"Do you hear that?" I ask Uriah but he shakes his head. His face grows cautious now, and I can see the suspicion creep into him.
The sounds are muffled and hard to make out. It's like paper, I decide, crumpling paper.
Realization dawns and Uriah looks to me for confirmation, my face reflecting the expression he now wears. Absolute dread.
"Quick, let's wake everyone up" his voice raises but the trained Dauntless in the both of us take over "We have to evacuate now!" he says and I nod in agreement.
"We race back to where I bunked with Christina. On another day, I would point out her drooling and make fun of it, but now I just scream for everyone to wake up. My voice is shrill and loud, so is Uriah's. Everyone stirs and moans. I hear a few curses and groans.
We have spread out over three floors, eighty of us Insurgents.
"What, what happened?" Christina smoothes her hair and addresses me, irately, and I point out the window.
A wall of furious flames engulfs the sides.
"This is some sort of sick symbolic payback" Lynn says and wakes Peter. As if we didn't already know, I want to tell her but I don't.
"Evacuate now!" I scream "I'll get the others"
"But the supplies" Christina protests. I shake my head and our eyes lock, there is no time, my eyes tell her.
I run to the end and down the stairs I've reached another row of bunks and bunks. Most of them are already awake and waking the others, good.
I head to the lowest floor. Lesser people are waking, most are stirring in sleep.
"Wake up" I yell, a few bother to face me. "Wake up" I scream again, and another.
"The whole place is on fire" I've got their attention now.
"Evacuate now" a woman screams and everybody complies, she is a leader, clearly. I can't make out her face in the dark of the night and the dread of the flames. I race back up, but there is no time. On the second floor, a man shoves a gun into my hand and I take it. He must be Dauntless, he won't leave all the weapons behind.
We all race to the entrance and spread to the back gate, I spot Lynn's face which is calmer, and I know she wouldn't lie. We have all at least made it to the gates.
Although, the flames are brighter now, the air is thinner and suffocating, I can't breathe but I don't let my body know. I keep moving, herding everyone and shoving them out the door. Fifteen of us are left now, the rest have escaped to safety.
"Move" I scream and let more people go. Ten of us now.
Most of them must be Abnegation to have stayed behind, helping others escape.
A man begins to rush me out and I don't let him, I ask him to leave first. I have to make sure everyone leaves. The flames have breached our walls and burned our supplies. Charred pillows rain over me. The burns of the flames sting my lungs and my vision is blurring.
But as I hear the gunshot, my eyes clear. I forget the suffocation out of adrenaline.
Another shot.
It was from the third floor.
I race upstairs and a young girl begins to protest but I usher her out to safety first, ignoring her warnings. The staircase is melting and falling, the glass is shattered and the wood is burned and gone. The world, to me, is on fire.
I dodge a dropping piece of wood and I can't tell if it's a door or not and I don't bother.
The sight of the dead body doesn't repulse me, it draws me. I run to see who it is. It's a man, burly and sprawled across the ground, his leg is burning wrathfully. But that isn't the cause of his death, a clean bullet to the head is.
I whirl to search for other bullet victims and there are three, dead and on the ground.
The air is overpowering, and the fire murderous. And then they emerge.
Ten soldiers, fully armed, the cause of this attack. Dogs of the rising government. They wear white and I can't help but think that they deliberately wear the color to oppose the Dauntless black.
I want to fight, to protect myself but I don't know if I can for long. There are too many and this place is going to be burned to the ground in a matter of minutes.
A young woman spots me, she tries to shoot but the adrenaline keeps me going. I grip tighter on the gun that I hold and dodge and close in on her. I wrench the gun of her hands, duck an arm punch and land a kick to her stomach. She goes down.
I spin to find myself flanked. It's over.
"Drop your weapons" someone screams and I glare at the crowd but throw away both the guns, the woman I beat up, hers and mine.
Then a man steps forward and even in the dark of the nighttime and bright of the fire as my eyes burn and cry, I recognize him.
He steps forward and my heart stops momentarily, my eyes widen and my mouth is dry.
Tears well up but he raises the butt of his gun and slaps me with it, I spit blood and the force throws me back and I'm put out of my misery as I lose consciousness.
But before I embrace the absolute black, my heart aches and I call out to the man who hit me.
"Tobias" I say and then I say nothing at all.
