A/N: Thank you so much for reading Faction Before Blood! Please tell me how you think I can improve. I am going to update this fanfic every Friday. I have decided that I am going to make Caleb OOC later on, I still can't see Tris's brother betraying her so badly. Please review!
The person who is standing in the doorway is a woman who looks to be about three years older than me, suprisingly young to be carrying out an aptitude test. All of the other people I have seen have looked to be at least twenty five, and the Erudite supivisor that showed Robert where to go must have been at least seventy, his hair was grey and the wrinkles on his face where so ingrained they aged him at least forty years.
This woman has shoulder length blonde hair and dark brown eyes. I can tell by the way she is holding herself that she has probably been an Erudite all her life, none of the other Factions hold themselves as though they are above everyone else, chin up and chest pushed out. She could almost look pretty if she wasn't looking at me like I am phlegm stuck at the back of her throat.
"Sit down stiff." the Erudite orders me, pointing at a dentist-like chair in the centre of the room. She turns around and sits behind a computer screen, and places wires to each of her temples. These make her look slightly like a mad scientist, and I wonder if she realises this.
"Jeez, no need to be rude." I thought I said it under my breath, but by the way she is looking at me like I sprouted a second head makes me guess that's not the case. I see her reflections cast on either side of her in the mirrors on the walls, and when I turn around I see myself again. My reflection looks nothing like the other soon-to-be initiates, pale and shaking. The person in the mirror is standing up straight, looking confident. I am fairly certain that I know where I belong.
"I've never met a stiff that answers back before." now I really can't stand anyone calling me a stiff, they better not after the choosing ceremony. It's illogical to judge someone on the clothes they wear, especially when you've only known them for less than a minute. Although that does kind of make me a hypocrite, less than two minutes ago I guessed what Faction a lady used to belong to by the shape of her scar.
"Don't call me stiff, my name is Caleb, although you probably already knew that." I tell her firmly. She looks at me in amusement.
"Yes, I already did know that, but not just from this list. I believe that you are in my Brother's Advanced Maths class at school, right? His name is Will. He always says that it is amazing that you can be at the top of a class and be from Abnegation. I think he's a bit jealous. My name is Cara by the way."
The woman, Cara, is no longer looking at me like a disease, but one of curiosity that I know so well. She turns her attention to the computer screen in front of her and types something down on her keyboard. "What is the test?" I ask her. I am so glad my Father can't hear this conversation, the guilt of him knowing how many questions I ask would eat me alive. For some reason I don't think that my mother would mind as much.
Cara smiles at me, and says, "It's a simulation, you won't be aware that it isn't real, so that eliminates the possibility of changing your choices to something you know will get you a particular Faction. These are the choices that you would make in real life without anyone to judge you, and they will give you a result of the Faction you best fit in at. This should only last ten minutes tops."
I was right then earlier thinking that the tests will be someting nobody could ever suspect; I certainly wasn't expecting anything as advanced as this. Cara reaches under her desk and pulls out a little shot glass full of a liquid tinted a bluish colour. She holds it up for me to take, and I carefully reach out, being carefull not to spill a drop.
"After you've drunk this then you will be under the effects of the sim within thirty seconds. Good luck Caleb."
I shakily lift up the glass to my lips, the nerves everyone else has been feeling finally hitting me. What will I do tomorrow if I do not get Erudite as my result today? Will I still choose the Faction I wish I was born in, or completely change my mind? The freezing cold tasteless liquid slips down my throat, leaving my shivering. As the room starts to swirl and darken in front of my eyes, I take a deep, shuddering breath. My eyelids flicker shut and everything in the Aptitude test room disappears, leaving me in darkness.
When I open my eyes I am in the school cafeteria, except unlike five minutes ago it is empty of people. By the looks of the snow outside the season has also changed, it is July at the moment and it is snowing outside. For some reason I feel like I am in a dream. In front of me are two baskets, one of which has a hunk of cheese in it, the other one a long metal blade. "Choose." a voice rings out from behind me. I snap my head around to see the person who just spoke to me, but there is no one there. That can not be possible though, it sounded like the person was standing right over my shoulder.
"Choose!"
I quickly run over the baskets, I can figure out what is going on afterwards. My hand hovers over the space inbetween the baskets, just like some of the transfers do every year at the choosing ceremony. The Choosing Ceremony! Mine is tomorrow I can now remember, and I came to school, went to class, and after lunch it was time for the Aptitude tests. I remember walking with the ex-Dauntless lady to the testing room, meeting Cara and having a conversation with her, and then nothing after that.
What was it that Cara had said the Aptitude test was? Something about a sim? All of my most recent memories I have to strain to find, as if someone had built a wall around them and I have to break it down brick by brick to remember.
Now my mind registers Cara saying something about not knowing that the sim isn't real. If that is the case then how do I know that this is fake? Cara must have not given me enough of the drink, so I am not fully under its effects. I need to get out of this as soon as I can so Cara can re-administer the test.
My hand closes around the knifes handle, I can't see any logical reason to pick up the cheese, as it is unlikely that I am going to die of starvation in a simulation. I blink once, and the bowls are gone, and I am left standing alone in the empty dining hall.
Suddenly I hear a low growl, and next to the table where the Dauntless usually sit is a huge dog. From what I remember from a book I read years ago about demesticated animals, I'd say that this one is a German Shepherd, a dog that used to be used in the army before the war that destroyed the rest of the world. I can see why it was used now, the dog has muscles rippling under its fur, all taut and ready to pounce. The beast's eyes don't have any whites in them, they are all black and focused. Focused on me.
I point the knife at the dog and consider fighting it. By the looks of the dogs teeth though, it would be terribly painful to be bitten, so I decide that I am not going to use that option. What else do I know about dogs? I know that looking them in the eye makes them think I am challenging them, and I certainly don't want that. I want this dog to think that I am no threat to it, so I drop to my knees slowly, shuffle back a bit and then lay so I am face down on the floor.
Carefully I bring my hand that is still holding the knife out from under me, and I throw it to the side. I don't quite know how clever this animal is, but I know I can't take chances. That means that it needs to know that I am defenceless, I will not attack it.
I try to stay as still as possible as the dog circles me, and I pray it can't hear my heartbeat pulsing loudly around my body. Its warm breath tickles my cheek when it lowers its head down to my face, sniffing me. My mind starts coming up with unhelpful images of the dog opening its mouth and biting down on my face. This isn't real, I tell myself. This isn't real.
Then, to my utter suprise and relief, the dog lets out a little wimper. I look up from where my head is buried in my arms, and instead of the feirce war-dog, I see a small puppy, nuzzling into my shoulder. All of my tense muscles relax, and I allow myself to pat the creatures head for a minute. The only pets that the Abnegation are allowed are animals that have either been abandoned or are found wandering the Factionless sector. None of those animals are like this, cute and well groomed.
"Puppy!" I hear someone say nearby. The voice comes from a little girl, ten years old at most wearing a neat white dress. This suprises me, none of the Factions' colours are just plain white, the closest you would get would be Candor, but it is Faction custom to wear white and black, not either or.
The little girl runs up to the dog arm outstretched, and when she is about three feet away the harmless puppy from a second ago has changed back to the ferocious animal it was before. I shuffle back at a speed I didn't know I was capable of, and the girl turns tail and runs. This girl can't be cut out for Erudite though, for anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that the dog is capable of running ten times as fast as a grown Dauntless man. If I don't stop the dog then this girl will die for sure, but if I try and stop the dog from getting to her I risk my own life.
In the next moment I make a descision that would disappoint my whole family if they knew about it. I bring my knees up to my chest and bury my head in my hands and put a finger in each ear. This doesn't stop the sound of the girls dying screams penetrating into my long term memory though.
When I open my eyes I am no longer in the Dining room, I am back in the testing chair where Cara gave me a too-small dosage of the drink. Except I notice that nobody else is in the room, and Cara's seat and computer screen have vanished. I head out of the door to try and find Cara, except instead of the coridoor I was expecting, I am now in a bus. When I look behind me there is no door to the room I was just in anymore, just the steel door of the same bus I was in this morning on the way to school.
A man with scars striped across his red hands sits next to where I stand in the aisle. From the patterns of the scars I'd guess that they were third degree burn marks. He is clenching his newspaper in both hands so hard it makes the veins pop out on the surface of his skin. I'm having a feeling that this man might be the next challenge in the sim, everyone else here seems normal.
"Do you know this guy?" the man says to me. Impossibly he seems to be gripping the paper even tighter. After a few seconds of my silence he releases the paper from one hand and points to the man on the front cover. The man has a plain face and a short beard. This guy seems very forgettable to me, and that makes me think that I probably do know him, from a very distant childhood memory. The title above the image reads "Brutal Murderer Finally Apprehended!", it is unusual for there to be a murder in the city, everyone would have known about it. This is fake, there is no murderer, just a simulation.
"Well? Do you?" The scarred man asks me again, undisguised anger in his threatening voice.
What can I do? I can tell the man that I think that I know the murderer, but deep in my gut I know that that would be a very, very bad idea. I can deny any recolection of knowing the man, but this man seems very angry, and I am afraid of what he might do to me if he thinks I am lying. I'll have to take the risk.
"No. I have never seen him before. Why do you ask?" I hope to god that this man believes me. Candor certainly won't be getting me as a new initiate to train tomorrow.
My heart rate increases rapidly when the scarred man stands up, and I finally see his face. From the looks of the huge pink scar on the right side of his face, I would say that if he was real he had been in a terrible house fire. He wears wide sunglasses shielding the emotion in his eyes from my view.
Scar man leans in close to my face, and I can smell the foul stench of cigarrete smoke on his breath. "Your lying," he says to me, dangerously quiet. "You are lying!" he shouts into my face, some of his spit landing on my chin.
I push my shoulders back and look the man in the eye, trying to make myself as intimidating as possible. "No I am not." I hear myself say. In order to make this believable I can't look scared, even if this is just a simulation.
"I can see it in your eyes."
"I'd be suprised if you could see much at all, it wouldn't suprise me if wherever you got those burns took most if not all of your eyesight."
"If you know this man," he says in a trembling, low voice, "You could save me. You could save me!"
With a regretably low amount of guilt, I say "I'm sorry sir, but I have no idea what you are talking about."