It's aptitude test day. I hop into my dad's car and we drive away. I feel like my chest is going to explode. I get that feeling every time I'm nervous or excited about something, or when I'm just simply panicking.
While we're driving to the school, I'm looking at those magnificent tall glass buildings. And then, I see a row of vintage houses that just look so classy. And when we're past that, I see happy, colorful farms and animals. After that, I see small sad looking houses which do look awfully poor, but I find happiness in the people living in them.
We're there. The school has never looked scarier to me. I know I said I was looking forward to this day but now that we're here, I just wanna rewind to 6 years ago when I didn't have to find out how am I meant to spend the entire rest of my life! I step out of the car and barely have the strength to open and close the door. I looked at my dad with a frightened face, and he just says "Don't worry. It's gonna be all right." I nod, say bye and turn around. I'm facing the school. I've waited my entire life for this. So technically, I should be happy that it's finally here, because I've always been looking forward to it. Suddenly, I hear a familiar voice behind me. It's Maggie. She comes running towards me, and trips once for no apparent reason. Except for maybe that she's super nervous. I knew that from when she tripped, (she never does) and from when she pulled my hand to unfreeze me from my terrified position and her palms were extremely sweaty. "So? How are you? Excited? Nervous? Frightened?"
"A little bit of everything you just mentioned." I replied with my voice shaking and my hands starting to sweat just like hers. She giggled. I tried to laugh to but it sounded more hysterical than relaxed. We were just sitting there and chatting for some time when we saw a familiar face walk in. "Hi Michelle! How are you? Because you look… dreadful" I started talking all hysterical without even knowing it at the moment. "I am dreadful. And I only look dreadful because I stayed up super late last night so now my eye bags look bigger." Then I remembered I had extra eyeliner and makeup remover in case I start crying while waiting. "Here, borrow my eyeliner!" I said and put in her hand. "Thanks! BRB" she said. And while we were hoping to see more familiar faces, our wish came true. Well, not exactly the way we wanted it to happen. "Hey!" said Benny, someone who I sometimes be nice but at times he can also be a jerk. "Hey!" We both casually greeted him, hoping not to make this too long a conversation. Lucky for us, he obviously didn't have much to talk about, because he started with small talk. "So… which faction will you choose tomorrow?" he asked us and started playing with a rubber band of some kind. "Dunno" I shortly answered to avoid any further conversations or to avoid people seeing us talking too much. Some are just against people from different factions hanging out too much, but I don't care anymore. I am glad Maggie and I are in the same faction. Although tomorrow, we're gonna choose our factions. Then, we won't get the chance to hang out anymore, especially because in Dauntless, she might die. "And what were your test results?" he asked, still playing with the rubber band. I opened my eyes widely and curved my eyebrows "Even if we had taken the tests already, we wouldn't be allowed to tell you?! Don't you know that?". "Oh I know that. But, come on, I wouldn't tell!" and that's how he simply doesn't understand some things. I wouldn't break the rules. Never. "Well, see ya!" he said. He's rubber band fell on the floor, he picked it up, and his sleeve revealed a tattoo. "Is that real?" I asked. "I'm in Dauntless, of course it's real!" he said then left while humming a funky tune. Suddenly, they call a familiar name. Beverly Bennett. I remembered Beverly from yesterday in front of the school. And a girl with the exact same messy bun and, well, I don't know if I can call it a dress but ok, stands up and looks back. She spots me, so she waves. I wave back. And then she's off to wherever the heck they test us. Michelle came back in a while, looking much better, and then we waited, and waited, and waited… And suddenly they call: Maggie Canton and Emily Zackery. Emily is a friend of mine. I wish them both luck, and off they go. She's not back for quite a while. When she comes back, she's red, sweaty and looks shocked. She sits next to me and shakes her head. The only message I could get from that head shake was "I didn't get Dauntless, but I'm still going". After a while they finally call: "Monica Odette and Grace Oxton". I got up, looked at the still red like a tomato Maggie, turned around and followed Monica into the room. My knees we're wobbling, my head was spinning and my hands were sweating. My whole body was shaking as if it was set on vibrate. I was so unconfident and the moment I actually just followed Monica around. Then, she stepped into a room. I tried to follow her but quickly remembered I have to go to my own room. This was a new feeling for me. I used to follow people everywhere I went. I used to have people by my side everywhere. Now I'm gonna be all alone with a person that I was suppose to trust, nobody will be there to hold me by the hand or hug me for good luck. No, I have to do this on my own. So I went in.
The room that I was currently in was surrounding me by glass completely. For a few seconds I completely forgot somebody else was in the room. But soon a sassy yet calm voice woke me up from my daydreaming. Standing before me was a dark haired woman with dark skin and full lips covered in red lipstick. "Hello, and welcome to your aptitude test!" she said with a little bit of an accent. She was from Candor, I could see that from her clothes. "My name's Rebecca. I'm gonna be testin' ya'." Right next to her was a chair that looked like the one every dentist has. At the moment, to me, it seemed more like some sort of a torture device. "Guurl, you seem to be shakin' a lot!" she exclaimed with her accent. Was my shaking really that seeable? "Are ya' nervous?" she asked. "No… A little" I lied. My heart was on fire. I was really nervous. "Ok, now, you just sit on this chair here and relax. Don't be tense." She said firmly and slowly. I sat on the chair and she turned around, started taking some wires into her hands and then on me and then on her, and she was saying things like "Now where did that thing go?" and "…These stinkin' wires are always so tangled man!" I wasn't the kind of person to communicate with adults too much unless they asked me to, but for some reason, I felt like I could ask what is gonna happen with those wires once she attaches them all to me and her, you know, like a little kid communicating with a doctor. So I did ask her. "That you will yet find out!" she said and smiled at me. I wasn't sure if I should feel safe now or if I should be panicking. I decided to go with feeling safe. "Ok… Now, drink this!" she put a weird looking liquid into my hand, and I remembered when Martine was telling me about that. Now I felt safe. I drank the liquid and suddenly my eyes closed by themselves. After that, I opened them again, but instead of Rebecca in front of me I saw the school. "Hello? Rebecca?" I yelled and heard an echo after everything I said. I realized that it's snowing outside. But why? Nothing made sense to me. And then, I see cheese and a knife on a table. "Choose." A woman's voice appears behind me. It startled me a little, so I looked around but saw no one. "Why?" I asked. "You'll see…" the voice told me, so I just needed to choose. I chose the cheese. Suddenly, the knife disappeared. The cheese was cold and big. I was wondering should I do something, but an opening door answered my question. I was hoping for something good to come out of it, but not successfully. An angry, huge, roaring dog approached. Suddenly I wish I had chosen the knife. I moved the cheese up and down to see if the dog was following it. He wasn't. So I came a little closer, so close, a small part of the cheese was touching his nose tip. That way I was sure he had smelled it and wanted it. So I moved the cheese up and down again, then left and right, and this time, he followed. So I threw the cheese as far as I could, and he went for it. My plan was a success. And when I thought that the simulation was over and I was gonna wake up, a little girl appeared in a distance. She yelled "Doggy!" and went after the angry dog that was done with the cheese by then. He looked at her, started roaring and getting dangerously close to her. I wanted to save her, but I didn't wanna risk my own safety. And the second before the dog was about to throw himself on the screaming little girl, the scene changes. I was on the bus, and I saw a man with scarred hands reading the newspaper, which in front of his face so I can't see it. He asks me if I know a man on the newspaper who was obviously wanted. I looked at him. I feel like I've seen him somewhere, but I don't know who he is. I just said "mhm... hm… I…" I wasn't sure what to say. He asked me again "I asked you, do you know this man?!" He reveals his scarred face as he puts down the newspaper. "No. I don't, I'm sorry." I lied. He curved his eyebrows "You're lying to me!" he said angrily. "No, no, I'm not!" I said, slowly leaning away from him at the same speed that he was leaning closer to me. "You're lying! You know this man, and if you don't tell him to stop he will kill me!" he jumped at me and his scarred hands we're getting closer and closer to my neck. He was about to strangle me, so I screamed. But before he did, I woke up. The first thing I saw was Rebecca's face. She had a shocked expression on it, so I asked her, what are my results. She was murmuring something so quietly and quickly I couldn't understand it. "Excuse me just for a minute, I need to go talk to someone, I'll be right back" she said with such a weak voice, I completely didn't recognize her accent. I was scared. What was it she saw that shocked her so much? Did I do something wrong? Or am I going to die? Ok, I gotta calm down. It must be just her face when she sees results, and now she's gonna tell them to me normally, like to everybody else, right? Right?
I'm in an aptitude test room, completely alone. I'm waiting for Rebecca to come back with my results, of which I am really curious. Is it gonna be good? Is it gonna be something bad? What did Rebecca's expression mean? Looks like I'm about to find out, she's coming back. "What happened to my results?" I asked the second she came back, worried. "Gracie, I need to tell you something. It's bad." She said. I was so afraid. I put my feet down and was only sitting on the end of the chair. "You are an Amity…" she started talking, but I interrupted her "Why is that bad?" "No, I ain't finished yet." Her accent was slowly coming back. "Now, as I was saying, you're an Amity, but you're also Dauntless." I was curious. "What exactly does that mean?" My voice cracked in the middle of the sentence as I was expecting to find out something bad about myself. She took a deep breath "Guuurl, you're divergent!" and finished dramatically. I didn't get a thing. "I'm di-what?" Rebecca hardly said it again "Divergent.". "Oh cool!" I say. "No, you don't get it, it's far from cool. Being divergent can get you in a lot of danger. You must never tell anyone. Understand?" I didn't understand. How could I understand? "Erg… Not really…" I didn't tell her I understood, because if I would, she wouldn't tell me more. "Look, it means, you are more than one faction, and some people want to kill divergents. THAT'S why you can't tell anyone. THAT'S why you're in danger. Now, we're out of time, but just remember, some people are more dangerous than you think. Don't tell anyone, even if you think they'd never hurt you. Now bye!" she explained it all so quickly. "Yeah… ok… bye!" I said and slowly walked out of the room and back to the cafeteria. I just don't understand… Divergent.
Martine's P.O.V.
It's the day of the Choosing Ceremony. While I wonder what Grace is doing, I think of my Choosing Ceremony. I know that I told my parents that I decided on Amity, while we were waiting for the ceremony to begin. They seemed surprised, but definitely not angry. I felt relieved because of that. During Marcus Eaton's speech, I was nervously tapping the floor with my left foot. I felt afraid suddenly. Deathly afraid that I'm making a mistake. Eaton started calling out names. A bunch of my classmates were choosing their factions and I swear I couldn't remember what a single one of them chose. There are moments in life when an opportunity is just passing by and you let it happen. And as you watch it leave, there's always a moment of hesitation in which you want to call for it in the last moment. You wonder would that be a smart thing to do, though. Maybe if you don't, you'll regret it forever. That is exactly how I felt. My last chance to call out for the opportunity was approaching as we got to the letter O. And there it was- my name. I took a deep breath and awkwardly got up. I stood before five bowls and took a second to look at them. Marcus Eaton offered me the knife which I carefully took. All this time I was scared of the cutting part, but now I was more terrified of the choice. In front of me was Amity, on my left were Dauntless and Abnegation, while Erudite and Candor were on my left. I turned towards Amity and lifted my hand over the bowl in which was earth. I carried the knife to my palm and took another deep breath. I looked at the earth below my hand and that was the first time I admitted the truth to myself. I knew what I wanted to choose, yet I knew it was foolish. I, therefore, kept my hand where it was. I felt the knife cutting my palm and closed my eyes in pain. I knew blood will start dripping down onto the earth any moment. My opportunity was offering me its last seconds. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. My hand recklessly moved left in the very last moment.
I opened my eyes and felt a rush of adrenaline as the coals sizzled with a flame.