COURTNEYs POV

I stood within a crowd of people, all wearing the colour of their factions. I was dressed all in grey. I think it was the clothes of the Abnegation. A Erudite woman handed them to me earlier, and explained that no one would notice that I'm not one of them, because they all tend to ignore the Abnegation. They all look the same. I like the sound of that. To not be noticed, because of being different.

At the front of the crowd, was a stage. And on that stage, there were five big white, marble like basins. Each of them were engraved with one of the factions logo. I stared at the man on stage. He was clad in grey clothing, similar to the ones i wore. He started talking about the factions and why they were important blah blah blah. I knew I should have been listening, but I was too busy thinking of how fucked up my life was. I mean, sneaking out to see your boyfriend, then getting kidnapped, tortured and frozen for a hundred years? Only that kind of shit happened in FanFiction!

I didn't notice before, but names were being called out, and one by one, every 16 year old in the crowd where we were gathered, walked up onto the stage and chose their future. The list of names seemed to be endless. But in reality, there wasn't a lot. There were probably about 200 people in total. Most people chose their own faction, but when someone chose another, there was a collective gasp in the crowd. There were looks of shock. Looks of betrayal.

"Courtney Smith," the man in grey called. I looked up shocked. I had forgotten about me. That I had to choose. I walked up to the stage, with my head bowed, trying to make little eye contact with the people around me. The man on stage, was one of the people from the hospital. He looked at me with kind eyes. He urged me forward, handing me a sharp, silver knife. I looked into the basins. To my far right, there were burning coals, which represented Dauntless. Beside that, there were plain, grey stones, which were for Abnegation. Next was a bowl full of blood tinged water, for Erudite. Earth was in the next bowl for Amity, and the last bowl was filled with glass, for Candor.

My heart was pounding so loud in my chest, I was sure that everyone in the room could hear it. I dragged the knife across the meaty flesh, just below my thumb. I looked at the bowls again, while my palm filled up with blood. I knew that i wasn't any of these things. I wasn't brave, kind, smart, peaceful or honest. I don't think I would fit in here. I moved my hand slowly. I didn't want to make any kind of mistake. My blood hit the coals with a sizzle and a little tendril of smoke appeared. I needed to know how to protect myself.

The man on the stage spoke my decision out loud, informing the crowd. "Dauntless."

There was an audible gasp. The all thought that an Abnegation was deferring to Dauntless, which, from what I could gather, was unheard of. I walked to the other side of the stage, and joined the crowd of people in black. These people were to become my new family.

After everyone else had joined their new factions, we were allowed to leave. The Dauntless started to run, so I did to. It was reliving to run, because my muscles need to stretch. Bach in my old life, I was quite fit, so I was able to keep up with all the other Dauntless, while the other transfers lagged behind.

We stopped running when we came to a set of train tracks. I looked around, cautious, not wanting to fall on the tracks and accidentally get killed by an on coming train. I looked around, wondering where the train platform was. I turned to one of the people dressed in black. The person was a man, with olive toned skin, and a pierced face. "Where does the train stop?"

The man looked at me then laughed. "It doesn't."

WHAT?

The train started to approach, in the far distance. Everyone lined the track, bracing themselves for something.

"Get ready to jump Stiff," The man said, before running with the others along beside the train tracks.

I stood still for a moment before realizing what he said. We were going to have to jump. Onto a moving train. Fuck.

I started to sprint along side everyone else. We were running beside the train. It was faster that us. People started to propel themselves forward, through the doors on the train carts, landing on their backsides. The man in front of me hurled himself on. I took a deep breath, and jumped forward. I felt myself crash onto the trains floor, and I quickly rolled myself out of the way of another falling body.

After about 20 minutes, there was a yell through the train. I looked out the cart door, at all the passing buildings and saw something very strange. There were black figures falling from the train to a buildings roof. Shit. They were people. I looked out of the door again, as my cart passed by the roof. Here goes nothing. I bended my knees, and gave a big jump. I expected to land on the gravel onto of the roof. But I didn't. I felt my stomach being hit by something. I opened my eyes and then I realized that I was half on the roof, half dangling from the edge of the building. I took a deep breath, and used my little body strength to pull me up onto the roof. I blew away some of the long dark hairs, that had fallen from my Abnegation bun. Some people were staring at me, but I just ignored them. The crowd of people had started to gather at the other edge of the roof.

There was a man, standing on the ledge, looking at up, with what could only be described as distane. He had dark hair, that hung in greasy clumps around his face. His right eyebrow was pierced, and he had, what looked like a tattoo escaping from his neck, onto his head. He was dressed all in black. In short, he would have been handsome, if he washed his hair, and had a better facial expression.

"Welcome to Dauntless. My name is Eric, and I am one of your leaders. Behind me, is the initiates entrance to the Dauntless compound. To get to there, you will have to jump." He looked at us all. The was a large silence. "Well, someone is going to have to jump first."

He surveyed us all again. I didn't like the way he looked at us. Like he was waiting for one of us to break down from pressure and cry. Well, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

"I will," I said, stepping forward, unafraid. He looked at me expectantly. I walked over to the ledge of the building. I looked down, and within the shadows of the buildings, there was a very large hole in the ground. I looked at Eric, then back to the hole. I climbed onto the ledge, backwards, so I was facing the group of initiates. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and closed my eyes. I took a deep breath and fell backwards, into the unknown.