Agh thank you for taking the time for reading this! I hope to reach 200 views by the end of the story! This chapter follows Jana, the fifth main character who is dauntless born! This story will be just over twenty chapters by the way!
This morning I have woken up extra early to get to the gym. Our faction allows sixteen year olds and above to train here for up to five hours a day except during initiation time. Just yesterday I could only train for an hour due to my age. My trainer, Amar, is happy to see me here and we start. We go through our basic fighting techniques and eventually we get to more advanced methods.
"You will be great in amity" he jokes. We both burst into laughter because we both know I would never take the road of peace. Eventually we stop laughing and Amar becomes serious. He is the closest thing to a brother to me, sometimes I look forward to seeing him before my parents. We are not attracted to one another but one night when I asked him he said he simply doesn't like girls. "You should go home now, go spend some time with your family" he tells me. "Why?" I ask. Well I do actually know, I've been neglecting them a lot, leaving at seven in the morning and coming back home just before 10 and going straight to bed. He stares at me with an 'Are you serious?' expression. "Fine" I mutter. On my way home I see four little boys playing by the chasm, I scold them for being so reckless and they laugh in my face. I can't help but feel frightened by the idea of them falling.
I arrive home at 8 and I eat breakfast, my mother tries to start a conversation with me, but she realizes its worthless and goes back to her newspaper. On the other hand my brother and I talk about his government job. His name is Jonathan, I'm confident he was made for dauntless, he finished third in initiation below his friend Eric and a man he names 'the stiff'. I would love to chat more but I'm stopped by my mother who tells me the train will leave in two minutes. I completely forgot. The trip to the train is only takes a minute but when I arrive the train has left early and it has begun to leave and I know I must catch up.
I suck in a breath of air sprint forward and grab the handlebars of the train. I make it with the help of a dauntless girl named Erica. She will choose this year too. She has long brown hair with a fringe that almost covers her eyes, her face is narrow and her green eyes almost resemble tiny emeralds. I begin to talk to her about the aptitude tests today but all she says is "This conversation is against the rules, but I know one thing, there will be at least one simulation." I shoot her a puzzled look. "A life-like reality, its not real though" she says and we jump off the train.
The tests begin at 10 and my name is first on the list. I'm surprised that my hand is grazed after the jump. An abnegation woman has me for her first test. I ignore what she says until she hands me a vial of clear liquid and orders me to drink. Before I can count to three I am somewhere else, it's the cafeteria I was in literally seconds ago. Remember what Erica said, it isn't real after all. On the table in front of me are two baskets in front of me one contains a knife, the other cheese and I grab them both. "Only one" I hear a woman say. I drop the cheese back in the basket. When I look behind me I see a large dog entering the room, growling.
The dog inches to me slowly and slowly I realize what's going to happen and I become nervous. I won't kill this dog when we both can be saved. It lunges at me but with great effort I lift it above my head. The creature attempts to free itself but it doesn't work. Soon I feel my hands begin to sweat. Stop it! I tell myself, your sweaty hands will release the dog!
I watch a little girl enter from the corner of the room, she doesn't see the dogs face. "Puppy!" she squeals. "No!" I scream back "He gets.. Um nervous around people" I shout. The dog releases its grip and I don't think, just jump. I hurl my body around the dog with tremendous effort. My head hits the ground. The dog is gone and so is the girl, suddenly I realize I'm back in the testing room and I jump up to leave.
"Stay here" the abnegation woman says sternly. "I need to get Natalie Prior." "Who's that?" I ask. After a few seconds my tester returns along with another abnegation woman, who I assume is Natalie Prior. They don't utter a word to me, they stare at the screen in front of me which has been blocked from my view. I hear parts of their conversations. "Is she-" "Yes" Natalie replies. "Am I what?" I ask impatiently.
"You're like me" she smiles. "My result was abnegation?!" I shout. This isn't what I had planned. "How is this possible?!" I shout at them. "Jana, you must listen to the following words very carefully, your results were in conclusive." she says "Ha ha very funny, did Amar put you up to this?" "No." she replies sternly. My throat tightens and I can barely breathe. "Typically, each event in the simulation rules out four factions, in your case only three were ruled out. "Three" I croak.
Your taste for the knife knocked out amity, you could've thought better about how to behave among dogs but you didn't, so erudite was ruled out and lastly you lied to the little girl so she wouldn't get scared so candor was ruled out. My mouth falls open.
"Abnegation and dauntless" we say in unison. "In no circumstances will you tell anyone your result" she says. "Well duh, its the rules." "No, I mean ever. I am divergent too and I'm alive today but people are after our kind". "I'll get them" I say angrily. "The dauntless and erudite government?" she smiles. "Crap..." I mutter under my breath. Dauntless and abnegation. I am divergent.
I run all four miles to my house, the door is locked so I attempt in kicking it down but all this does is hurt my foot, I scream in frustration, suddenly I hear a noise in the corridor. "Who's there?" they shout. "Get lost!" I scream back. When I see the figure fully I realize it's Amar. "What hapenned" he says cooly. "I can't tell you" I reply. "Forget those damn rules" he screams. "Its not the rules I'm worried about" I shout with a tone of desperation in my voice. Suddenly his face loses colour, does he know? "Get yourself cleaned up he mutters" suddenly he takes out a key and unlocks my door and runs down the corridor. Has he always had that key?
I don't bother with dinner tonight, it won't stay in my stomach but I don't sleep earlier because no matter how hard I try, I can't do it.
I wake up at 9, I chose to skip the gym as I'll have to face Amar's questions, instead I head to the choosing ceremony with my family. Am I brave enough to survive this day? My brother hugs me before we reach the top floor of the hub where the ceremony will be held. My brother sits among the dauntless leaders while my mother sits at the back rows among the other dauntless.
I stand at the front listening to Jeanine Matthews speech, when something related to dauntless is mentioned we cheer but I cant help but stare at the erudite leaders. Why do you want me dead so bad, I want to ask them. Then I realize something, aren't the dauntless leaders after me too? That means Jonathan. The names begin to be called out and I can't help but stare at Jonathan. Would he side with me if my death was in his hands? "Jana Iela" As I walk up I stare nervously at the abnegation bowl, but I know where I belong, dauntless. My blood drops on the coals.