Wow! Thank you so much for all the response to the last chapter! Your kind words made my day!
So, dark Anna. Where's that going? It might be important... it might not. I'm glad you guys liked it though!
Also, I hope you guys realise this story is going on way past Anna's initiation! I kick-started some of the bigger plot in the last chapter and I'm so excited to finally be writing it! It took a while!
By the way – I listened to 'Human' by Christina Perri while writing this. I feel like the lyrics to the chorus suit Anna so well, also they're such great writing inspiration! There's some nice little Eric stuff in this chapter... I didn't plan it! It just happened! Some of it was so fun to write and others like I was stabbing myself repeatedly. Oh well, I guess that's fanfiction for you.
ANNA
I stare into the abyss of the chasm, wondering what it would be like to fall down there. Would you die immediately? Or would you hit off some rocks, and bleed out, dying after days? I guess no one knows. No one has ever survived a jump into the chasm supposedly.
I take a step back from the edge, leaning my back against the wall and slowly sliding down to the ground. It seems like hours have passed – days even – since I ran here. I know at most it must have been half an hour since I left Eric's apartment. My head rests lightly in my hands, which prickle with cold as the heat seeps out of me and into the rocks I sit on. I don't care. I wish I couldn't feel it.
One of my fists curls into itself and I stare at it for a while, the dark blood standing out on my pale skin, illuminated white in the poor lighting. Though the blood will easily wash off, I know I will never forget the feeling of the hot, crimson fluid sticking to my knuckles. I won't forget the feeling of my arm snapping back and meeting that man's face time after time – until his eyes rolled back and he fell unconscious. I won't forget losing the feeling in my body as I raced away while I prayed that it was all a terrible nightmare.
It wasn't.
The reality of it hits me again and again and it's like I can't quite grasp it – like my brain can't begin to comprehend that I hurt someone like he hurt me.
I'm like him.
I came to Dauntless to escape him and instead I became him, hurting people in cold blood and venting my anger at an innocent.
I want to blame Eric. I want to put all of this on him, make him deal with it instead of me. I want to believe that it's all his fault – that because of his betrayal, selling out divergents to Jeanine Matthews that somehow it was always going to end up this way. That because of what he did my brash, unacceptable actions can be forgiven.
I want to blame the man I did this to. That he shouldn't have been shouting such things at me, or that he should have known I would have reacted as I did. Maybe he could have left, ran off. Instead I was the one who did.
But I know the only person here to blame here is me, and it's so hard to live with that. It's so hard to be strong, to not break down when every part of me is screaming to give up. I don't want to do this – I don't want to live with the guilt that surely will become a permanent weight on my shoulders. It's too much, I can't cope, and as I lift my head back to stare at the ceiling, tears streaming down my face, I finally understand why the Dauntless fight. The feeling of power I got, the rush, it's so wrong. I know it. But on pure adrenaline I couldn't think and my mind was centred around the fact that I was in charge, I was finally in charge.
And I hate it.
My ears prick at the sound of voices, footsteps, and I know it must be the start of the day. People will be waking – I'll have training. Somehow the idea of training to become a Dauntless soldier doesn't seem so appealing any more. It seems like the determination to be the best belongs to someone who isn't me, a different person. I don't know what's left of her, or where she is.
Someone is going to find a broken, bruised drunk man lying in the middle of the pit. Though by then I intend to be long gone.
I slip away, although the tears blur my vision and my feet stumble as I shake all over and I don't understand how I don't collapse... I barely make it to the dormitories before everyone wakes up and when I do I crawl to the shower, revelling in the scorching feeling cascading down my back. The water wipes away my tears.
It's not like anyone else would, anyway.
…
I sit in the cafeteria, though I can't say I'm in the mood for eating much. My body protested enough against my negligence for me to come here but I can barely stomach anything that is on my plate. June, Gabe and Damien sit around me, and I can see Adam coming through the doors of the cafeteria but I feel oddly distanced from them. I haven't spoken a word all morning, wrapped up in my guilt and my thoughts about Eric and his plans for divergents. I shoved my thoughts about the drunken man to the back of my head after almost choking on my food after thinking about him. They stayed there all morning, except for now.
Behind Adam, a hunched figure limps into the room. His face is more blue and black than the normal flesh colour and I don't need to take a proper look to know it is that man that met my fists last night.
June lets out a whistle.
"Damn," She says. "Someone got into a bit of a fight last night."
Gabe and Damien look up and, with their eyebrows raised, give each other pointed looks. June apparently picks up on this, and shoots them questioning looks.
"What?" She asks. When they don't answer, she grows annoyed. "What?"
"June, you idiot." Damien laughs. "That's your brother."
She stands up immediately, looking scandalised. Her eyes narrow, as if scrutinising every detail. I draw away further, my mind on lock-down and guilt racking my every nerve. What if she finds out it was me?
Her reaction surprises me. She laughs.
"I guess it is. Huh, I thought Alec would have been better at fighting."
I suddenly can't sit here any more. Their reactions, which should comfort me, only provide opportunity for the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach to grow. I should be happy, knowing that the Dauntless will just take a good laugh about the man – Alec – being beaten. That he might be ashamed for a few days, but will eventually get over it. Instead, I find myself disgusted by the cruel nature of those around me and I stand up, pushing my breakfast tray away from me. I force out a quick explanation, 'training', before leaving the room.
How could they care so little about someone who they care about getting hurt? Why doesn't it matter to them?
Are the Dauntless really as good as I thought they were?
I run all the way to the training room, the little food there is in my stomach jostling around and making me give way to my nausea. I am sick, in an empty Dauntless hallway, or what I thought would have been empty, until I feel the rough tug of my hair out of my face like I did when I was sick by the chasm.
"That's the second time I've done that, Anna."
Of course it's Eric – the universe wouldn't go for anything less. It seems everything wants to torture me here, and I feel like I've been put through more pain since I joined Dauntless than I had been all those years in Amity. He uses my name like it's familiar to him and I know that he wouldn't have used any other initiate's name, just mine, and for the first time I wish he would revert back to calling me 'initiate'.
I finish, wiping my mouth and staring up at him in defiance. Despite what he's doing – what I know he's planning, or putting people through – I find solace in the familiar steely grey eyes that easily hold my glare.
"You know, if you're going to make this a habit you might want to think of tying your hair back," He says and I almost break in the knowledge that for anyone else, Eric might have questioned their weakness. He let me in, briefly, and already I'm treated so differently. I want to ask him so much – what he's doing with divergents, why he carried me back to his apartment, why he let me sleep in his bed.
Instead, I settle for, "How did we get out of the weapons cupboard?"
He doesn't look surprised by my question. Knowing Eric, he's probably so used to hiding emotions that having a blank face comes naturally to him.
"Some drunk came to try and get weapons for a fight. The door was unlocked," He states - and that's it. There's nothing more to it. Despite the anger that consumed me since I found out I want to prolong this conversation, make it never end. I want to keep talking to Eric despite what I know and what I did because of it though I know that I can't, that I'll have to pretend to be just as emotionless as him. I feel comforted with him there, for reasons I don't know, and talking to him just seems too normal for me to give it up.
I don't know what that says about me.
As I turn to leave, he grabs my arm. I turn back, my eyes wide and surprised. He looks completely different now to how he did before, like he's desperate. I'm not sure what for.
"Anna-" He begins, and a choked sound escapes his lips. I look down at where his hand is wrapped around my arm and he lets go, pulling his hand away quickly. He steps back, looking momentarily lost and by this point I am too enraptured with Eric to care about anything I've said to myself about not getting caught up with anyone and I step towards him, looking up at him.
Our gazes stay together for some time. Too long to be normal, and with anyone else it would be uncomfortable. We're so close now that I can feel the slight shift in air where our breaths mingle and I swallow the lump in my throat when I see the unguarded look in his eyes, one which clearly says 'don't leave'.
I dare another step closer and we're far too close now for just a trainer and his initiate. His lips are parted slightly, and just when I begin to lose any sane train of thoughts he breaks it.
"I saw what you did, to that Alec kid."
My breath catches and I step back, my mind suddenly swamped with what just happened. I knew there would be consequences of my actions but I didn't think they would come at such a time.
"How?" I ask, my voice barely more than a whisper.
"I checked some of the night watches in the control room," He says. He's returned back to normal, or as normal as anyone could be, given what just happened. I'm not sure if I'll be normal after that again. "Anna... why?"
I hate the way he says my name. The way it rolls off his tongue, easily, flippantly. The way he could say anyone else's name. The way he could call me 'initiate'. It's not what I want – but then, I'm not sure what I want.
Is it him?
I don't answer the question. Instead, I turn to leave.
This time, he doesn't stop me.
…
The fights sneak up on me. After another week of training Four finally states one morning that we'll be fighting each other today.
I've improved. I know I have, although I was hesitant to even think about violence at first. My punches were purposefully weak, my kicks even worse and I didn't use my elbows or knees to my advantage at all. Until Eric shouted at me, of course, and I got my act together.
He's been acting different, a bit weird, since the encounter we had a week ago. More restricted, closed off. We haven't spoken, spare him giving me lectures about my crappy kicking technique.
But I did practice, I came back to the training room after dinner everyday. I think secretly, I hoped I'd see him there, but it seems he's been avoiding it. The table that I remember having to carry around the room every morning because of him sits in the corner now, unused, and now in hindsight I miss the opportunity to build muscle. I don't just miss that – I feel like a part of me is missing and somehow I know it can only be replenished by being near Eric.
I was the one who left, though, and I need to keep that in mind. It was my choice to go.
The scoreboard is hanging on the wall, showing who will be fighting who. There's only two fights today because of our lack of initiates, and Cain is the only one not fighting. I had thought I could rely on Eric to match me up with him, to let me try and beat him after all he's put me through but it looks like Eric had abandoned any sort of attachment he has to me, and paired me up with Kyle, Cain's lackey.
I watch as Fern and Adam circle each other on the mat. I sit on the floor at one end of the training room, far away from Cain and Kyle who also watch. Eric and Four stand close to the fighting pair and don't spare a glance sideways at me. I'm not sure if I'm grateful for it or not.
Fern begins the fight properly with a well-aimed punch to Adam's stomach. He reacts too slowly, not expecting such viciousness from someone who didn't appear like a proper contestant. He steps back, looking more determined now and goes for a kick to her chest, she darts to the side just in time.
I haven't been paying much attention to Fern at all really and I didn't notice how much she's improved. She must have been training during her spare time as well to have improved so drastically and it seems now that our initiate class doesn't have a weakest link any more. At least, until this fight is over. Whoever loses now will most likely fall into last place given who is fighting.
I turn away from the fight. I don't particularly want to watch two people that I care about fight each other until one of them is unable to fight any longer. Eric's words. Four put up a short argument that they should be able to concede, but Eric cut him off with a malicious snarl that 'Dauntless don't give up.'
Dauntless don't give up.
The fight ends quickly with Adam on the floor. It's a shame, but Fern deserves this. It will bring up her mark enough that, should she win again, she probably won't cut.
My name is called, and Kyle's. Cain is told to bring Adam to the infirmary and he does as he's told grudgingly.
I pad up to the mat, cracking my knuckles and mentally preparing myself for this. Will I cope, afterwards? Or will I feel the guilt like I did with June's brother?
Kyle isn't drunk and defenceless. There's no telling how this will go.
There's a punch thrown to my my side and I block, quickly, then seeing an opportunity where his fist retracts slowly kick him hard in the side. It is well-balanced and timed and I should feel pride because of it but instead I feel empty, my mind focussed only on how to win and how to identify his flaws and weaknesses should I have to fight him again.
I drop to my knees and straddle him as he is down, natural instinct making up for all the moves I don't know and I begin to throw punches towards his face. I try to keep my emotions out of this, not letting myself experience anger or remorse or guilt or anything else that would ruin my chances of securing a place here.
But then I remember.
I remember the way my fists collided with Alec's face, again and again until blood was gushing out of his nose and his eyes were swollen shut and his lips were bleeding.
And I stall.
I can't do this – this is too brutal.
In the time that I retreat, letting Kyle get up, he swings a punch my way and hits my eye. I stumble backwards, my arms out beside my in a desperate attempt to stay balanced. I deflect another punch and throw one back, watching as he grimaces in pain.
I can't draw this out. I have to end this now.
While he's swaying from my last his I send a jab to his temple and he crumples to the floor, out immediately. It's a small mercy, doing little to wash away my guilt but's it's still something.
I leave the mat quickly and head out the room.
