Chapter 3-
Sorry,
I'm just telling you that I am so terribly sorry for not being active, I have had camps and surgery and exams but these are not good excuses, I know, but I am active now and I know that some of you got very angry and I'm sorry.
I am currently writing Chapter Four so expect the new instalment very, very soon!
Thanks Divergent Rebels,
-Lucia :)
I walk behind Tris on the dark, uneven ground. Blue lamps light the way every so often, leaving us not entirely in the dark, but almost. Everyone is silent. When you follow Eric, there are no words to say.
Not even for someone from Candor.
"For those of you who don't know, my name is Eric." I kind of wish I didn't know, honestly. "I am one of five leaders of the Dauntless. We take the initiation process very seriously here's so I volunteered to oversee most of your training."
Ugh, great, we have a bozo overseeing initiation. Four and Eric? You have got to be kidding.
"Some ground rules; you have to be in the training room by eight o'clock everyday. Training takes place everyday from eight to six, with a break for lunch. You are free to do whatever you like after six. You will also get some time off between each stage of initiation."
Thank god. I'll need a break. And do whatever I like... now that sounds like my kinda thing. I wanna get a tattoo, I've realised. A tattoo.
"You are only permitted to leave the compound when accompanied by a Dauntless. Behind this door is where you will be sleeping the next few weeks. You will notice that there are ten beds and only nine of you. We anticipated that a higher portion of you would make it this far."
It this far? It this far? It sticks in my mind. Meaning there is more. A lot more. Then a thought comes to me. A horrifying one.
And then my Candor mouth can't keep shut, again.
"But we started with twelve," I protest. I really need to learn to shut up don't I? Oh dear God. Oh God. I'm really gonna cop this crap now.
"There is always at least one transfer who doesn't make it to the compound." Eric shrugs, "Anyway, in the first stage of initiation, we keep transfers and Dauntless-born initiates separate, but hat doesn't mean you are evaluated separately. At the end of initiation, your rankings will be determined in comparison with the Dauntless-born initiates. And they are probably better than you already. So I expect-"
"Rankings?" An Erudite girl says. Her name is Myra. She was in my maths class. Nice enough, not smart enough- as the other Erudite would say. Maybe that's why she's here. "Why are we ranked?"
Eric smiles. I guess he gets asked a lot. His smile is wicked, thirsty even. What a creepo.
"Your ranking serves two purposes. The first is that it determines the order in which you will select a job after initiation. There are only a few desirable positions available. The second purpose is that only the top ten initiates are made members."
I let that sink in. Only ten. Ten. That's not very many. But if we don't become members then, then, "What?"
"There are eleven Dauntless-borns and nine of you," that's twenty, half of that is ten, ten will go through. "Four initiates will be cut after stage one. The remainder will be cut after the final test."
So if we make it through stage one, still six of us will be cut. Ouch. I look at Tris, the smallest initiate. The one from Abnegation. The first jumper. But still the smallest.
"What do we do if we're cut?" Peter says. Is he dumb? Can't he tell? I sincerely hope that bozo gets cut.
"You leave the Dauntless compound and live factionless."
Myra let's out a cry. She's not tough either. She will be factionless. Nice enough, not smart enough, not brave enough. Stop crying you little wus, we are all in this together, you know. I will be a member. A tattooed, pierced member. But a member all the same.
"But that's not fair!" Molly says. Really? Get a life Molly, then you'll realise that they aren't fair. Lives aren't fair, it's part of the deal. "If we had known..."
"Are you saying that if you knew this before the Choosing Ceremony that you wouldn't have chosen Dauntless. Because if that's the case then you should get out now. If you really are one of us, it won't matter to you that you might fail. And if it does, you are a coward."
Coward. That word that the Candor have used to describe me over the years. Not brave enough. Not brave enough to tell everyone how I felt. But now I'm here. I'm here and they cannot change that. And I will be a member and they will be telling everyone how they feel and making everyone miserable.
Eric opens the dormitory door and says, "You chose us. Now we have to choose you."
Eight other people are breathing in this dormitory. I cannot get to sleep. I am in the black clothes the Dauntless gave us, so is everyone else, except for Tris. At least, for me, black was one of my faction colours. For Tris, she only knows grey.
Grey is a sad colour.
It reminds me of those days with girls talking about each other behind their backs. The tortured Abnegation boy in my literacy class. The Dauntless girl who tried to drown my sister. The Erudite girl who cut my hair and stuck it on my forehead. The Amity girl with the hollow eyes as she helped an Abnegation girl up off the ground. After she was pushed by an Erudite boy. That boy is here, in this dormitory.
We are all here.
A tear rolls down my cheek. I cannot cry here. No, not here not now. Tris's bed is near mine. I can hear her crying. But I can barely hear her over Al, another Candor transfer, who is shaking and crying and moaning and weeping. And I think he's having a seizure. But I wouldn't know- he's crying too hard to tell. Suck it up, Al! We are all missing home!
Another tear rolls down my cheek.
I will never get to sleep. The sadness that is overtaking my body, doubling me over, has gone too far. Fatigue is there too. Only it has too much competition to win out, here in the night.
I should at least try to get to sleep. Tomorrow will be a big day. Eight o'clock until six o'clock. That's ten hours. Minus an hour for lunch. Nine hours of training tomorrow. I'd better get to sleep.
I close my eyes, breathe deeply, and think of my bedroom at home.
But home is where the heart is. This is my home now.
My black hair is in my eyes as I awake. The entire dormitory is awake now, because Four woke us up. He says something about two things we are going to learn today, how to shoot a gun and how to fight, but I don't really listen because my body still feels heavy from sleep.
Maybe because it is.
I slept last night with my pillow over my head instead of under it to block out the loud noise of Al crying. My neck is stiff as a consequence of that action.
Puffy-eyed Al looks a bit shocked, I don't think that he thought training would start this hard. I kind of knew, you can sort or tell.
"Initiation is divided into three stages. We will measure your progress and rank you according to your performance in each stage. The stages are not weighed equally in determining your final rank, so it is possible, though difficult, to drastically improve your rank over time." Four states.
If stage one involves this much physical work, I'm going to struggle. But so is Tris. I'm tall but lean. Definitely not muscly. Tris is small but not wide and not incredibly lean. Certainly not muscly. We are almost the same in skeletal terms, except I am taller. But standing side by side we are alienated from each other in terms of similarity.
The gun in my hands is cold. Hard. Stiff. Foreign. It is warming from my hand. I move it to the other hand and notice streaks of sweat on the gun.
I am already nervous.
"We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure of acting in the midst of fear. Therefore each stage of training is intended to prepare you in a different way. The first stage is primarily physical; the second, primarily emotional; the third primarily mental."
"But what," Peter yawns with each word, "does firing a gun have to do with... bravery?"
Suddenly, without warning, Four presses the gun against Peter's forehead and clicks the bullet into place. There is a collective gasp from the initiates. Peter's mouth is open, quite idiotically, and I'm about to tell him so when Four speaks up.
"And to answer your question... you are far less likely to soil your pants and cry for your mother if you're prepared to defend yourself. This is also information you may need later in stage one. So, watch me."
He turns to face the wall with the targets on it, standing with his feet apart and he squeezes the gun. More specifically, he squeezes the trigger.
The bang is louder than when Rose and made popcorn that time at home.
The bullet is in the middle. Right where he aimed it. God. He's so goddamned good.
I turn to my target, and I think about my family watching me fire this gun. I can picture the disapproving look on my mom's face.
I stand with my legs apart, I exhale, I fire.
The bullet hits the wall next to me.
Not exactly what I was aiming for but oh well. I'm not the only one on the can't-hit-the-target-hit-something-else-instead boat.
Actually, everybody's in that boat.
We fire a while more and then Will, an Erudite kid next to me and Tris, speaks to Tris:
Will: Statistically speaking, you should have hit the target at least nice by now, even by accident.
Tris: Is that so?
Will: Yeah, I think you're actually defying nature
Tris fires her gun again and hits the target. I turn and fire and so do I.
"So you see, I'm right. The stats don't lie."
Maybe we do belong here.
