Authors note:
I am so sorry about the first version of chapter 1, this is my first fanfic so this is basically all trial and error. Thank you so much dauntlesstribute13 for telling me how to avoid the problem.
Disclaimer - Veronica Roth owns the Divergent Trilogy, not me. If you recognise any of this, then it belongs to Veronica Roth.
We get to the upper levels building on time, and when we are about to go inside Beatrice says, "Aptitude tests today." I nod, and think of what on earth they can test us on to determine our Faction. It could be an exam, with questions about different scenarios that different Factions respond to in different ways. Although, that seems too easy, and anyone could lie to get the Faction they wanted. It will probably be something that nobody could ever suspect.
I am partially relieved that my aptitude test won't be conducted by an Abnegation member, for I wouldn't be able to look at their face when the see that my selflessness is all an act. My sister has always been very selfless, even though she doesn't realise it. Her choice will probably be harder for her to make than for me because she doesn't have to pretend to be selfless, but she has always secretly wanted to be among the Dauntless. I think she has anyway. Hopefully she will chooses her Faction for herself tomorrow, and not for our parents. Tomorrow it is necessary for us to be selfish.
My sister and I walk through the steel-framed glass doors and into the busy Upper Levels building. Beatrice has Faction History this morning, a subject that everybody tends to dread. It will be a lot harder for her to distract herself in her class today than it will be for me, I enjoy school a lot more than her. Especially the harder classes, like the one I am going to, Advanced Math. Unless my assumptions have been incredibly wrong, there is no way Beatrice will transfer to Erudite tomorrow. She is very bright, but unlike me, she doesn't pursue the facts.
We walk together down the corridor, past some very preoccupied and uptight teenagers. "You aren't at all worried about what they'll tell you?" Beatrice says. I raise my eyebrows at her, having to crain my head down so I am looking into her eyes. Of course I'm worried about the tests, I haven't been able to prepare for them in any way, which is not something that agrees with me. "Are you?" I ask her. She looks thoughtfully for a moment, and then says "Not really." I smile at her, she is a terrible liar, but not as terrible as the Candor. Not knowing quite how to respond, I just say as we approach the fork in the corridor where we split, "Well...have a good day."
I stand there watching her blonde head disappear into a sea of taller teenagers, and wonder for the hundredth time that day what colours she will be wearing the next time I see her after Choosing day.
I walk along to Advanced Maths, trying my hardest not to get in anyones way as I push my way through the packed corridor. A Candor boy in my year -I think his name was Peter- knocks purposefully into my shoulder as he walks past me. Luckily I didn't drop any of my books when he did that, for they would be completely trampled by now. What a jerk, I hope to god he doesn't join Erudite.
Finally I reach room 11b, Maths. Like all the other doors in this school, it has a small glass window in its white plastic frame. When I turn in to the room only half of the class has arrived, so I choose to sit at the far back corner. Being at the top of an advanced Math class and not being an Erudite is highly unusual, so I always try and sit at the back so I am not noticed. There are about five others in the class, and all of them are from Erudite. I am the only one smart enough from any of the other Factions to be able to sit take this class, but I still get picked on for being too 'stiff'. Hopefully in a few years nobody will even remember what Faction I was born into.
The Erudite in the room all wear glasses, and unless bad eye-sight runs through nearly all of the Erudite families, I'd guess that the glass in the lenses doesn't have a prescription. This is one of the only things I do not understand about the Faction I am choosing tomorrow, I would have thought that they would have seen wearing glasses without a prescription impractical, illogical.
Whilst I wait for the teacher, I go over my answers to the complex equations we had to solve for homework, even though I know I am right. Soon I've checked over my answers three times, and can't will myself to go over them again. A small heart carved onto the front of the wooden desk catches my eye, even though it is hard to make out under the years worth of grafiti over the top of it. I can just make out the miniscule 'Andy+Nat' carved in it's centre. I am shocked for a moment when I realise that my parents names are Andrew and Natalie. I'll ask them about this one day, it has to be them that carved this heart.
I'm brought out of my thoughts when the rest of the Erudite students walk in, closely followed by the Erudite teacher. For the next one and a half hours I force myself not to think about the Aptitude tests, and lose myself in the formulae and complex equations.
After everyone has eaten lunch, we remain in the cafeteria sitting in our Factions, waiting for our names to be called up for our aptitude tests. The cafeteria in the upper levels building only has two people serving food food at any one time, so I usually spend about fifteen minutes in the library before going to lunch to avoid the queues and to get some extra studying in. Today however Beatrice was waiting for me outside of my class with Susan and Robert, our next door neighboors.
Susan Black and I have always been very close, closer than I am with any of my other friends, not that I have many though. If I stayed in Abnegation then it is likely that she would be the one I marry, and we would live a simple life together. I am very sure that she will stay in Abnegation, the life there suits her perfectly. Tomorrow night, it is possible that she will be sitting in the Abnegation initiate's dormitory, without her two best friends.
From four out of five Factions I can sense disguised tension wrapped around their tables. The only Faction that I can't say this for is Amity, although it is in their nature not to stress. The colourful clothed hippies are playing a stupid hand clapping game, that in my opinion is far too childish for sixteen year olds. Even ones from peace-and-love Amity. I try to imagine Beatrice there, and barely contain my snort at the thought of her sitting in the back of some truck with a banjo on her lap, her hair loose and her demeanor care free. If she transfered there, she might just be the first person to get thrown out of Amity, and probably on her first day.
Right now my sister is looking around the other Factions as well, and I see her gaze drift from the Amity over to the Dauntless. I think that in her heart she was always made for Dauntless, but seeing her now I just can not imagine her covered in peircings and tattoos and every thing else the Dauntless think makes you brave. In my mind she will always be my little sister who I need to take care of. One day, if I am right about her choice, then she will most likely be the one protecting me.
The Candor on the table next to us are arguing in a friendly manner, over what I don't know. Wherever they go they always have to make the most noise, and often they give me a painfull headache. The next most noisy Faction by far is Dauntless, and I look over at them and see them playing cards together. One of the girls has a tattoo of ivy down the side of her face, and I wonder what would happen if by some miracle a girl like that transfered to Abnegation. Tattoos are forbidden in Abnegation, and the few Dauntless transfers that come to my soon-to-be-old Faction either don't have tattoos, or are very good at hiding them.
On the table next to the Candors are the Erudite, and they all look very nervous, even more so than the other Factions. This suprises me slightly, why would the Erudite look the most nervous? I hear footsteps coming down the coridoor, and when the Erudite dependent look at each other and then in anticipation at the door, I realise. They are terrified of being unprepared for a test.
The test supervisors come out of the set of steel double doors that lead to the testing rooms. I have never been in one of them before, nor has anyone who is under the age of sixteen. If I was born two weeks previously, then I would have already chosen my Faction, and would have a job I love if I had scored high enough in Initiation. I feel worried for Beatrice, she has got to be one of the youngest of the sixteen year olds here. If she had been born two weeks later, she would still be fifteen and wouldn't have to choose until next year. I hope she makes a decision she won't regret.
I am snapped from my thoughts when I hear a supervisor calling Robert and I up for testing. Shaking off my nervousness, I walk confidently up to them. One of the women who looked to be in her mid to late twenties placed a firm hand on my back and steers me through the double doors.
The woman's face is very angular, her cheekbones jut out of her pale face harshly, and her nose looks bent, almost like she was punched, but it isn't crooked, which eliminates that theory. She also has a scar on her arm, stretching from her elbow and up around her bicep until it disappears under her sleeve. The scar is jagged, so it is unlikely that it was from a surgery. Anyone with a scar that big is or used to be a Dauntless; they are the only Faction that gets into fights. Or at a stretch a Candor, as they are so opinionated that if an argument goes too far, fists are occasionly used. However this lady is clad in blue. Erudite blue.
"You were from Dauntless." I state, it didn't mean to slip out, it just did. She tenses slightly, and then looks at me incredulously.
"How on earth did you know that?" the lady says to me. We have stopped outside what I can only assume is one of the testing rooms, the last door on the corridor. Out of the corner of my eye I see Robert going into his testing room, a Dauntless lady with green highlights in her hair ushering him in.
I avert my gaze back to the lady who I probably just creeped out by telling her what Faction she used to be. When I look at her face however she just seems suprised, and looks at me in the eye curiously. "Your scar. Only Dauntless are stupid enough to get into a fight." I say simply.
"My scar could have been from a surgery though." She questions me.
"Scars from surgeries aren't that jagged, your surgeon would have had to have been drunk to give you a scar like that."
The Erudite woman lets out a faint chuckle at my choice of words. Then for a heartbeat her eyes shut and her face looks troubled, a bad memory playing beneath her eyelids. "Right you are. Not even many Erudite have managed to guess what Faction I was in without even hearing me talk first." Now that suprised me, the Erudite are the most observent Faction, and it wasn't that hard for me to guess.
"Exactly how many people have been able to work that out?" my curiosity gets the better of me, and I see in my mind's eye my Father's disapointed face.
"Only one. Although that is inaccurate, because you just guessed, so two. Only two people have ever been able to guess my Faction of birth." Now I wasn't expecting that at all, only two?
"Who was the other person?" I internaly scold myself. Asking questions is selfish, and no matter how much I wish I was in Erudite right now, I am still Abnegation.
"Jeanine Matthews."
I was left with a look of utter shock on my face when the lady ubruptly turned and walked back down the corridor, just as the door to the Aptitude test room opens.
A/N: Please tell me what you think of chapter 2, I would love to get some feedback on this, especially since this is my first fanfic. I have decided that I am going to diverge off of the original storyline later in the story. I will update this fanfic whenever I can, thank you so much for reading and please review!