Our entry into the Merciless Mart is impressive. Candors fill the entrance hall, and Karen has to physically push her way through to clear a path for us. As we walk over the white tiled floor, Ava tells me there is a set of black scales imprinted into it, in black tiles. It is the symbol of Candor.
Karen leads us to the edge of the entrance hall and opens a small door set into the wall which I hadn't noticed before. There is a sign on it: No entry for unauthorised personal. I hesitate slightly as Karen opens the door and walks in, but Harvey and Ed push me from behind, explaining we are authorised personal.
On the other side of the door is a small, winding staircase that spirals up for several flights. The walls, floor and ceiling are all covered in black tiles, and the colour absorbs the little light coming from the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The overall effect makes the space feel quite small and dingy, and my claustrophobia begins to kick in. But, just as I begin to start panicking and hyperventilating, we reach the top of the staircase and Karen pushes through a door, leading us into a large room.
We appear to be at the top of the building, and the round room has walls made of glass, giving us a view of the whole city. The roof is a large, glass dome which makes the room feel airy and spacious. The door we just came out of is set into a small, black tiled cylinder which sticks up from the floor in the centre of the room like a podium. On the other side of this box that contains the staircase are the beds. They line the edge of the room, each one with a white sheet and pillow, and a thick, black duvet.
On the opposite side of the room to the beds, directly across from us, are a group of white desks. I quickly count them, along with the beds. There are ten of both, one bed and one desk for each of us initiates. Set into the outside of the black podium with the door in are the rungs of a ladder, and I look up to the top, where a rope ladder hangs down. My eyes move up again, to the top of the ladder, and I can see that there is a floor made of glass within the dome, with a hole in the middle where the rope ladder comes out from.
“Right then.” Karen says, turning back to us once we have all had enough time to take anything in. “As initiates of Candor, you will be required to sleep here, in the initiate dormitory. There is one desk and one bed for each of you, and you are allowed to pick which one you would like. Up there,” She gestured us to the glass floor above us, “Is where the individual section of the initiation process will take, along with certain other things. While we are not Dauntless, we do expect you to be able to climb up the ladder, so be warned. While it is not in use, you may use it for whatever you want. It is now 6 o’clock, and tea starts to be served at half past in the dining room. I will come and collect you at quarter to seven to take you down for tea. Until then, I will leave you to settle in. Does anyone have any questions?”
A couple of hands shoot up and a middle height girl with brown hair and a pair of large, tortoise shell glasses speaks first. She is wearing a pair of red jeans and a yellow top: Amity transfer.
“What’s your name?” She asks
“My name is Karen. I am going to be running initiation this year, so you’ll need to remember that.” Karen replies and her eyes meet with mine.
Another girl pipes up. She has shoulder length blonde hair and a pair of red glasses on. She is also quite short, so she has to stand on her tiptoes to get her hand above the level of everyone else’s head. She is wearing a pair of red tights and yellow dungarees. Her hair is in bunches, and this along with her height and outfit makes her look very young, more like a 10 year old than a 16 year old.
“What’s the ‘individual section of initiation’?” She asks, looking slightly confused and scared at the prospect of it.
“Ah. Well, initiation is split up into three stages, rather like the Dauntless process of initiation.” Karen begins to explain, her eyes finding me at the name of my old faction. “The first stage is individual. Basically, I take you up there, one by one; give you some of the truth serum. I give you a piece of information and then ask you about it, you have to try and lie to me.”
“What’s the second and third part?” Ed asks from the back, looking scared and white faced.
“Edward, put your hand up when you would like to ask a question.” Karen says coldly, but she still answers his question.
“The second stage is more of a learning process. I will teach you the basics of telling when people are lying, and then you will sit in a circle around me as I give you pieces of information. Some of the information will be true, some will be lies. You will have to decipher which is which. I may also get some other people to try and lie to you, so you will get to see how different people react when they lie. The third stage is the hardest, and most embarrassing. Everyone will sit in a circle upstairs, and one by one you will sit in a chair in the middle. You will be put under the truth serum and asked to tell everyone your deepest secrets. The idea is that once everyone knows, you will never feel the urge to lie again.”
At this point, while everyone else is silent to let that information settle in, I stick my hand up. Karen nods at me, saying ‘Yes?’ but her eyes are filled with warning. She’s telling me not to give too much away.
“What happens at the end of initiation?” I asked. “Do we all just get in, or are some made factionless, because back in Dauntless there was a big final test that decided who got in and who didn’t-”
“Shut up about Dauntless.” Came a sneer from the girl next to me. She had long, brown hair tied up in a ponytail down her back and she wore a pair of black jeans and a white t-shirt: Candor born. I was slightly confused; I hadn’t seen her at the Choosing Ceremony. Or on the bus. Where had she come from? When I looked at them I saw that Ava, Harvey, Ed and Karen were all looking at her quizzically, as if they hadn’t seen her before. But didn’t this girl come from the same faction as them? Surely they must’ve seen her somewhere before.
“Pipe down, uhhh…..” Karen said, and then tailed off. “Sorry, what’s your name?”
“Johanna.” The horrible girl replied with a smirk.
“Well, Johanna, there’s no need to be so rude. She is perfectly entitled to talk about Dauntless.” Karen said firmly, and then turned to me. “At the end of stage three there will be a test. You will be put under the truth serum in one of the interrogation rooms and anyone in Candor can come and watch. You will then be asked personal questions, and be asked to spill your darkest secrets. Most likely, none of you will be cut, unlike Dauntless.”
Karen smiled, and then nodded, waiting to see if there were anymore questions. None came, so she opened the door and left.
All ten of us initiates stood still for a moment, and then Harvey sprinted and launched himself onto the bed next to a heater.
“Bagsy I get this one!” He shouted, and Ed laughed then followed his lead and dived onto the bed next to him. After that, the dorm was filled with the sounds of screams and laughter as everyone chose beds and desks. Sarah, one of the Abegnation twins, couldn’t get out of her Abegnation instincts, and ended up getting the worst bed and desk, because she let everyone else chose first.
After beds and desks had been decided, we all sat down in a circle and introduced ourselves. I already knew Harvey, Ed, Sarah and Ava, and everyone knew Johanna, after her nasty dig at me. There were four other people as well. The girl with the brown hair who had asked Karen her name was called Maisy, and the small blonde one in bunches was called Georgia. There were also Thomas and Abbey, who were both transfers from Erudite. Thomas was the blonde boy who had been first in the Choosing Ceremony, and Abbey had dark brown hair and chocolate coloured eyes.
At quarter to seven, Karen appeared again. She led the initiates back down the winding staircase and through the entrance. Now the large crowd had dispersed and there were only a few Candor people milling around, I could see the large, black, unbalanced scales on the floor. We were led over the scales and through the large double doors in the middle, and then we turned right at the bottom of the staircase and through the double doors, into the cafeteria.
It was a large room, tiled entirely in white. Rather like the Dauntless cafeteria, there was a food counter at one end giving out hot meals, and a long table down one side with cold meals. Round, white topped tables were scattered about the empty floor space and there was a pile of trays and plates next to the doors. Following the lead of Karen and the Candor born initiates, I picked up a tray and plate and followed them to the counter.
As we walked past the Candor cheered. Their cheering was different to the Dauntless. It wasn’t loud and raucous; it didn’t have the disjointed clapping and foot stamping. The clapping was more polite, the sort or clapping you would hear at a school assembly when someone had won a spelling prize or something like that. The cheering was loud, but not mad and wild like Dauntless. A wolf whistle came from somewhere, but when I found the source, a man staring at a girl on the opposite room, I realised it wasn’t directed at us.
At the counter we put our trays on some weird of weird metal rack that we could slide them along while we waited for our food. There were large menus at either end and I ordered something I’d not heard of before: macaroni cheese. It seemed to be some sort of long, tube-like past in a yellow source that tasted vaguely like cheese. When Ava saw what I’d got she pointedly said that it was very plain, and it wasn’t a very exciting dish. Maybe that’s why Dauntless didn’t have it. All the meals in Dauntless were hot and spicy, exciting. Curries were the favourite, and chilli curry was the most popular.
After we’d picked up our hot meals we went over to the tables at the edge and picked up puddings. Some of the initiates, like Sarah, hadn’t wanted one of the hot meals and instead got salads and sandwiches from the table.
It seemed the Candor had an equivalent of Dauntless cake: Ice-cream. I helped myself to a bowl of it, and Ava passed me some chocolate sauce and sprinkles. She said that the ice-cream was very creamy and rich, but without sprinkles or sauce, or both, it could be a bit plain and a bit overpowering if you had a large portion. I blushed at this, realising me was hinting at how big a bowl I had.
All of the initiates sat down at a large, round table in the corner with Karen. Us transfers tucked in and didn’t talk, just enjoying the different food, while the Candor Born chatted politely to Karen. When I had finished my macaroni cheese – which was delicious – and looked around, I noticed that Johanna wasn’t sitting with us. I pointed this out to Karen and she looked confused, and then spotted her at the other side of the room sitting on a table for one person. Karen bristled indignantly and marched briskly over. We all watched as a heated argument followed. It was mainly one way, as Karen was raising her voice and wafting her hands around, pointing back at us, while Johanna just continued to slowly much away at her salad and refused to acknowledge Karen. Finally, Karen stormed back, bright red in rage and embarrassment. She sat down heavily and viciously attacked her lettuce, refusing to look at Johanna or talk to us. The rest of us finished in silence, apart from the occasional murmur to pass the water jug, and when we were finished Karen led us back out of the dining room and through the entrance. She opened the door to the stairs for us and waved us up, but didn’t come up with us.
Johanna was already up there.