TRIS:
In my dreams, I usually would see my mother and father, always so selfless. I saw my brother Caleb, bending down to help a girl pick up her fallen groceries. I saw the dull, sleek houses of Abengation with the factionless on the edges of the street. I saw my old friends at the Dauntless Compound, running and hollering out of thrill. I saw him, every time, after I volunteered to be the first jumper, and landed in the net; He, ever so rough and gentle, pulled me out. Those were the dreams. But my nightmares never left me.
I was in the woods, with Tobias, swallowed by mountains of trees. We were running, but then we stopped because I heard a song. A beautiful one, it was. It sounded like a girl's whistle. I turned to see a bird perched upon a tree above us. It wasn't just any kind of bird. It was strange. Not like the ravens from my collarbone to my heart, but it had black feathers with white patches underneath their wings. What was stranger was that whenever I called out to it, it matched the exact pitch of my voice. Like it heard it before. Beatrice. Beatrice, it kept saying. NO. I am not Beatrice. I am Tris.
I looked back at Tobias to see if he heard what I heard, but he froze. His face had dropped, filled with anguish and vulnerability. Did he hear the song too? If he did, what did he hear? I told him, "This is not the time to be broken. We have to keep moving." But I had never seen his face like that before, except once. He had the same expression he wore now when he was in his fear stimulation. And our surroundings did look like a stimulation, but it didn't feel like one. This was real.
I jolt awake immediately and felt disorientated. Everything around me jumbles up and down. I look around me to see that I was on the ground of a traditional room. It reminded me of a mixture between my old room before the Choosing Ceremony and Tobias' apartment, with it's dullness and vague belongings. I suddenly felt nostalgic, reminiscing the initiate training. But that was a long time ago. Before things got political. And that's when I knew I wasn't supposed to be here.
I ran toward the door, but it was locked. My heart was thumping in my chest, against my ribs. It felt just like the time I was contained in Erudite headquarters, but with the likeness of my past. Not Tris' past, but Beatrice's past. Tobias, I thought. Then I remembered. It was that girl with the bow and arrow. When Tobias and I stopped to remap where we were heading, we heard a shift behind us. We turned to find a girl, no older than 17 maybe, with her hand in the tree bark next to her. She look shocked but quickly gained composure just as quickly. It was if she had not felt any kind of emotion what so ever. But I knew better. She had that kind of face that defied authoritative figures and been through more hardships she can handle. I knew that face. I saw it every time I looked in the mirror. But the mirror was contradicting, so I never look at it when I get a chance.
I told her to take out her hand, but she squinted questioningly at us, cocking her eyebrow. She looked behind us, widened her eyes, then surprised us by swiftly pulling out a bow and notching an arrow right above my ear to the creek behind Tobias and I, spraying us in water. I wasted no time and ran after her. I attacked her, bringing us both down. I had to kill her. I couldn't risk anyone seeing Tobias and I, out there, in those foreign woods, on our secret personal mission. She was strong; much stronger than I expected. I was almost through until I felt a hard blow on my head and I fell to the ground.
Now I was locked in a barely empty room. I needed to get out of here. Wherever here was. I was about to jump off the wall and crash into the door, when it opened. A girl, with blond hair like mine, just about 14 possibly, looking nervous but not scared, put up her hands and said, "Wait! Please." But I had no patience. I roughly pushed past her, entering a kitchen of some sort. I saw a middle aged woman with blond strewn hair hanging around her, and the girl from the woods. I whirled my head in all directions, looking for an exit, but there weren't any. I looked back at the girl to see her smirking.
"You can't leave. Not until you tell me what you're doing here, in the middle of fall, behind District 12's fence. Why did the Capitol send you here? To spy on us?" said the girl.
"AGGH!" I yelled, grabbing a butter knife from the nearby table, running straight at the girl, but someone jumped right in front of her just in time, disarming me.
"There will be no knife-slitting right now-" said a brunette boy, "Not until later. Once we turn her into the peacekeepers."
"Wait, I didn't say we would turn her-" started the girl, but the boy cut her off. "We have to. She's from the Capitol. And I bet Cray would like to know why a tattoo bearing girl from the Capitol is running amok in the woods of District 12. And they're not the only ones."
He eyed me, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the girl roll her eyes upward and proceeded to walk towards me. I stumbled backwards to already find a chair behind me.
"Sit. It won't do you any good if you try to escape." said the girl. Her voice. Where have I heard her voice before? I decided to be submissive.
"What's your name, then?" I asked. "I highly doubt it was Glimmer."
She hesitated. "Katniss Ev-," she said, "It's Katniss." What was she about to say after that? Did she really not want me to know her last name? But then I considered it. Her last name must be important. It must mean something, like my last name. Prior.
"I remember your name. It's Tris." she said. She looked at me with renewed curiosity.
"Yeah, it is. Care to explain what happened after our little altercation in the woods?" I asked. Then I shot up, only to be pushed down onto the chair by the boy.
"Where's my frr-iiend? The other boy?" I asked. I didn't want to give away who Tobias really was to me. He was much more than just a friend. They all stared at me.
"We don't know. It was just me and you in that clearing when we both got knocked out." Katniss explained. I slouch back in my chair, feeling disappointed.
"Anyways, after we both got knocked out, my friend here-," She gestured to her brunette friend who smiled at me. Something about him was off.
"Who knocked me out?" I asked.
"Who do you think?" said the boy, pulling a chair across from me and proceeded to sit in it. "My name's Gale by the way. If we're not gonna say our last names, then so be it. But just to let you know, I only did what I did because you hurt my Catnip." He looked up at Katniss, only for her to look away with an angry expression although cleverly hidden. But not clever enough.
She continued, gritting her teeth. "Like I said, after we both got knocked out, my friend managed to pull us both out from the woods and back to my house. My mom patched up your bruises. Your shoulder was badly damaged but nothing we couldn't fix here with new stitches."
I rubbed my shoulder to find the bump of new stitches under my shirt. I looked down at myself, suddenly realizing I was wearing a different set of clothes. I wore mixed matched colors of gray and brown with a little of navy here and there. I looked like the factionless.
"You had to look like you belonged here or else they would have shot you on sight, including us." said Katniss.
"Why would they have shot us? Wait, don't tell me you're in the middle of a war too?" I asked, rolling my eyes. I was getting tired of blood.
"No, we're in the middle of a rebellion." said Gale. Katniss immediately shot up.
"No, we're not. We're fine. It's just how our society works. That's how the Capitol works really. They rule the districts with fear, destroying hope." I look at them like they were crazy, because I had no idea what they were talking about.
"We're separated into 12 districts. Each one contributes or makes something for the Capitol. We're in District 12 known for coal-mining." Katniss said. "It's not a very stable job." She looked at me, with a sort of regretfullness. Like if she could have done something about it, District 12 would have done anything else for their Capitol.
"There used to be a District 13, but it was completely obliterated." said Gale wistfully.
"The districts? That's awfully similar to the factions." I said, feeling like I was in whole other world. Somewhere I clearly did not belong.
"I highly doubt where you're from that you have the Hunger Games, much less the Reaping." Katniss said, with sad eyes. Terror was edged all over her.
"What's the Hunger Games?" I asked, leaning forward. I knew I was onto something because then I recalled an old conversation about what happens outside the Fence.
"President Snow, the leader of the Capitol, decreed that in order to maintain power and fear in the districts, there are to be a Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is when one boy and one girl from each district, between the ages of 12 and 18, enter the arena and fight to death on live television, every year." Gale said. Katniss froze. Her eyes took on a whole new level of fear. You could practically see her veins popping on the side of her head.
"I was in the-," she started. But she never got to finish because then we heard glass breaking and a huge THUMP. We heard a gun shot and Katniss's family screamed, running farther into the house. I jumped up instantly and ran toward the sound.
"Katniss!" her sister yelled. "I'll be fine, go hide with Mom." She said. Katniss gave a quick glance back at them and followed me. Gale trailed right behind us. The house was fairly big, with hallways criss-crossing left and right. When I turned a corner, I saw Tobias, standing amid broken glass where the front door should have been. He held a gun in his hand.
"Tobias!" I yelled. I ran, throwing myself onto him. "Where have you've been? I was so worried. I-," He roughly pushed me behind him, shielding my body from Katniss and Gale, who were running toward us. Tobias raised his gun.
And fired.
END OF CHAPTER 2.