King of Dauntless

Chapter 19: Visiting Day

With a haze to my mind. Focused on getting rid of my nightmare I was distant and distracted; my body was running on muscle memory. I just kept going, losing track of time letting my emotions get the better of me.

I was roughly turned around pulling me from my thoughts.

"What are you doing here? There's no training today." Eric gruffly asked.

"I know." I muttered under my breath.

He takes a second to assess me, but I just avoid eye contact.

"Well then go get ready for visiting day." He told me in a tone daring me to challenge him. " Or did you forget about that too."

"Do I really need to go? It's not like anyones going to miss me." I muttered back, irritated to be kept from my workout.

Eric takes a big sigh as he looks me up and down, but his stares stop at my hands.

"Just go get ready. Whether someone shows up or not is not my problem. Now go!" He says with finality

Huffing out some air

"I didn't think it was mandatory." I whispered under my breath as I walked past him.

"What was that?" he quickly asked with his eyebrow raised

"Nothing." I mumbled as I stomped out of the training room.

I slowly make my way back to the dorms, sulking that my workout was interrupted. I get pushed and shoved by the busy crowds forming by all the people waiting for their families or even some of the family members that are already starting to flow in. I finally made it through the busy halls and got to the dorms to find it empty. I take this chance to get a shower.

Cold washes over me and my tense muscles. I take a couple deep breaths to warm my body up to the icy water streaming down my back. I feel the sting in my knuckles right as the water touches them; I look down at them only to see the blood flow away with the water leaving my broken tattered skin to heal, but not my frustration.

Visiting Day; Why do we even have this? I thought it was faction before blood. If you wanted to see your family you should have just stayed in your old faction. You choose who your new family was the day you went to a new faction, so why would they do this.

Coming out of my thoughts I decided to get out of the shower and get dressed. With a towel wrapped around my body I walked over to the chest at the end of my bed for my clothes, but just as I was pulling my clothes out someone entered the dorm.

"And this is where we sleep." Beth happily showed who I assumed were her parents.

With a startled look they got silent and just stared at me.

"Sorry." Beth squeaked out red in the face showing her embarrassment.

I drop my towel and stand in front of them naked.

"No problem." I tell her with a grin as I start pulling on my clothes.

Her and her family quickly shuffle out of the room with red faces and no eye contact, but unfortunately they weren't watching where they were going so her dad ran right into the wall.

Eric wont let me train and everywhere has people in every corner, so where am I going to go? I start to walk down the halls headed in the direction of the pit with no place in mind, until I hear the sound of rushing water.

I stand on the bridge to the chasm and just stare out over the edge and look down to the pit. I think about it for a second and then I walk over to the side and sit on the edge with my feet dangling off the edge. I absently watch the crowd of black with a bit of white and blue reminisce and catch up with each other.Who would have thought you would see a different color than black waltzing around dauntless. I smirk to myself.

My eyes slowly scan through the waves of people looking for any other color, maybe the familiar yellow and red I grew up around and grown to hate, but I knew I would have never seen those colors here.

I hear the steps of someone coming down the hall and as they grew closer I just expected them to keep walking but the stop right next to me. We just stay in silence for a minute until they finally clear their throat and speak.

"Mind if I sit with you." I hear the voice of four.

I look at him from the corner of my eye "Do as you please."

He slowly takes a seat next to me just sitting farther back from the edge. We sit in silence for a few more minutes until he speaks again.

"No family?"

I stay silent for a moment and think about ignoring him.

"No..." I quietly tell him.

"What about you, no family?" I counter back.

"Nope none for me." he chuckles.

We sit in silence again until I decided to break it.

"Why do we allow visiting day? We teach so much about faction is your only priority, so why do they let something like this go on; especially dauntless I thought they would have viewed this as weak."

"Well..." he thinks for a second. "It's still human nature to love your family, their blood after all. Well for some people I guess." he says with a thoughtful look. "I think this just gives everyone a little peace of mind that their loved ones are safe and well so they can go on in life. And I'm sure a lot of dauntless see it as weak like Eric." He jabs with a grin, gaining one in return. "But all the factions do it so we just stick with tradition."

I think about his response for a bit and then I think about other things.

"I wasn't expecting for anyone to show up for me." I solemnly tell him. "Everyone in Amity hated me; Including my parents." I softly tell him.

"I never fitted into their mold, never listened to the rules. I was the complete opposite of what an amity child should have been. They actually almost kicked me out of the faction." I laughed thinking about the thought.

"Really!" he said with surprise.

"Yeah one fight too many. Johanna was already at her wits end with me, so she told my parents that if they couldn't do something about it she would have to do something."

"Well good thing you found the right place. Their loss is our gain." Four states.

"You are honestly one of the best dauntless I have ever seen."

"Really?" I said breathlessly. 

"What the fuck are you two doing?" came the ruff voice of eric.

Startled, I jerk my head up to meet his angry gaze staring down at the both of us.

"Umm talking?" I stated more as a question out of confusion.

Completely disregarding me he turns his question towards Four.

"Aren't you spouse to be working today?"

"I'm on break." Four grited back, clenching his teeth.

"Well then get back to work." Eric orders.

Four stands up glaring at Eric. He takes a look back at me, nods his head and bumps shoulders with Eric before he heads down the hall back to work.

Eric glare is now directed back towards me, but he doesn't scold me or anything, just silence. I start to get uncomfortable with his silent stare on me. I then think of the last time we were at the chasm together; I shuffle back closer to the wall so I'm not on the edge.

"I thought I told you to go to visiting day." he finally says.

"I am. See I'm sitting here watching all the poor pitiful souls cry over someone they barely will ever know in their life." I tell him crudely.

He opens his mouth about to throw something back, but he just closes it and smirks.

"Ok." was his parting words as he walked away.

After a few more minutes of sitting there thinking I just started to feel tired. I watched as people started to finally say goodbye and started parting ways. I finally started heading back to the dorms for much needed sleep. Tomorrow is going to be the start of stage 2 so best to be prepared for whatever it may bring.