Disclaimer: I don't own Divergent.

I shot a girl today.

It was in the simulation. I never wanted to do it, even knowing it was all fake. I can still see her face in the back of my mind, her nose and jaw blown to bits with one pull of the trigger. What happened was, I was about to put the gun down after noticing it in my hand, but then an invisible force began to act on my arm.

I tried fighting it. I strained against the pull on my arm. Jerked my hand to the side, only to have it whip right back into position. Finally, I remembered Amar's whispered warnings. I closed my eyes and screamed into my teeth as the gun went off.

Just seeing what was left of the girl's face was bad enough, but the worst torture was knowing I couldn't fight off that evil force. Now I feel like the biggest coward to ever exist.

I'm the only person in the transfer dorm, so I feel safe digging out the century-old book the factionless woman gave me. The title stands out on the cover. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

I skim the cover with my fingers, as if scared to open it up and read what's inside. The man in the photograph below the title must be the author, Martin Luther King, Jr. His dress is simple but formal, like an average council member's. Yet that thoughtfulness in his eyes belongs to an Erudite, not an Abnegation. And the way he leans in toward all those microphones is characteristic of a Candor about to make a weighty argument.

Curiosity gets me to turn the first couple pages. Clearly, this book had many borrowers. Every single page is either torn, heavily creased, stained with coffee or grease, or a mix of all three. But the text is intact, old as it is. There's a title page that's pretty unassuming, then a second photo of the author. Then a year of publication, 1968.

Almost two hundred years ago? I flip to the next page.

"To the committed supporters of the civil rights movement…"

The words stop me where I am. Civil rights movement! My mom made sure to tell me about it when I was a kid. Hardly anyone knows the history of the "United States of America." Chicago was part of it, but when you compare it to the rest of the mainland, it was so small as to be negligible.

The population was hundreds of times bigger, and there were new citizens coming in from countries all over the globe. I remember Eric talking about how his ancestors moved here from Thailand. Well, Mom said our ancestors arrived long before that, from a continent called Africa. I asked her why they moved. She didn't know.

She did tell me more, though. In the past, people who looked like me, Mom, and Marcus were called "Black." People who looked like my ex-girlfriend and my former Technology professor were called "white." People who looked like Mia were called "Hispanic." And people who looked like Eric were called "Asian." In those days, people were split up according to appearance and skin color. You just had to switch out the word "faction" for the word "race." The whiter you were, the higher up you were on the societal ladder. Sure, there were poor white people, but compared to poor Black people? There were more opportunities offered to them by society to rise out of poverty. Hispanics and Asians were considered in the middle, not quite white, but close.

There were strict laws forbidding Black people from marrying white people. On a public bus, white people got to sit up front, while Black people had to sit at the back. White children attended separate, better funded schools than Black children. A Black man couldn't even use the same drinking fountain as a white man.

Luckily, Mom said, things were able to change. It was a slow process, but eventually, the tide turned for people who were not white. A few dissatisfied people got together and created a movement. They protested, boycotted, and marched in the streets. They forced the U.S. government to see the error of its ways. They convinced the government to pass laws making it illegal to discriminate based on race.

I was glad the story had a satisfying ending. But I had to ask why my mom was telling me all about it, since the problem had already been solved. Mom's answer was simple. Who's to say it won't happen again, in the distant or even near future? The best way to stop it from happening is to look at history and learn from it.

I agreed. Tragic that even Mom didn't know much beyond what she'd already told me. Just like when I was a kid, the council made an effort to withhold information that could be construed as divisive. They all wanted all kids, Black, white, and every color in between, to be given the same lessons on Chicago history. Your people went through the same struggles as the relatives of the kid sitting next to you, and vice versa. We were supposed to be "one people," and we had a "common history." That was the reason for Mom missing all the details.

But I have the untold parts of the story right here, in my hands, and I'll be reading the exact words of someone who witnessed that great change in society. It's a miracle that only God could've provided. I take a moment to give my thanks to Him, then I turn to the next page in the book.

I wouldn't be surprised if a factionless child swiped this book from their parent at some point, because all the pages making up the introduction are unreadable. The words are blotted over with red, blue, and green crayon. I decide to skip the introduction. I turn the pages till I reach the foreword. My heart's beating with anticipation.

Of course, I still kind of dislike the factionless woman. But I have to thank her for what she did. She, without even knowing it, gave me answers to questions I've had since I was a child.

Feeling grateful for that, I start to read.


The clock on the bedside table says two hours have passed. Man, time flies by when you're absorbed in doing one thing. I should start to feel tired, even sleepy. But I can't keep a lid on my emotions. Parts of me feel like they've been cut and seared, like a demonstrator overwhelmed by tear gas. Other parts have flooded with euphoria. When I visualize my ancestors getting back their freedom, gratitude rushes through me. But then grief threatens to take over when I think of how long I spent not knowing about them.

The Erudite sing the praises of knowledge, and now I get why they do.

Knowledge was something I was desperate for as I slogged through chapter one. The name "Lyndon Johnson" didn't ring a bell, nor "Selma," nor "Alabama," nor "Watts." But I'm pretty good at making inferences. I could guess what "Voting Rights Act" referred to. From then on it was a matter of piecing the clues together to complete the story Mom began.

I nodded along as King laid out all the hypocrisies of the U.S. government, and of some of the white allies within the movement. I had to admire his optimism when he encouraged the Black people of America to hold out hope for the future, because the trajectory of progress isn't always straight. I envied his fortitude when he wouldn't budge on his belief in nonviolence, even when he empathized with Stokely Carmichael and the advocates for Black Power. I was impressed at his exposure of the history of racism in America, though I cringed while reading the bit about the white liberal and what she said.

Then I reached the beginning of the fourth chapter.

I didn't expect a bunch of feel-good anecdotes. Mom had already hinted at the unpleasant truth. But I believed I was somewhat prepared. I wasn't. How prepared can you be, when you're finding out the information your own government fed you was all a bunch of lies?

My ancestors didn't choose to move from Africa to the United States. They were forced to. Forced onto ships on the coasts of the motherland, by white people who saw them as things to be bought and sold. My ancestors were not migrant workers, they were enslaved. Their families weren't dysfunctional by nature, family separation was forced on them, violently. My foremothers weren't constantly losing their children, their children were ripped from them by men who viewed themselves as their masters. My forefathers weren't absent from their kids' lives, as if they had a choice to not be there. They were systematically separated from their kids, their wives, and their families.

Reading about what actually happened, I felt I needed some time to grieve. I needed to grieve all the ancestors I never knew about, but should've. There's so much I should've known. The culture, the language, the remarkable history, the music, art, and literature, the community that the council made sure I couldn't have. And the people from our history, too. All the leaders, activists, and artists who defied the morally bankrupt society they lived in, like Langston Hughes, Booker T. Washington, and Mahalia Jackson. I wish I recognized those names.

I feel an unknowable pain thinking about this. I'm angry, too. At the factionless woman, for one, because shouldn't she have known I would be hurt by this? Did she want me to be, when she ordered me to read this book that says over and over how my people were disrespected and dehumanized? Did she think knowing all that would humble me somehow?

And what about Abnegation? Does the council know about the United States of America? Do they know it probably still has a debt to pay? Did they hear what King said about how the U.S. owes the Black man something special, after literal centuries of depriving him, and then did they run away from that obligation? I imagine they refused to pay their debts, then they made up this bullshit about everyone being "equal," so they could ignore that we were never equal in the first place.

It hurt to think about, yeah. But I still longed for that precious knowledge, which would tell me how my ancestors won this fight. My mind was urging me to just finish the book, no matter my feelings on Abnegation. So I picked it up, found the page I'd been on, and sped through it in record time, all the way to the closing sentence.

I shut the book. I set it down on my mattress, unable to do much else except think.

It turns out our story has yet to be finished. I don't know if King's closing thoughts left me with more sorrow or hope. I felt hopeful reading his words on the collective power of the Black community, and how those with power ought to use it to abolish poverty, and how our lives are ultimately intertwined with the lives of people in every other nation. The bitterness returned when I remembered that there's no other nation now, nothing but this ruined city we live in, because of the war that destroyed the world.

As for Martin Luther King, Jr. himself? He was assassinated. He never got to see where America went. I might be seeing the leftovers, though, the last stronghold of a diminished nation.

This thought is a too-heavy weight on my mind. I put the book away. I need to go outside.


I don't leave the Dauntless compound, as first of all, that would be too risky, and second of all, I don't want to run into any more factionless. I just want to get out of the dormitory. I want to be in a public place where there's lots of people. I end up in the Pit, where I just wander mindlessly, looking for no one. But I stop when I see Tori.

"Hey, Tori," I say, waving. Her tattoo place is open, but there are no waiting clients. She's sitting out front smoking a cigarette. Her lips form a smile when she recognizes me.

"Hi, Abnegation," she greets me. "Saw you going through a sim this morning. Still hanging on?"

Despite everything, I laugh. "Sorry, but nope. Lost my grip on my sanity a long time ago."

"Sounds reasonable," says Tori as she takes another drag. "Me, I've been fully Dauntless for two decades, and I still get a mini-PTSD attack when someone mentions those simulations."

"Give it another day and I'll be able to relate," I say, half joking. Before I know it, Tori's inviting me to sit down with her inside her tattoo parlor. She offers me a cup of her favorite mint tea. After a few sips of the steaming drink, the side effects of reading the book have almost been washed away. I feel ready to open up.

It's why I have to take the opportunity to ask Tori about something I overheard. I put my cup down and look her in the eye. "Tori," I start, "can I ask you about something?"

Tori nods and smiles. "Sure."

Her friendliness does little to help my nerves. I hesitate before opening my mouth. "You said you had a brother named George," I say, recalling the name Tori dropped in casual conversation that night, when I was getting my first tattoo. I go on. "Didn't he have some kind of special talent?"

Something hardens behind Tori's eyes, but she answers anyway. "Yeah. Why?"

"I think…" I bite my lip. "I have what he had."

The heaviest weight in the world is lifted off my chest when I say that. Let whatever happens, happen. So what if I'll be in trouble with the Dauntless leaders? My life's in God's hands now, and I trust Him completely.

But Tori doesn't alert the nearest authority figure. "Did you tell anyone?" she asks in a hushed whisper.

I shake my head. "Only Amar knows."

Tori relaxes. "That's a relief," she says. Good to know she's on my side, same as Amar. She points to a door that must lead to her apartment. "Come with me. I'll tell you a story you need to hear."

I walk just a couple paces behind her, thanking God for protecting me and guiding me to a friend.


"Damn." Eric slaps at the keys with a frustrated hand, setting off a chain reaction of wrong notes. He lets out a noisy breath. "I keep screwing it up."

Mia looks sympathetic. But it seems like at any minute, she'll start laughing at him. "What are you talking about?" she asks. "You played beautifully."

Eric begs to differ. The "Fantaisie Impromptu" is a piece that will forever haunt him. It's the piece he messed up during one fateful Erudite Youth Piano Competition. Yet he still chose to play it for Mia.

They were just walking along and talking, blowing off some steam, when Mia caught sight of this empty conference hall. When they pushed the door open all the way, a wide shaft of afternoon light fell on this dusty old grand piano. It looked like someone had moved it, so it wouldn't be in the way. Mia requested that Eric play something for her, the most challenging piece he knew. So he sat down on the bench and called back memories that were buried ages ago. Memories of where to place his fingers, how to maintain the correct tempo, how to look like he's feeling the music.

Too bad he couldn't remember which notes to hit. The first time he screwed up, he just plowed through, as his piano teacher would say to do. But the second time shook Eric's confidence, and just like during the competition, he had to stop. He looks apologetically at Mia. "If you think that was beautiful," he says, "you should hear my sister play. When we were kids, she'd beat me in every competition."

"Well, we're not gonna bump into her anytime soon," Mia points out. "She's staying in Erudite, right?"

"Yeah, where she belongs." Eric grins.

"Good riddance," Mia says with a short laugh. The bad taste in Eric's mouth quickly evaporates. He smiles when he feels Mia sliding onto the seat next to him, the warm flesh of her arm heating his shoulder. Just her presence is enough to cure all the ills in the world.

"Here," Eric says, gesturing to his spot on the bench. "Wanna have a turn?"

Mia shakes her head. "No, thanks. I've never played. But I've got…" She pauses, plunging a hand into one of her pockets. A second later, she pulls out an unrecognizable technological gadget. "This."

Eric eyes it curiously. "What is it?"

"A little gift from me," says Mia. She turns her hand over, letting the thing drop onto Eric's palm. "My recording device. I've stored hundreds of audio files on there. I don't really need it now, so if you ever think about saving a few recordings of yourself playing the piano, you can go right ahead."

"Thanks," Eric says, giving Mia a grateful smile.

She asks him to try playing another piece, and he does, his confidence boosted. They spend another couple of hours in the conference hall, and Eric has to admit he's happy. He shouldn't be, not when he's going through these torture sessions they call simulations. But a little bit of human company is all he needs to comfort himself.


Tori's apartment looks the same as it did the first time I followed her there. Her kitchen is, thankfully, clean, but the appliances look outdated and the faucets are heavily rusted. The coffee table in her living room can't even be seen underneath all the papers on top. Each slightly wrinkled sheet displays a different tattoo design. Some are plain black, others are every color of the rainbow. Some are easy to duplicate, others look near impossible to even draw.

One design has my attention the second I look at it. It resembles an amalgamation of all the faction symbols, Dauntless, Candor, Amity, Abnegation, and Erudite. Each symbol's distinct and recognizable, but they've been combined in such a way that it seems they're growing into each other.

Weird. I've never given much thought to this, but in all the works of art I've seen that contained all the faction symbols together, there's been an emphasis on each one staying separate from the others.

Tori doesn't give me time to wonder over this. Once we're comfortable on her couch, she launches into the story of her brother, George, and how he was allegedly murdered. It all started when George got good at the simulations. Like, ridiculously good. Everyone was whispering about him and stealing glances at him when he'd walk by. But the trouble didn't start till the Dauntless leaders got involved.

One Dauntless leader asked to sit in as George went through his final simulation. The next day, someone reported the boy missing. Just hours passed till his dead body was found in the chasm. A suicide, the leaders ruled. Nobody in George's initiate class believed it, but as the years went by, only Tori stayed convinced it was a murder.

She tells me that there's a whole class of people who are naturally resistant to simulations. George was likely one of them, and maybe I am, too. I'm just about to ask why our government cares so much that these people exist, then it all clicks together in my mind. Of course they'd care. If a person took their aptitude test and got Candor, but they only pretended to be honest, because they were aware during the simulation, that would suggest that there's a faction traitor among the Candor. There's someone there whose beliefs don't fully align with those of their chosen faction. There's someone there who might influence the rest of the faction to change.

Or… they might start a revolution.

Now I'm wondering if being a "faction traitor" isn't such a bad thing. If I'm the one who's stuck in a toxic mindset, believing I'd have to go from one end of the spectrum to another. From Abnegation to Dauntless. Trading rigidity for violent tendencies. Thinking I have only two options, use the power Dauntless training gave me for senseless violence, or have no power at all like when I lived with Marcus.

In King's book, he said that what we need "is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic." I didn't fully get it then, but now I believe him. He was a man of God, he knew what he was talking about. What I needed from the beginning was not to shed my Abnegation side in order to take back my power in Dauntless. I don't have to turn selfish in order to be brave, I can be both.

I just can't be under the watchful eye of the Dauntless leadership.

Tori sees how disconcerted I am. "Are you all right?" she asks. "I know it's a lot to take in."

"I'm good," I lie. "Just can't believe Ms. Matthews supports them. I mean, the people hunting down the…" I pause for a moment. What was the term Tori used again? It's new to me.

"Divergent," Tori finishes.

"Yeah, Divergent," I say quickly.

Tori is staring me down. "You know the leader of Erudite?"

"No," I say, "but my friend Eric does. She was his teacher in grade school." I fully expect a negative reaction from Tori when she hears it. Fortunately, she barely reacts.

"Oh, I see," she says. "You and Eric are still close?"

"Yeah," I tell her. "I just hope we stay close. Initiation's been hectic."

I don't say anything about the rising tensions between Eric and me, or the harsh way in which he's been speaking to me lately, or how the secrets I'm keeping from him are slowly piling up. Still, Tori's reply is one I don't expect. "If you're drifting apart, maybe that's for the best. Keep that in mind, okay?"

As I walk out of her apartment, a myriad of thoughts mix together in my brain. I think of George and his suspicious death, the factionless woman and her talk of revolution, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and everything he wrote in the book. One thing I do know, my perspective on the world has forever been changed.

Part of me wants to stay angry at the world, at the Dauntless leaders, at Abnegation for keeping my own history from me, at God for revealing all this knowledge to me before I'm ready to understand. But another part of me sees this as a calling from God. There's a buzzing in my head, a ringing in my ears, and only one thought.

The factionless woman was right.


The council members would be fuming mad right now, if they could hear Jeanine discussing that thing they've always opposed. A Dauntless-Erudite team-up. Two of the most compatible factions in the city being in sync, not just existing opposite each other. The brain of Erudite supplementing the brawn of Dauntless, and the other way around. Patching up their respective weaknesses. Both helping to resupply the other with resources and people. It's far from orthodox, and the Abnegation might try to shut it down, but it's radical, different, new.

That's why Eric's listening in. He watches as Jeanine debates the graying man before her, but the former Dauntless leader won't answer any question directly. All too soon, time is up and those in attendance are asked to leave. The conference that the Dauntless leaders have planned will start soon.

Eric shuffles out of the auditorium, on the heels of a middle-aged woman with a mohawk. Most of the Dauntless who showed up to listen were older. Around Jeanine's age, not Eric's. Is anyone younger than thirty even paying attention? The results of this debate could affect all their futures.

Eric's so fixated on what Jeanine said, that he fails to notice the Dauntless-born initiate watching him like a hawk. She has curly dark hair that bounces around her shoulders. She puts a hand to her mouth when she sees where he's coming from.

One thing Eric does know, his perspective on the world has forever been changed. He can either stay angry at society for letting him down, or he can take this as his higher calling.


The door to the transfer dorm closes behind me, and I slip out into a hallway that leads to the Pit. In accordance with the law, all the lights in the Dauntless compound are off. No one's going to find out about my activities in the Pit tonight.

I walk just a bit faster, my eyes on the lookout for one man. I never paid that much attention to him before. Now he's the only person I want to see.

About five feet, nine inches tall, with gray patches in his coarse black hair, and a mustache and beard that he hardly ever trims. I know he works the night shift, when there are no initiates around. I wonder how well he can see in the dark. My bare feet briefly kissing the cold floor every second, I cross into the area that contains the chasm. Although it's still dark, I can sense the rage-filled might of the river.

I roam closer to the metal railing. One of my hands reaches out and touches it, feeling the coldness of the spray. And then, all of a sudden, I realize I'm next to him.

He's the factionless man I'd see in the Pit after hours, cleaning up after us initiates. If the factionless woman I met earlier truly is planning a revolution, she must be connected to many others, including this man here. It's worth a try.

"Well, look who's breaking curfew," the man chuckles. He lets go of the broom in his hand, lets it lean against the railing. "Are you one of those transfers? What, you miss my charming company?"

"Uh, you could say that." I think of the factionless woman's accusations. I reach into the pocket of my jeans and pull out the folded sheet of paper inside. "I'm here to pass on a note. To a person you might know."

I'm going to tell him, but then he beats me to it. He reveals that yes, he's in on the woman's revolutionary plans, and yes, he knows her name. She's called Ysabelle. "Isabelle but with a Y," he says. He tells me that yes, he'll give her the note.

I'm so relieved. "You can read what I wrote, I don't care," I say. "And thanks."

I turn back toward the dormitory, but before I take my attention away from the man completely, I watch as he opens up the note to read what it says.

To the one who gave me the book -

You were right. I'll come back someday.

-T.E.

P.S. Thanks for letting me know what I was missing.


I get a response the very next morning.

Ysabelle was sure she could recruit me before, but now things aren't as certain. There's been some conflict brewing between the biggest names in the movement, including "E," the person recognized by the factionless as their de facto leader. "E" wants me to join. Many of the others do not, and Ysabelle won't tell me why.

She writes that "E" herself will respond soon. I can only wait, and hope, and pray that the factionless will let me help. I also can't help wondering who this mysterious leader might be.


I'm crushed.

"E" wrote back to say that she can't guarantee my safety in the factionless sector. If I go there again, I'll have a target on my back, and most of those factionless who're willing to kill me are bigger and stronger than Ysabelle. The reason they hate me? They know who I'm related to.

"Your face is a familiar one to them," the factionless leader wrote. "That's why you should stay away."

Disappointment flooding through me, I fold the letter back up. I don't want to look at it again. I place it where it was originally, in a spot across from where I hid the Ceramics-final sculpture. The transfer dorm is mostly empty, so I have all the space I need.

I think for a minute. At first, I feel anger. I was about to turn my life around, join the revolution and make up for all my past wrongs against the factionless, and now they reject my efforts? All because of one man I happen to be related to? And I hate him as much as they do. It's not really fair, and I don't get why God would allow this to happen.

I spend the next few minutes working through it. I realize, regretfully, that I'm wrong. I don't have a right to be angry at the factionless. It's their revolution, their movement and their fight. I can't get mad at them for their very rational fears surrounding Marcus Eaton. This is what God intended for me to see, and I have to accept it.

So I write another note to the factionless leader, thanking her for trying, wishing her good luck in her fight for freedom. If it's not too much to ask, I write, can she please send me something in return?

I ask for more books, specifically books written by and about prominent Black leaders from U.S. history. I ask for a few photos of Chicago in the 1960s, and some of the neighborhood of Lawndale, where King stayed during his work with Operation Breadbasket. I close out the letter with yet another thank-you. It seems like a small ask, but for a factionless person, it'll be a big one.

When I leave the transfer dorm, I see Bernard, the factionless man I approached earlier. He agrees to pass my note to "E." I can't thank him enough. When I'm sure the cameras won't catch it, I slip him some of my monthly credits via my Dauntless-issued card. He says he considers me a friend now.

Now I need to find something worthy to give to "E." She's another friend I have in this fight.


The Dauntless will tell you, from day one, that your career options in their faction are limited. That you can choose to fight, showboat, or protect. Those are the three main avenues to a successful Dauntless life.

Not surprising that I considered trading it all for a spot in the factionless revolution. But that isn't the plan God has for me. I'll be staying in my chosen faction, for better or for worse.

Doesn't mean I'll let myself adopt the toxic traits many Dauntless have. I've grown wiser. I've learned I don't need to lose what made me Abnegation, in order to be truly Dauntless. And I won't. I'll choose to follow God above all. So I'll choose another career path. I'll aim to beat Eric and become a Dauntless leader before he does.

And once I'm in that position of power, I'll keep the promises I made to the factionless in this city. I'll work to make a change in this faction, to do to the least of us what I would have done unto me. I'll do as Jesus would have me do. I'll remember what King said about the responsibilities we have to the poor and downtrodden.

And I won't be changed by the corrupt leadership. Even if said leadership includes my own best friend.


The simulation stage has resumed. Every day, Amar subjects them to a new fear. Fear of drowning, of dying alone, of getting strangled, or even something like public speaking. "But don't worry," Amar keeps saying to them. "I'm the only one who can see your fears."

What good does that do? Eric wonders. One person knowing his fears is one person too many.

Not like Amar would listen if he said that. They're standing outside the simulation room now. Eric just keeps his mouth shut as his instructor talks, then he sees one person raise his hand nervously.

"What happens if we get… post-traumatic stress?" the kid asks.

"You deal with it on your own," Amar replies without missing a beat. "This isn't grade school, and I'm not your nurse. We'll monitor your progress by keeping track of your times. The faster you can exit the simulation, the better."

Nobody mentions the initiates' mental health after that. Eric thinks maybe that's a blessing in disguise. Now there won't be anything to sidetrack them, nothing they can use to excuse their failed attempts. It'll just be them, the fears they're trying hard to defeat, and their strong will to survive.


My day was made today, and then the rug was pulled out from under me. It's like I can't even be happy anymore, knowing the things I know.

Early this morning, Bernard came to get me. He said he had a package for me. Inside it was everything I requested from "E" and more. I got down on one knee, thanked God, and almost cried tears of joy in the transfer dorm.

First of all, the books. The books! They were all old paperbacks, and I was able to scan through some of the titles. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings were just a couple of the ones that stood out. Yes, it's screwed up that my own people's history was buried for so long, but the factionless have miraculously uncovered it.

The historical photos, too. The factionless leader managed to get for me five pictures taken in Lawndale in the 1960s, and several more taken elsewhere in Chicago at the same time. In a separate folder was an even larger collection of photos, some of them older, others taken more recently.

I'm still thinking about the images I saw. A photo of a Black teen girl with short, curly hair and glasses, walking forward stoically as several white women follow her, hostile expressions on their faces. A photo with two Black men looking solemnly downward as both raise their fists in the air, most likely in a show of protest. An old photograph depicting Martin Luther King, Jr. next to another Black man, one whose name I don't yet know, who wears glasses and a wide smile.

But I didn't get to investigate further. Shortly after, Amar took us transfers down to the simulation room. He made me go in first, and I couldn't have been prepared for what I saw in the sim.

I saw Lawndale. Lawndale, Chicago, sometime in the late 1960s. Exactly how it was depicted in the pictures that "E" sent me. I looked down at my hands, just to make sure I was still me. And I was, but my hands were smaller. I was no longer sixteen. I was eight or nine or ten again, just a little boy growing up in the U.S.A.

Marcus was at his construction job, leaving me to pass the time alone. I remembered meeting Eric for the first time. I remembered him saying he and his family just moved to Chicago from San Francisco. His mom had moved from Thailand, and his dad was an army officer who'd served in Vietnam.

I also remembered him letting me borrow his soccer ball. I was kicking it around in the street at the moment the simulation began. I wished Eric himself could be there, but he had some after-school activity.

Then the sound of footsteps distracted me. I looked up from the soccer ball and saw a short white girl walking by. She had brown hair and bangs cut straight across her forehead. She smiled at me, and her whole face seemed to glow. She's so pretty, I remember thinking.

I started to say hello to her. But just then, a fat blonde lady walked up next to her, took her hand, and pulled her away. She whispered something in the girl's ear, and though it was quiet, I heard everything she said. "Get out of that street," she hissed. "You don't want to be associated too closely with those people."

The brown-haired girl never looked my way again. I was surprised by how much that hurt.

When I first heard the woman say what she said, I felt an imagined sharp point puncture my heart. My chest grew tight as the seconds passed, and my breaths hitched in my throat. The more I stared at the woman, seeing the look she wore, the deeper the point in my heart rooted itself, and the more painfully it twisted.

I didn't want to play outside any longer. I went back to the house I knew was mine.

There I stayed until Marcus arrived from work. When he came in, I knew he'd had a very bad day. There seemed to be a dark cloud hanging over his head. He kept muttering something under his breath about "those white devils." But he didn't disclose what happened at his job, or who got him so mad.

Later, I was working to finish an art project, and I was in the same room as Marcus. I accidentally spilled some drops of paint on the top of his shoe. The look he gave me made me think I just committed murder. I said I was sorry, and then I looked away, afraid of his anger. But my looking away just made him even madder.

He started on this long rant about why can't I behave myself and why don't I show respect to my elders, this is why the white people look at me like I'm just a kid from the ghetto. I was apologizing when he suddenly exploded at me.

One second he was still in his chair, the next second he was holding his belt over his head. And then it came down on my back and I was screaming in pain and crying sudden tears, tears I wished I weren't crying, because I feel weak every time I cry.

Still, the tears weren't as bad as the dread that sat like a viper in my stomach. Because I knew that what I was experiencing wasn't fake. No, it had certainly happened for real, just during a time before I was born. And if not in my own family, then whose? Zeke's? Amar's? Shauna's? The version of Marcus I saw before me was the man King described in his book, the man who beat his wife or children seemingly out of nowhere, but only because he had no outlet for his frustration over oppression. "His rage and torment were frequently turned inward, because if they gained outward expression their consequences could be fatal."

I'm back in my dorm now. I'm waiting for Shauna to finish up so we can go on that date we planned. I pray it'll go well. But I'm still shaking in my boots, still trying to forget what happened in the sim. I have to ask God to give me greater strength.

The Candor got things half right, I think. The truth may set you free, but it'll wound you so badly in the process, you'll almost wish you stayed ignorant.

AN: Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? is the property of Beacon Press and Martin Luther King, Jr. I do not own any content in this chapter that references this work.

The photos Tobias described are all actual photos from American history. The first one he described depicts Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, walking to school while being harassed by white people against integration. The second depicts Olympic athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists in a Black Power salute during their medal ceremony. The third depicts Martin Luther King, Jr. with Malcolm X during their only meeting together.

Tobias spilling paint on Marcus' shoe is a reference to the ending of August Wilson's play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which takes place in Chicago in the 1920s.