Dauntless Sweethearts

Chapter Roth (Four)

"Welcome to Dauntless!" the guy shouts. "Where you either face your fears and try not to die in the process, or you leave as a  coward. We've got a record low of faction transfers this year, unsurprisingly."

The Dauntless seem to cheer at the fact that not many want to transfer to their faction. They almost seemed to take it as a form of something to take pride in.

"The only way to get into the Dauntless compound from this rooftop is to jump off this ledge," the crazy guy saai, and my stomach drops. He opened his arms wide to indicate the empty space around im, and he tilted back on his heels as if he was going to fall, but straightened back up a few seconds later grinning.

"As usual, I offer the opportunity to go first to our initiates, Dauntless Born or not."

As the guy hopps down, Tris looks at me pleadingly as if begging for us to go first. I hate being up high, and the idea of jumping scared the shit out of me, but the look she gave me was one that she knew I couldn't resist, so we stepped foreward just before Zeke did. The guy smiled at us. Standing together on the ledge, I started to panic and think again about jumping, but Tris was already crouching ready to jump, so I copied her movements and jumped with her. We fell through the air, Tris twisting around so that she landed on her back, I wondered if she had come to the same conclusion as her brother had, and after what seemed like forever, we landed in a net. Max helps us out.

"It's not often we have two jump at the same time," he smiles at us.

We walk a little way away from the net, and the rest come one by one. When the last of the initiates got to the bottom, the guy who told us we had to jump hit the net seeming almost giddy from the thrill, but before he arrived, a couple Candor started harassing Tris.

"It looks like she's trying not to throw up," a Candor boy remarked.

"Just let it happen," the other boy added. "We'd love to see a show."

My response to how they were treating Tris, my Tris, came out of no where. "Shut up," I snapped, and to my surprise they do, that is until she actually does throw up, all over the second Candor.

"What'd you do that for?" the boy asked as everyone else laughed, including Tris and I.

Tris didn't respond, and the guy who told us to jump arrived. He beckons to all of the initiates, and we form a semicircle around him at the opening to  a large tunnel.

"My name is Amar, and I will be your initiation instructor. I grew up here, and three years ago, I passed initiation with flying colors, which means I get to be in charge of the newcomers for as long as I want. Lucky you.

"Dauntless Borns and transfers do most physical training seperately, so that the Dauntless Borns don't break the transfers right away," did I hear him say physical training? Please let there not be fights. Please let Tris not be pregnant because physical training would only cause problems with a pregnancy. "But we're trying something different this year. The Dauntless leaders and I want to see if knowing your fears before training will better prepare you for the rest of initiation. So before we even let you into the dining hall to have dinner, we're going to have some self-discovery. Follow me."

"What if I don't want to discover myself?" Zeke asked.

Amar just looked at him, and Zeke shrunk back into the group of Dauntless Borns he was with, and I could swear I saw that girl, Shauna, smack him on the back of his head. We are then lead down the tunnel to a door that leads into a dark room. Amar busied himself with setting up a machine before begining to explain.

"This is the fear landscape room," he announced without looking up. "A fear landscape is a simulation in which you confront your worst fears."

There was a line of syringes on a table next to the machine. They looked sinister to me, like torture devices, and knowing that they probably sent us into the fear landscape, I figured, they probably were.