𝑭𝑶𝑼𝑹 𝑴𝑶𝑹𝑨𝑵𝑻 . Tobias Eaton

*ೃ༄ 2 ༄ೃ*

I gasped as I was detached from what felt like reality as I woke up in the familiar room that I once was in. My breath quickly recovered.

"Get up." Tori ordered, grabbing my wrist. "We're going out the back door before a supervisor comes." She panicked ushering me to get up.

"But what was my result?" I asked.

"Come on!" Tori encouraged.

"What happened, I want to know!" I sternly asked, as I halted near the door.

Tori looked at me seriously, "You're going to tell your Mum and your brother the serum made you sick and that I sent you home, alright?"

"My mum would never believe that, she ensured that the serum was safe." I paused, trying to look for answers in her expression, "what was my result?" I panicked.

"Erudite... And Abnegation. And Dauntless."

"Dauntless..." I was speechless, staring at her as my throat tightened, making it hard to talk. I should be worried right now but I got Dauntless, a faction that I wished I was in for a long time.

"Aurora, your results were inconclusive," she says. "Typically, each stage of the simulation eliminates one or more of the factions, but in your case, only two have been ruled out."

"Wait," I interrupt her. "So, you have no idea what my aptitude is?"

"People who get this kind of result are . . ." She looks over her shoulder like she expects someone to appear behind her. ". . . are called . . . Divergent." She says the last word so quietly that I almost don't hear it, and her tense, worried look returns. She leans in close to me.

"Aurora," she says, "under no circumstances should you share that information with anyone. This is very important. Not even your mum or your brother. As far as the world is concerned, you received an erudite result because...that is what I manually entered."

"So, what am I supposed to do at the choosing ceremony. I was supposed to learn what to do. This was supposed to tell me what faction to choose, the test. I am told, all of us are told to trust the test!"

"-The test didn't work on you. You must trust yourself." Tori finally worded, opening the door as she shoved me out, slowly closing the door behind her, my stare desperate but her face soon disappearing behind the door.

I looked around and put my hand on my head, not understanding the incident that had just occurred. Although, I was born into erudite, expected to know what to do, I felt stuck on this one. I liked Erudite, but I knew deep down, I wasn't one of them.

I decided not to take the bus. If I get home early, my mother will notice when she checks my room at the end of the day, and I'll have to explain what happened. Instead, I walk. I'll have to intercept Parker before he mentions anything to our mum, but Parker can keep it a secret.

I walk in the middle of the road. The buses tend to hug the curb, so it's safer here. Sometimes, on the streets near the building I live in, I can see places where the yellow lines used to be. We have no use for them now that there are so few cars. We don't need stoplights, either, but in some places, they dangle precariously over the road like they might crash down any minute.

Renovation moves slowly through the city, which is a patchwork of new, clean buildings and old, crumbling ones. Most of the new buildings are next to the marsh, which used to be a lake a long time ago. The Abnegation volunteer agency is responsible for most of those renovations.

When I look at the Erudite lifestyle as an outsider, I think it's beneficial. When I watch my family move in wisdom; when we go to dinner parties and everyone takes a drink together afterward without having to be asked just so that we can celebrate our input to the human mind; when I see Parker be so enthusiastic of the discoveries he has made, I fall in love with this life all over again. It's only when I try to live it myself that I have trouble. It never feels genuine.

But choosing a different faction means I forsake my family. Permanently. But after all, faction before blood, right?

Just past the Abnegation sector of the city is the stretch of building skeletons and broken sidewalks that I now walk through. There are places where the road has completely collapsed, revealing sewer systems and empty subways that I must be careful to avoid, and places that stink so powerfully of sewage and trash that I must plug my nose. I rarely come down here, but as I must kill a few hours, why not?

This is where the factionless live. Because they failed to complete initiation into whatever faction they chose, they live in poverty, doing the work no one else wants to do. They are janitors and construction workers and garbage collectors; they make fabric and operate trains and drive buses. In return for their work, they get food and clothing, usually from the help of abnegation.

I see a factionless man standing on the corner up ahead. He wears ragged brown clothing and skin sags from his jaw. He stares at me, and I stare back at him, unable to look away.

"Excuse me," he says. His voice is raspy. "Do you have something I can eat?"

I feel a lump in my throat. A stern voice in my head says, duck your head and keep walking.

No. I shake my head. I should not be afraid of this man. He needs help yet I feel not a drop of sympathy for him in my blood. Am I really Abnegation?

"Um . . . no," I say. Defending my bag. My mother tells me to never keep food in my bag for exactly this reason.

He reaches towards me, but instead of snatching the bag, his hand closes around my wrist. He smiles at me. He has a gap between his front teeth.

"My, don't you have pretty eyes," he says. "It's a shame the rest of you is so plain and emotionless."

My heart pounds. I tug my hand back, but his grip tightens. I smell something acrid and unpleasant on his breath.

"You look a little young to be walking around by your-self, dear," he says.

I stop tugging and stand up straighter. I know I look young; I don't need to be reminded. "I'm older than I look," I retort. "I'm seventeen."

His lips spread wide, revealing a grey molar with a dark pit in the side. I can't tell if he's smiling or grimacing. "Then isn't today a special day for you? The day before you choose?"

"Let go of me," I say. I hear ringing in my ears. My voice sounds clear and stern—not what I expected to hear. I feel like it doesn't belong to me.

I am ready. I know what to do. I picture myself bringing my elbow back and hitting him. I see the bag flying away from me. I hear my running footsteps. I am prepared to act.

But then he releases my wrist, ignores my bag, and says, "Choose wisely, little girl."