Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Divergent. Or any military practice references. Yay, you guys are so fabulous. :)

My life is a mix of the same things happening over and over. The classes, dining hall, kissing Tobias and talking to him in quiet tones, sneaking looks over to him during the day, going through stressful courses, like the final PT test.

The test is fairly simple. But the simple things are the ones that are the trickiest. It's made of three components: The Push-Up, the Sit-Up, and the Two Mile run.

I'm not too worried about it. The components, I mean. I'm fairly skinny, but I have skinny arms. So I practice the push-ups harder and faster. The sit-up is the easiest for me. The two mile run is what I do. I run everyday.

But still. There's the lingering feeling that I am going to fail. That something will go wrong and I will be flustered and there will be nothing I can do about it.

Everyone in the barracks tries not to look worried. Flick it off just as extra PT, which it really is. But if Al were here, he'd be worried sick. Will, now, looks pale when he doesn't want to. Christina is quieter. Marlene goes to bed earlier.

But Uriah and Lynn wonder why we're all acting so nervous.

"It's just a PT test," Lynn says, lying sprawled across her bed. "You literally do it every day. It's not like you're going to fail."

"There is a possibility that that might happen," Marlene points out.

Lynn blows a raspberry. "You'd have to SUCK to fail."

Well. How reassuring.

Once we're dressed, we go out and do our usual PT test. Our big one is this afternoon after lunch. I feel my muscles pumping inside me as I run. Two miles. That's it. Just two miles in the best time I can. My feet pound against the ground. This shouldn't be hard. Hopefully.

The classes go by. Everyone is louder than usual. Nervous. I don't see Tobias at all. Eric is roaming around us, keeping a sharp eye on us all. I don't know why. It's almost like he thinks we're going to try to escape before the PT test.

Lunch passes. Somehow my stomach turns queasy, and I barely eat. Christina barely does so as well, and Will is left to eat the rest of our food, though he is as skinny as I am small and can barely eat more than his fair share. All of us silently wish for Al back.

We're ordered into an orderly pack after lunch. I straighten the best I can, but my body is betraying. It wants to lie down, back away from this. But I'm stronger than my body. Mind over matter. I force myself to keep pace with the rest of the troops as we head outside.

The clouds are grey outside. There's a faint crack, like a stroke of thunder befalling somewhere a few miles from us. The worn grass and tossed about dirt is dry as we take to our place in the yard. The gates look taller than usual. There's more patrolling than I remember.

All the soldiers are out here. Zeke, Tobias and Eric are leading the practices, showing us how they expect them to be done, correcting us when we fail to meet standards.

We're all lined up. This will be like an assembly line. One drill sergeant at each station, a few lower officers next to them doing the timing. Eric walks in front of us, his eyes taking us in, sizing us up. I'm not in the front, for which I am glad. I can feel his bare gaze on me from the back, making me feel exposed and naked.

"All right, soldiers," he says after a minute. "Welcome to the United States Army Physical Test. Be prepared to be tested. Be prepared to faint if you will. Prepare to die. The heat is out here. Don't die of heat exhaustion." His voice is a little fainter as he says, "That's frowned upon and without honor here."

He has his arms behind his back as he says, "The Army FM 7-22 has the rules which you will be performing your exercises by. The first is the Push-Up." He goes to explain like a robot, the words coming out of him like straight out of his memory, as he thoroughly details and demonstrates how to do the push-up properly and up to army standards.

Eric's done. He stands up, takes us all in, and points in the company. "You, Soldier!"

He's pointing to Uriah.

Uriah steps forward, his body rigid and still.

"You're starting, get moving, Soldier!" and so it begins. For the next hour I watch soldiers go through the Push-Up line. Have Eric's yelling, demanding voice echoing in my ears. Watch as the bigger soldiers get picked through first. How Eric looks like he's about to shake Will apart when he restarts his turn for the ninth time. Will's body needs to line up so that his shoulders and ankles nearly match up.

I'm picked near the last. It's my small size. It gives me enough time to think of how my hands are clammy. How I inhale so much dusty air, despite the eminence of rain falling.

It does finally rain. It pours and makes mud and people have a hard time getting good grips. Some slip. The drill sergeants don't care. They encourage the rain, calling for it to come down faster and harder. The soldiers wish they wouldn't.

I don't say a word. My clothes soak me, clinging to me. But I stand as still as a statue, like Uriah when he was called.

Finally it's my turn. Eric looks as tired as everyone else is excited. His voice is still going as strong as ever. He claps his hands together, yells, "Prior! Remember, ten restarts for your first push-ups! You're probably going to need them all. Hurry up, little girl! Move along!"

I get down on my knees, try to find a good place to sink my hands. But I sigh and get dirty. I'm covered in the mud, but I don't care. My hair is short but in my face and I blow it out as I stretch out as quickly as I can and get the order to go.

I have the availability to use ten restarts for my first ten push-ups. I use just two as my breaths come out in short spurts. My arms take me up and down. My form has to be perfect. Please be perfect please be perfect please be perfect.

My two minutes are called, and Eric sends me to the Sit-Up station. I feel no breath in me as I take my spot in line. Waiting for my turn gives me time to catch breath and shove it back down into my lungs.

Tobias is at the Sit-Up station. He had already demonstrated it for everyone. His torso was perfect in the way that it fit him in a way that set him to be strong looking but not overly muscular.

"Soldier. Get set," he says. I nod and I get down into the mud. This is going to be so fun. My back is sinking into the mud as my knees stick out. My heels plant against the ground, the only part of my feet that have to stay in the mud at all times. My hands interlock, my fingers join, behind my head. I let out a breath.

Here I go.

The timer starts. I go up and down as fast as I can, taking the form they want. Got to do things the way they want them. I've got two minutes to do as many as I can. Gotta earn at least sixty points in this to pass. I'd rather get more.

I don't hear Tobias, though I know he is talking to me, trying to get me going faster. But everything is on mute. No. All I can hear is muffled silence. In front of me is soldiers' feet and mud. I keep going up and down, barely feeling, only knowing what to do.

Tobias tells me to go. The rain drowns him out, but I know what he wants me to do. I get up, my clothes completely soaked in mud and rain.

I run to the front line, where a pack of soldiers are spreading out into a straight line to get ready for the two-mile run. I see Christina as I hurry past her to Zeke, who hands me a numbered white paper, plastic covered, with a pin to pin it on. I fumble it onto my shirt and then salute him before I go to the line.

There's the order. I've barely gotten time to catch my breath, but that's the point. I exhale and pick up my feet and start running forward. My arms are bent at 90 degree angles at my sides. My ribs are feeling everything as my lungs burn as I run. Run. Just run. No point in keeping pace like others are. No walking either. That's discouraged. I'm running on adrenaline.

I see Peter ahead of me. The healthier thing for me to do is stay behind and away from him. If I get near him he will try to stop me. And his stopping me can be considered helping.

But I'm not often too logical. I'm revengeful. I'm prideful.

And so I move, move move move until I pass Peter. I look behind and almost laugh. The look on his face would be that of a child's when their candy is stolen. Their prize.

The feeling of revenge fills me inside, burning me forward, and I turn my head and just go. Don't give him a chance to move past me, take pace with me, catch and hinder me.

I cross the finish line and my hands go to my kneecaps. My back is bent. My breath has to come back to me. I want to sit in the mud and wait for air to come back, but that's a sign of weakness. Weakness is frowned upon around here. So no sitting. Just standing and getting soaked.

Christina comes to me after I hand back my numbered paper, breathing heavily, her makeup running and her hair tossed about.

"Bad hair day for sure, huh, Tris?" she says. She sounds tired.

I reach out a hand and ruffle her hair even more, making her say "Hey!" and do the same to me. Our hands are covered in orange mud, but never of us care. We're done with the PT test.

I let out a relieved breath and smile.


"WE DID IT, YOU GUYS!" Christina says, putting her arms around myself and Will. He lets out a whoop and all I can do is smile. If my mom heard her language, she would have been shocked. My dad would have lectured Christina. I just smile.

We passed. Our results are back and the three of us have passed. So has Uriah, Marlene and Lynn.

"Peter is getting it!" Christina says. She lets go of Will and I and turns around in circles in the narrow hall, her arms up and her face looking mischievous.

Eric HAD made an example of him. At dinner, he had pointed him out as a soldier who cheats, who takes down others to get ahead himself. Funny, that Eric should be the one to have said that speech.

Marcus had looked at Peter disapprovingly. Tobias had looked at him with almost an undeniable smirk.

He's packing up his things for bivouac when we get to the barracks. He doesn't meet any of our eyes. I know. The shame. The honor he's lost. It's not that that's making him annoyed. It's how we won and he didn't. We're the easy ones, the little bugs that he should have stomped, the easy pickings that should have fallen a long time ago.

I give him a bright smile as I pass him to my own bed. He turns away and throws a pile of clothes into his duffel bag.

Lynn is hanging upside down from her bunk. Marlene is smiling at her; we're all cheered infinitely up.

"Wish we could sneak some alcohol in here," Lynn says.

"Zeke actually did that in his time here. Didn't get caught either," Uriah says.

"How well have you followed in your brother's footsteps, Uri?" Lynn wants to know.

"Don't even try that," Christina says. "Eric's mad that so many of us have passed through."

"Damn it," Lynn sighs.

"This means we're going through bivouac," says Will. "Does anyone actually know exactly what that entails?"

"Oh, it was Zeke's favorite part of training. It's basically camping. Surviving in the wild, away from these luxurious dwellings," Uriah says, falling into the bed next to Marlene, wincing as he hits the hard bottom through the thin mattress.

"That was a joke, right?" Will says uncertainly.

"Sure, kid," Uriah says.

I sink into my bed with a frown. I've never been camping. It was considered too dirty and too much work and too selfish to go out in the wilderness when there was things that had to be done at home. But it sounds like fun. Well, as fun as it can be when you're in the military and roughing it in tents.

Oh yeah!

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