𝑭𝑶𝑼𝑹 𝑴𝑶𝑹𝑨𝑵𝑻 . Tobias Eaton

*ೃ༄ 12 ༄ೃ*

Al was right, the city feared Dauntless, they feared how Dauntless didn't fear, I think that's why I fell in love with Dauntless as a kid. They weren't afraid to take risks, and they believed in standing up for others, to protect our city but these new rules only seem to be teaching to protect ourselves and unlike Al, I believe that I can't protect myself.

We walk into the training room and join beside Sarai and Will where more new fighters were put up on the board. I see Sarai's face slightly beam, she must've not been picked, I scan the screen for my name and my face slightly falls, I'm beside Molly. The same ruthless girl that beat Sarai yesterday. I put an anxious hand behind my neck and looked over to Sarai, her eyes filled with worry.

"Come on Nose we haven't got all day!" Eric exclaimed as Molly already stood in the centre of the fighting mat.

I avoided the glares coming from the rest of the initiates and walk onto the mat. The skin inside my mouth has nearly been chewed a part as anxiety flows through my body, I'm not ready, nowhere near ready to fight Molly, yet that didn't stop Eric from choosing me to be against her.

Molly's ugly laugh bellowed across the room as she looks to me as though I'm nothing. Her fists were in the air and I copy her moves. She jumps up and down from her spot and waits for Eric to move off the mat. He stands beside Four, who has his arms crossed as he intensively watches me.

Molly's mischievous look disappears. Her arm twitches and pain stabs my jaw and spreads across my face, making my vision go black at the edges and my ears ring. I blink and lurch to the side as the room dips and sways. I don't remember her fist coming at me.

I am too off-balance to do anything but move away from her, as far as the arena will allow. She darts in front of me and kicks me hard in the stomach. Her foot forces the air from my lungs and it hurts, hurts so badly I can't breathe, or maybe that's because of the kick, I don't know, I just fall.

On your feet is the only thought in my mind. I push myself up, but Molly is already there. She grabs my hair with one hand and punches me in the nose with the other. This pain is different, less like a stab and more like a crackle, crackling in my brain, spotting my vision with different colors, blue, green, red. I try to shove her off, my hands slapping at her arms, and she punches me again, this time in the ribs. My face is wet. Bloody nose. More red, I guess, but I'm too dizzy to look down.

She shoves me and I fall again, scraping my hands on the ground, blinking, sluggish and slow and hot. I cough and drag myself to my feet. I really should be lying down if the room is spinning this fast. And Molly spins around me; I am the centre of a spinning planet, the only thing staying still. Something hits me from the side and I almost fall over again.

On my feet on my feet. I see a solid mass in front of me, a body. I punch as hard as I can, and my fist hits something soft. Molly barely groans, and smacks my ear with the flat of her palm, laughing under her breath. I hear ringing and try to blink some of the black patches out of my eyes; how did something get in my eye?

My knees give out and the floor is cool against my cheek. Something slams into my side and I scream for the first time, a high screech that belongs to someone else and not me, and it slams into my side again, and I can't see anything at all, not even whatever is right in front of my face, the lights out. Someone shouts, "Enough!" and I think too much and nothing at all.

When I wake up, I don't feel much, but the inside of my head is fuzzy, like it's packed with cotton balls.

I know that I lost, and the only thing keeping the pain at bay is what is making it difficult to think straight.

"Is her eye already black?" someone asks.