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I land with a thump on the net below. Giggling I let two people pull me off the net. Well that was positively exhilarating. I shoot a smile at Beatrice, who I can barely see in the dimness. I hear another body come tumbling through the air and land with a jolt. I reach my hand out and help to pull them off. The weight of this body knocks me to the ground, tumbling on top of it.
"Hi." A gruff voice says. Boy definitely a boy.
"Hi." I say back, my voice smaller than usual. Probably due to the fact that he was squishing me.
"I'm Will" He nods at me.
"Christina." I say. His voice is warm and smooth, like honey or caramel. I stand up and offer him my hand. He pulls himself up and swings an arm over my shoulder.
Once everyone had finally worked up the nerve to jump we got to leave that dark chamber. Finally some light. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust but by then it was too late. I stumbled into someone, nearly knocking both of us to the ground. Thank God they god me.
"Thanks" I mumble, embarrassed by my tumble. I look up and see Will smiling at me. I almost stick my tongue out but some important looking girl interrupts me.
"This is where we divide, the Dauntless born initiates are with me. I assume you don't need a tour of the place." She shot them all a massive smile and turned to leave with them. Favourites much, I mentally stuck out my tongue at her back. Not physically though, I have that much restraint. I look around me, checking out the competition, there is, of course, Beatrice (who I am told is now called Tris), Will, everyone else is either dressed in Candor or Erudite clothing. I feel bad when I realise we have lost three already. Maybe I wasn't made for this. But I better adapt. Survival of the fittest, as they say.
A man comes to stand in front of us. I didn't notice him before, he kind of blended in. I suppose you could say that he was extremely handsome, not my type but I good view might be nice in what could be a hellhole.
"Most of the time I work in the control room, but for the next few weeks, I am your instructor. My name is four." Four? Four? That's not a name. What could he have done to earn the name four?
"Four? Like the number?" I blurt out. Christ I have no control over this whatsoever.
"Yes. Is that a problem?" He says, raising an eyebrow in distaste. Maybe I belong in Candor more than I thought.
"No." I reply before my no-filter brain can get me into even more trouble.
"Good. We are about to go into the pit, which you will someday learn to love. It-"
"The pit? Clever name." Uuuugh. Not again. Damn, why couldn't I have been born a Stiff or something? This is mental. Apparently I'm not the only one who has this thought process. Four walks up to me in a menacing manner. He leans in close to my face, so close I can smell his breath. Eww. I refuse to flinch, staring straight into his cold eyes.
"What's your name?"
"Christina." I don't want to sound weak but I do. I clearly have control problems.
"Well Christina," He hisses at me through his teeth, inches from my face. "If I wanted to put up with Candor smart-mouths, I would have joined their faction." Damn he was rude. "The first lesson you will learn from me is to keep your mouth shut. Got that?" I nod. I try really hard not to let my anger show on my face or my stupid mouth from getting me into more trouble. He finally gets out of my bubble and walks away through a tunnel. I hang back to walk next to Bea-no wait Tris.
"What a jerk." I mutter to her.
"I guess he doesn't like to be laughed at." What a Stiff! I wasn't even laughing at Four. Just Dauntless names in general. I suppose she's right though. Maybe I should learn to be more careful around here. We walk into a large cavern. Shaped like a pit, well now I feel stupid.
"Oh, I get it." I say absentmindedly, taking in my surroundings. This cave is mind-blowingly big. Wonky walls rise up from the floor, towering above our heads, rock formations dotting the ceiling. Built into the rock surface are shops and leisure places. I look around, noticing the small skinny paths leading to and from these doorways. Oh dear. I'm not sure whether life here will be fun or short. Several hundred feet above us are glass planes, forming either a ceiling or a floor. Who knows? The view is breath-taking, the light from the ceiling/floor was casting a golden glow across the walls, catching the soft lines of quartz in the walls, causing a rainbow type glow. There are blue lanterns dotting the pit walls, lighting the paths. As we stand there the sun must set, the lights come to life, as do the Dauntless. They run around the compound, laughing, screaming, racing, having fun. I can't wait to be one of them. For my life to be a fun, adrenaline filled chaos. There are small children sprinting across the tiny paths, giggling and chasing each other. Their happiness is infectious and soon I am smiling along with them.
"If you follow me I will show you the chasm." Four interrupts my thoughts, causing my attention to go back to him, back to now, back to whether or not I even have a future here. We follow through to an insanely dark part of the pit, soon the floor changes from soft, worn rock to metal, the noises of the Dauntless drowned out by the noise of the torrential water. I stand at the edge of the barrier, almost hanging over. Down below all I can see is a mass of water, moving and churning as fast as I have ever seen. I've never seen bodies of water larger than this before, all the ponds and lakes inside the fence have been dry as long as I have known. Whit sprays of water fly up onto my face, I laugh into the oncoming water, it's so free. I hear the water churning, as loud as a train carriage, or a million Dauntless.
"The Chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy! A daredevil jump off this ledge will end your life," He shouts over the noise, "It has happened before and it will happen again. You've been warned." I stand back from the edge, fascinated by the transition of the fast moving, foamy water to the calm, almost clear water. I could see right through to the jaggy rocks below, carved into by the flow of water.
"This is incredible." I tell Tris, almost giddy with happiness.
"Incredible is the word." She nods. Four leads us away from the Chasm and through a hole in the Pit wall. We enter a bright room, causing my eyes to object to the strong contrast from the dim cave. Oh yay! Four took us to the lunch hall! I hear the strong chatter and clinking of cutlery that only reminds me of one thing. Food. As if on cue my stomach rumbles. The Dauntless al notice us and start to clap and cheer, their excitement spurring me on. These are my kind of people. I smile at Tris, the excitement of the hall filling me up. She gives me a smile back, the happiest I have ever seen a Stiff. We walk together to try and find a table, not the easiest but we manage. We sit at an almost empty table, Tris sits next to Four and I sit next to some older Dauntless who I, obviously, don't know. I hear Tris and Four having a conversation, something about the burgers.
"You've never had a hamburger before?" I ask incredulously. How could you have never had a hamburger? It's such a basic food. Oh wait. Abnegation. They probably view hamburgers as a waste of animal or far too much fun a food to be served to mere humans. God, they can be so weird.
"No. What's it called?" Tris asks, not surprising me at all.
"Stiffs eat plain food." Four replies, implying that I should know this. I do it's just, no filter.
"Why?" I ask, probably a stupid question to them.
"Extravagance is considered self-indulgent and unnecessary." A burger? Self-indulgent? It's a burger for heaven's sake.
"No wonder you left." I say absentmindedly.
"Yeah," she said rolling her eyes, "It was just because of the food.". Sarcasm, funny, for a Stiff. I see Four start to smile and I smile to. Suddenly a quiet settles over the room. I look over Tris' head, not hard. A man walks forward, his hair practically dripping with grease, like a mop dipped in a fat frier. His face is covered in piercing, the only blank spot being his eyeballs. He definitely achieved looking scary; hopefully that's what he was going for. His eyes were pale and cold as they gazed over all the crowd. He has on heeled boots and you can hear each and every step he takes, kind of scary. He stares at us all with an almost impenetrable hatred. As if we are the scum of the earth.
"Who's that?" I was finally glad that we were sitting with Four.
"His name is Eric. He's a Dauntless leader." A leader? From what I can see of his face he looks quite young.
"Seriously? But he's so young." Four gave me a weird look, seems like the ice cold manly façade is back.
"Age doesn't matter here." What even matters here? I was about to ask more questions when I hear the clip clop of boots on the floor. Eric's boots. He's coming right here. At our table. His cold glare finds Four and he plops into the seat next to him.
"Well, are you going to introduce me?" He says in a gruff voice, nodding towards Tris and I.
"This is Tris and Christina." He says his voice imperceptibly colder when he says my name.
"Ooh. A Stiff." He says, smiling in a completely terrifying way, his piercings stretching with his lips. "We'll see how long you last." He said the last part in a menacing tone, his eyes lingering on Tris far longer than necessary.
He taps his scabby hand off the table, creating an irritating tune. His eyes meander across the table, as if checking the competition.
"What have you been doing lately, Four?"
"Nothing, really." He shrugs. I wonder if there is tension here, whether or not these men had ever gotten on. Maybe they used to be friends? Who knows? They start having a conversation about that man Max from earlier, something about meetings that Four wasn't attending. To be perfectly honest my attention was being completely absorbed by my burger. It's the best tasting thing I have ever had. Suddenly Eric claps Four on the shoulder and walk away. I watch both Tris and Four breath a sigh of relief, I shrug and shovel more fries in my mouth. I got my priorities straight.
"Were you a transfer too?" I hear Tris ask Four, bringing me out of my cake daze.
"I thought I would only have trouble with the Candor asking too many questions." Ouch. Anyone can be curious, or outright. "Now I've got Stiffs too?" He tells her coldly.
"It must be because you're so approachable. You know. Like a bed of nails." I'm proud of my new friend. She has some balls about her. He stares at her, cold and unfriendly. I wouldn't even stare back that evenly. HE was scary, it was the first day.
"Careful, Tris."
Tris turns around to look at me. I raise an eyebrow to say that was ballsy.
"I'm starting to develop a theory." I tell her.
"And that is?"
"That you have a death wish." I say, returning to my burger.
After dinner Eric leads us initiates down to our dorms. I have to admit he scares me less than he did earlier. He just seems like a power hungry bastard. We walk along in silence, Eric's presence dampening all of our moods.
"For those of you who don't know," All of us. We're transfers idiot. "My name is Eric. I am one of five leaders of the Dauntless. We take the initiation process very seriously here, so I volunteered to oversee most of your training
"Some ground rules, you have to be in the training room by eight o'clock every day. Training takes place every day from eight till six, with a break for lunch. You are free to do whatever you like after six. You will also get some time off in between each stage of initiation."
At home I used to get more free time than that but it sounds nice to have something to do with my day, a point to what I was doing. This sounded fun.
"You are only permitted to leave the compound when accompanied by a Dauntless. Behind this door is the room where you will be sleeping for the next few weeks. You will notice that there are ten beds and only nine of you. We anticipated that a higher proportion of you would make it this far."
"But we started with twelve." I point out, it wasn't our fault, like he was implying, but rather it was his. For making initiation so hard for some transfers. I wait to get in trouble, once again, for my lack of filter. Surely by this age I should be much better at social interaction. It didn't work like that. For me anyway.
"There is always at least one transfer that doesn't make it to the compound." At this my mouth opens wide, we had three, no wonder he was disappointed. Eric shrugs. "Anyway, in the first stage of initiation, we keep transfers and Dauntless-born initiates separate, but that doesn't mean you are evaluated separately. At the end of initiation, your rankings will be determined in comparison with the Dauntless-born initiates. And they are better than you already. So I expect-"
"Rankings? Why are we ranked?" A dull Erudite asks. Eric smiles coldly at her, reminding me of a creepy doll. His smile looks as if it was painfully carved into his face.
"Your ranking serves two purposes, the first is that it determines the order in which you will select a job after initiation. There are only a few desirable positions available." I'm guessing by the tone of his voice and his general cockiness that he got one of those posts. "The second purpose is that only the top ten initiates are made members." Well then.. that is not good. I might never be Dauntless.
"What?"
"There are eleven Dauntless-born and nine of you. Four of you will be cut at the end of stage one. The remainder will be cut after the final test."
"What happens if we get cut?"
"You leave the Dauntless compound and live factionless." Eric said impassively.
I know this should scare me but if, anything, it boosts my moral. I have to get in the top ten. It's not a choice. I will not be factionless. All around me people hide their cries and anger. Some better than others.
"But that's… not fair!" Molly shouts, "If we had known-"
"Are you saying that if you had known this before the Choosing Ceremony, you wouldn't have chosen Dauntless?" He shouts back. "Because if that's the case, you should get out now. If you are really one of us, it won't matter to you that you might fail. And if it does, you're a coward."
He opens the door wide.
"You chose us, now we have to choose you."
As I listen to the sobs of the other initiates that night I ponder his words. Would I have chosen differently if I had known I might go factionless? Or rather had a higher chance of failing initiation. In fact I'm sure at home I would have had just as hard a time of it. One stage of initiation is to go under truth serum. How many things would I blurt out that I didn't want to? How hard would I fight the effects? A hard as possible is the answer.
I listen to the sobs from around me. Would these guys have chosen differently? Maybe for them it isn't to get away, maybe they had to leave, maybe they just wanted to be here, maybe they thought it would be easier. I hear the creak of the bed boards as I roll over, tucking my pillow over my ears to drown out the crying. There's no point in crying, it won't fix anything. Crying just makes you groggy and depressed. I need to come out fighting not worrying, winning not moping. I had answered my earlier questions. I wouldn't have chosen any different.
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