then, only two people will be cut. And in the second stage-"
"Cut? What do you mean cut?" the mousy haired Erudite says.
"The ranking serves only two purposes," Peter says, "One, it determines the order that you will select a job. Two, it also determines who will stay and whom not. Don't worry, fifteen people stay. So only 5 people will be cut."
Mousy-hair, Myra, breathes in relief.
"Anyways, in the second stage, no one is cut. We only put together the time it takes for you to complete the fear landscape on a board. So that you can see where you might be, around your final stage.
"What happens if we're cut?" Eric asks.
"You live factionless." Peter says.
Peter pushed the door open, to the dormitory, after explaining to us the rules.
"Get your clothes," he says. "This is the dorm. Where you'll be sleeping, if you weren't listening."
"Boys or girls?" Allison asks.
"Both." There is mutters of disgust at that.
"If you don't like it here, you're going to love the bathrooms." Peter says. He shows us the bathroom, and there is no privacy there. The only source of privacy is flimsy plastic curtains surrounding showers. "Anyways, there's clothes on a table, and boxes."
We all hurry towards the table that has all the clothes, small, medium, large. There are also boxes that are blue and pink. Blue for the boys, I guess. Most of the girls take longer though. One particular comment silences the whole dorm, though.
"OMG. What do you think of this dress? I bet it'll definitely boost up my rank." Guess who? Estelle.
"Cough, slut, cough." some guy fake-coughs.
(I'm not a guy, so bare with my Erudite of boy hygiene.)
I ignore them all, and find a bed in the corner, which I like. I look into the box that I took earlier, which has shoes, shaving things, and a watch.
Everyone has gone to bed after taking a shower. I lie on my bed, listening to 10 other people breathing. A tear escapes from my eye. I won't cry here. I will not. I miss my own room.
But, now I can look at the mirror whenever I want. I can eat whatever I want. I can keep anything I want now. I can make friends to get through initiation.
All of my tears are going faster. I wonder when I can see my parents again. Will they show up? Will they recognize me? Will they still see me as their son, or a traitor?
I don't even want to know.
I hear a loud sob, coming from the bed ahead of me. I remember, that the largest, biggest initiate, Allison, was there. Someone so strong looking, shouldn't act such a weakling. How can you be Dauntless, if you can't be alone from your parents?
I think people are expecting me to comfort her, because I'm Abnegation. But I don't. I feel disgusted. I bet at least, half the room is crying. And some are half as large as Allison, and are able to keep their crying down. I keep on hearing sobs from her, and I press my pillow against my ears.
I miss mom, dad, and Callie. Callie. I wonder how she's doing now. Is she tossing, and turning in her sleep? Are people insulting her, with their brutal honesty?
Even if I failed initiation, and I went back to Abnegation. I would never belong there. Because I left.
I'm beginning to feel tired. I begin to fall asleep, with a ring of moisture on my cheek.
Thank you for reading.
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~divergentoverblood