Chapter 21: Welcome to Dauntless
After Evan finds me and Rina in the Dauntless section, we all sit in silence until I finally break the silence.
"Evan, I'd like you to meet Rina from Candor," I say, introducing the two of them to each other, "Rina, this is my friend Evan from Erudite."
"Nice to meet you," Evan says politely.
"You too," Rina responds, "Hey, I think they're about done calling the names."
I look up to the center of the auditorium and hear Jeanine call the last name, Omega Alison, a Dauntless girl who decides to stay with her faction. Then, once Jeanine has officially declared this moment the end of the Choosing Ceremony, the Dauntless stand up and head for the stairs. We run down the stairs with the sound of our feet pounding against the metal echoing all over the place. I smile as the sound echoes in my ears. I can already hear my freedom.
Soon, we reach the bottom of the stairs and continue our sprint until we reach the train tracks. Why have they brought us here? I wonder. When I hear the loud train whistle, my questions are answered.
"We're going to have to jump on a train," I say.
"Will it stop?" Rina asks.
"Probably not," says Evan, jumping in the conversation, "This is Dauntless. Knowing them, they would never get on a train when it was still and enjoy it."
"Good point," Rina and I agree in unison.
Soon, I can hear the thundering of the train on the tracks.
"Run!" I tell Evan and Rina, "Run before you lose the chance!" Then I break into a run, followed by Evan and Rina. As the train passes, the Dauntless standing behind us pile into the cars as the train passes them. When Evan, Rina, and I reach the door of a car, I take a deep breath and jump, throwing myself into the car. I watch Evan use the handle to pull himself in and Rina does the same. We all sit against one of the back walls of the train car, listening to the whistle of the wind blowing through the car's open door.
"That was cool!" Rina says. Evan and I nod in agreement as the train continues thundering over the tracks. As the minutes drag by, I start scanning the faces in the car, looking for anyone I might recognize. Then I see her.
"She" is a girl with a long, blond ponytail and icy blue eyes that stare behind glasses at the boy sitting next to her. She is the girl from my last fight simulation. My heart begins pounding. I don't really feel comfortable around this girl, especially with the heart-shattering glare that she aims at me when she notices that I am looking at her.
"What're you looking at?" she snarls. My heart skips a beat. I don't want to answer, and thank goodness I don't have to. The boy sitting next to her does my job for me.
"Lillian," he says, just as meanly as the tone in which she spoke to me, "Don't ask stupid questions."
"Fine, Luke!" Lillian snaps.
Rolling his eyes, Luke says, "Shouldn't you ditch the glasses? You don't need them. This isn't Erudite anymore."
Lillian looks like she wants to say something but thinks better of it before she takes the dark blue glasses off of her face, folds them, and throws them out the open door of the train car. "Satisfied?" she snarls. Luke smirks at her and nods as the train thunders on.
A while later, I hear people saying, "It's almost time." I look out the door. A seven-story building with a concrete roof is off in the distance.
"What are we supposed to do, jump off a moving train onto the roof of that building seven stories up?" Rina asks.
A Candor boy wearing a red hat nods, and we all stand up. I can see the building getting closer, and all of us in the car inch towards the doorway. Then, as the roof approaches, people begin jumping off. Soon, Evan has jumped and it's Rina's and my turn to jump. She grabs my hand.
"On three," I tell her, "One, two, and three!" We launch ourselves out of the car and I feel a brief rush of weightlessness before Rina and I hit the concrete roof. I land on my feet, the impact sending a jolt through me that nearly makes me fall on my face. Rina stands a few steps away from me, she must have had to run a few steps, and in front of me are Evan, Luke, and Lillian. They all seem to have made it without any serious injuries. Rina managed to save her bag with the first aid kit, which makes her happy. When all of us have grouped together, we walk around the roof, feeling the wind blow through our hair.
Bored, I let my eyes wander around. They wander past the chatting Erudite, Candor, and Dauntless-born initiates. It's hard not to stare at the Dauntless-borns with all of their piercings, tattoos, and strange hair colors, but I manage to tear my eyes away and they rest on a lone Abnegation girl with reddish-blond hair and bright green eyes who is sitting on the hard concrete, saying nothing to no one. I want to ignore her, but something inside nags me to go sit with her and be a friend to her. I follow the internal nagging and sit down next to the girl. She looks at me with confusion, like she can't believe I just sat down next to her. I decide to talk to her.
"Hey," I say, "What are you doing all alone?"
She shrugs her shoulders. "I guess I'm just sitting," she says.
I nod. "You're from Abnegation, right? What's your name?" I ask.
"Tallulah," she answers, "Not a very Abnegation name, is it?"
"We should trade names!" I say, "My name's Grey. I'm an Erudite with an Abnegation name." The girl smiles.
"Nah," she says, "I like my name."
"Me too," I say, "So, Tallulah, do you want to meet my friends?"
"Sure!" she says, any sadness she was previously feeling immediately biting the dust.
"Come on then," I tell her, finding my way back to Evan and Rina. "Hey! Evan! Rina! Come meet Tallulah!" Evan and Rina look over at her.
"Nice to meet you," they say. Tallulah smiles even wider now, and her eyes wander over to a group of two Amity, a red-haired boy and girl, both with bright green eyes like Tallulah's.
"Hey, can we add the Amity to our crowd?" Tallulah asks.
"I don't see why not," Evan says, "Let's go meet them!" We walk over, and after a long conversation, we finally learn that the girl's name is Red and the boy's name is Thomas. Red is a real chatterbox, and it takes Thomas three tries to get her to stop talking when the leader of Dauntless walks to the edge of the roof and raises his hands in the air. It takes a second for all our voices to peter out, and when they do, the Dauntless leader starts talking.
"Thank you," he says, "My name is Max, and as most of you may know, we Dauntless aren't big on speeches, so I'll get to the point. See the hole down there?" He points of the edge of the roof, and Evan, Red, Rina, Thomas, and I walk closer to the edge of the roof and look at the jagged hole in the concrete below us. "This hole is the entrance to the Dauntless compound. All you have to do is jump." I hear murmurs of, "Is he crazy?" and, "Is there a trampoline at the bottom or something?" Max continues, "I cannot tell you what is at the bottom of it. You must find that out for yourselves. Now, who wants to jump first?"
No one moves. I think a moment before deciding that I will be the first to jump. Evan did something courageous for me by choosing Dauntless, so I should do something courageous for him.
I walk to the edge of the roof, and everyone steps back to let me pass. Max smiles at me as I bend my legs to jump. I breathe in, and my feet leave the concrete.
My fall is quick, but fun and I let out a shout of excitement as I hurtle towards whatever waits for me inside the hole. A split second later, I feel some of the wind leave me as ropes press into my back. A net. There is a net at the bottom of the hole. I smile, and reach for a hand that extends towards me and let him pull me off.
"He" is a tall, muscular man with dirty-blond hair and deep blue eyes. Once I'm off the net, I walk over to a woman with slightly lighter hair and light blue eyes, and she asks me, "What's your name?"
"Grey," I answer.
"Grey," she repeats, "That's an Abnegation name."
I shrug my shoulders as she says, "Make the announcement, Four."
The dirty-blond boy, Four, leans over the net and shouts, "First jumper, Grey!" Then he leans back inside the cavern-like room that the net is in, and I swear I've seen him and the woman with the lighter blond hair before. I push the thought away. I've got other things to focus on besides people I think I might know. As I hear loud screams of joy, which I know belong to Red, the woman turns to me.
"Welcome to Dauntless, Grey," she says.