Elena's POV:
We wait for the rest of the initiates to fall onto the net and enter the compound, we are eventually met by Matt, Melanie and Declan; thank god they made it. Nearly everyone is here until Max lands on the net. Four gives him a puzzled look.
"There were a couple that didn't want to jump" Max states. Four just nods and they walk over to us followed by the blond girl. "These two" he points at Four and the blond girl "Will be giving you a tour of the compound, Dauntless-borns I don't think you need a tour of the place so you will be going with Uriah and Lauren" The dauntless-borns nod and walk over to the other side of the room to meet with a tall dark skinned boy and a tall brown-haired girl. "I've got some stuff to do so I'm gonna leave them with you" he says to Four and with that, he walks off.
"Right," says Four "I'm Four and this is Six" Six?! what is it with the numbers? "Normally I work in the control room and Six works in the tattoo parlor, but right now we will be your instructors through the different stages of initiation, as you just heard we are going to be taking you on a tour around the compound so stay close, I don't want to have to take the blame for losing one of our initiates on the first day"
We follow Four and Six for a couple of minutes until Four and Six stop walking a turn towards us,
"We are about to go into the Pit," Six announces, the Candor boy from earlier snorts "Do you have a problem with that?" she asks sternly
"No, its just that you aren't exactly good with names here are you?" he smirks
"What's that supposed to mean?" asks Four,
"Your name is Four and her name is Six and we are going into the Pit... What is it with the names?"
"Maybe if you'd shut up you might find out" Four hisses and the sarcastic smile on the Candor boys face fades; Six just rolls her eyes and continues,
"Anyway as I was saying, we are about to go into the pit, You will learn to love this place eventually, it is home to most of our shops, just be careful not to fall off the paths."
She pushes open the double doors and we follow silently behind her. The name given to this place now starts to make sense, the Pit is a giant underground cavern absolutely crawling with people dressed in black, it has shops for almost everything build into it's stone walls and paths with lanterns dangling above are built without anything to stop you from falling off the side of them, I look up at the ceiling to see glass panes built to let the sunlight in surrounded by a building which must have blended in with the rest of the city as we passed it on the train.
"If you follow me I will show you the chasm," we follow Six to some railings in the darker, right side of the Pit, there is a loud crashing noise, I look over the railings to see extremely fast moving water, crashing on the rocks below. A large pair of hands grab my shoulders and jerk me over the railings slightly and then back again, making me cry out slightly; I hear laughing behind me and turn around to see the boy from Candor and his crony and I glare at them. Four walks over and hits the Candor boy over the back of the head with his palm.
"Don't even joke about that," he says shaking his head slightly, he then turns to the rest of the group; "The chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy" Four shouts over the noise of the water, looking at the Candor boy when he says idiocy, "A daredevil jump of this ledge will end you life. It has happened before and will more than likely happen again. You've been warned."
I decide to move away from the railings back to where Jenny is standing,
"God that guy's an asshole," I say staring at the boy who nearly pushed me into the Chasm.
"Yeah, that's James. He was the same back in Candor too…" Jenny says.
Four leads us to another set of double doors, when he opens them I can see a dining area full of people; a burst of sound erupts from the room as we go inside, hundreds of dauntless cheer, applaud and stamp their feet, the sound echoes off the walls and instantly I smile, I look over to Jenny to see that she is doing exactly the same,
"This is the Cafeteria," Four shouts above the noise, "find yourselves an empty table and grab some food."
We all disperse around the cafeteria; Jenny and I split up and go around searching for a table when we find out that Matt, Melanie and Declan are all at a table across the room, saving seats for us. They call us over, I look at Jenny from across the room and she looks back at me, grinning; even without saying anything we both know what the other is thinking, we both break into a run to see who can get there first and I end up so focused on getting to the table I don't even notice the boy walking in front of me. I run straight into him causing him to grunt slightly,
"Shit! Sorry!" I say, I look up at his face to see that he has many piercings dotted around it and long dark hair, he scowls at me with his dark eyes for a second then his expression softens a little, he stays there, looking at me for a second before he continues to walk. I brush myself off and walk over to my table,
"Who was that?" Jenny says, "talk about scary-looking"
"Yeah" I say before taking a bite of my hamburger.
Once everyone had finished their food we all met with Four and Six at the double-doored entrance of the cafeteria; They led us across a series of paths and corridors until we came to a wooden door. They both stop in front of it and Six speaks,
"This will be where you sleep during the initiation process" she taps the wooden door with the back of her knuckles, "Find yourself a bed and settle down for some sleep" she says,
"Although we are pretty laid back here, there are some ground rules" states Four "You have to be at the training center by Eight o'clock every morning; you will be training from eight 'till six everyday with a break for lunch. You are free to do whatever you want after six o'clock and you will also be given some time off between the different stages of initiation. You will be given points each month which you can use to buy things of your choice such as food, clothes, etcetera; and lastly, you are not allowed to leave the compound unless accompanied by another Dauntless." Says Four,
Six continues, "At the end of each stage of initiation, your ranking will be determined in comparison with the dauntless-born initiates considering they-"
"Ranking?!" says Declan, "Why are we getting ranked?"
"Your rankings serve two purposes, the first is that it determines the order in which you pick your job after initiation, there are only a few desirable positions available… The second is that only the top ten initiates are made members." Six says
My jaw drops slightly and there are a few horrified gasps from the crowd behind me, what?!
"What?!" Jenny cries, mimicking my thought;
"There are 12 dauntless-borns and 10 of you, 4 of you will be cut after stage one, and then the remaining two will be cut after the final test." Six states
So what she's saying is that even if we pass the initiation stages there inevitably will still be 6 of us cut.
"What happens if we get cut?" the Candor boy –James- asks
"Then you leave the compound" says Four, "And live factionless"
My heart drops like a ton of bricks and a few more gasps and low murmurs come from behind me.
"That's so unfair!" cries a girl from candor, I recognize her from earlier. She's one of James' cronies.
"You chose us, now we have to choose you." Says Four flatly. "It's getting late and you should get to bed… You have a lot of training to do tomorrow."
Six unlocks and opens the door to our dorms and the two of them leave, we all go inside and claim the bunk beds we want. Jenny goes below me on the furthest bunk to the left of the room and to the right are Matt and Melanie. We all get dressed to go to sleep with Jenny and I taking turns to hold a duvet up and shield each other from the rest of the group. I've never had a friend as nice as her, not even my Erudite friends – they were all too obsessed with getting good grades. Even if-
A rather pissed-off sounding Matt cuts off my thoughts.
"Hey, don't talk to her like that!" he asserts as he shoves James,
"Or what? You'll fight me? You don't have the balls!" James retorts shoving Matt back, "I was only joking, like I would ever go near your ugly-ass sister!"
Matt growls and lunges forward at James and they start having a full-blown fight in the middle of the room.
"Stop it!" Melanie cries as other members of the group start crowding around them, chanting, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" This continues for a few minutes until Four and Six burst through the door to tear them apart.
"Break it up!" Four shouts as he grabs James' shoulders and pulls him up off Matt as Six does the same, I guess she's stronger than she looks. Four lets go of James to stand between them, "You have plenty of time to fight during stage one. For now just get some sleep" He walks out from in between them and Matt just scowls at James, wiping the blood from his slightly split lip and walks back to his bunk as James does the same. "Alright?" says Four, after a moment of silence he speaks again "See you at training tomorrow" he says as he walks towards the door, turns the lights off and leaves closely behind Six.
"Good to know that we're all friends here" Jenny murmurs sarcastically and I laugh, the first night definitely could have gone better. We all get into bed and I quickly fall asleep, exhausted from such a long day.
Sorry that this chapter took longer than usual to post but I am now back at school (dun dun DUNNN) and despite it being the first day back, they decided to shove a nice bit of homework in my face. :( I will work hard to post chapters as soon as possible but I also have a big test next week (great way to welcome me into a new school year. I know.).
As always, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and if you did please leave a review! I have really enjoyed reading the things you have to say about the story so far and constructive criticism is always welcome :D Thank you so much for reading and being patient, you are the best readers I could ask for :P
'Till next chapter ~NekozXx ^-^