"𝘼 𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙨 𝙨𝙤 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡𝙮,
𝙎𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙩𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙬 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙨.
𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙙𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙨 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙪𝙥 𝙝𝙞𝙜𝙝?
𝙄 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙𝙣'𝙩 𝙨𝙖𝙮. 𝙄 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚."
𝘛𝘰𝘰 𝘔𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘐𝘴 𝘕𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘌𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 - 𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 + 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘦
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"Guys, come on!" You cried, dragging Al further down the corridor by his sleeve. The rest of your group trailed loosely behind you, laughing as Al shot them a pleading look behind your back. Giddiness was rippling through you like a stone on the still surface of a pond. You can't remember the last time this summer you felt this carefree. This happy. "Come on, come on, come on!"
"Hold your horses!" Christina called after you, but you and Al had already turned the corner and disappeared. He was the first victim of your excitement, gladly going wherever you dragged him.
Beside her, Will bent down to mumble in her ear. "What's left of them, anyway."
"Heard that!"
Ever since you found out about the annual trip to the wall, you hadn't stopped talking about it. Every meal, every break between training exercises, every night before bed. Everyone needed an escape from training at this point and you especially were almost vibrating with the anticipation of seeing your home – your old home – even if it was just from afar.
Only half of your class had boarded the shuttle by the time it kicked into gear and began sputtering down the tracks. Al hopped on ahead of you, nearly tripping and missing the door entirely. He swung his arm back down to hoist you up into the emptied cargo bay with one effortless tug, making sure you were steady on your feet before reaching back down for Tris and the others.
As the rest of the trainees jogged beside the moving train car, you crossed the grated floor and stuck your head out of the open window, watching eagerly as the crumbling city disappeared and fields of tall wheatgrass overtook your vision.
The smells of Amity grew stronger the closer you approached the tall fence of steel and stone. Ripe citrus and barley hay. If you closed your eyes, you could imagine yourself on the back of a horse, galloping through one of the open pastures instead of clinging to the walls of a fifty-ton iron machine.
Damn, you missed horses. You missed freedom.
You'd forgotten just how close the two territories truly were. You always felt so isolated when all you could see ahead of you was farmland. Even in Dauntless the rest of Chicago felt eons away when you spent every moment of every day holed up in that dark underground facility.
When the rusted breaks began squealing under your feet, you were the very first one to scale the distance between the train and the dry grassy hills below — ignoring Four's calls for you to wait up for everyone else in your group.
He seemed put off by your presence ever since he first read your name from the roster that morning. He seemed defeated; bitter. You tried, but you couldn't wrack your brain for anything you might have done to make him mad at you. Besides your below-average rank on the scoreboard, of course.
You formed the head of the loose single-file line that measured the length of the rickety staircase running up the side of the wall. With each step, you pulled yourself closer and closer to the very top.
No one told you what it would be like; looking down at everything you've ever known as if you'd somehow risen high above it. But then again, no one back at the compound had ever come from Amity. You were the very first.
The fields rolled out for miles around, painting the horizon in lush grass and endless rows of heavy-hanging fruit.
You knew it was going to hit you but you never imagined it would strike so hard — the majesty of it all. You felt larger than life. You felt smaller than you ever thought you could feel. And if the inkling of terror swimming in the back of your head was anything to go by, these conflicting thoughts scared the living shit out of you.
A silent gust of wind echoed past and made you teeter in place, feet shifting on the ledge. The cicadas were crying out fifty feet below, warning you to step back before you slipped and joined them down in the greenery. Reaching out blindly behind you, you latched onto the shoulder of Peter's jacket, trusting him to hold you steady.
"That's the orchard." You easily picked out the tight grouping of familiar trees, pointing to it across the pastureland. "And right there is the watering hole. And over there, like, way over there, that's where we take the sheep to graze in the winter."
Everyday places you never thought twice about glistened in the dim golden light like a mirage. It was like you could feel the purest form of Amity peacefulness flowing right back into your body, dispelling all of the fortitude and grit that had been force-fed to you all through your first few weeks away.
Your electrified buzz started to die off after a minute or two of rambling and you were just happy to settle back against one of the thick steel beams that ran along behind the wide catwalk.
Tris perched herself beside you. Her tawny brown hair whipped against the side of her face, but she ignored it to squint out past the horizon line. "What's out there?"
"Monsters," said Peter, eyeing you with a loose smile. He'd been waiting all morning for the opportunity to piss you off and something told him that this was the moment he'd been oh so patient for.
"Amity farms," Will answered seriously, neglecting to acknowledge Peter's joke in favor of nodding toward you. "Haven't you been listening to our lecture?"
You swatted him on the arm.
Tris shook her head, not letting her eyes fall away from the scene laid out before her. "No, I know. But beyond that."
Everyone on the fence turned to you for the answer, but you could only shrug. You've only ever heard the rumors – fireside stories of ghosts and savage beasts that walk the plains while the farmers sleep. But if anyone knew for certain, it definitely wasn't you.
In the corner of your eye, you caught sight of Four lingering near the back, refusing to look up past the edge of the cement catwalk. When he caught your eye, he held it there like he was trying his best not to acknowledge the world beyond your shoulder.
"Do you know?" you asked, although you were sure that the Dauntless guards had woven almost the exact same stories as your farmers. Stories were all they were. Fables. Myths.
Four cleared his throat and glanced up at the clouds before taking another cautious step back toward the staircase. "Let's just say they built the wall for a reason."
This answer settled uneasily over the ex-Erudite to your left and its vague nature left all of you with even more questions than you started with.
"Alright," Four clapped, jerking his head back toward the empty train car that was waiting for you on the ground. "Back on the train. Let's move."
A low, disapproving grumble made its way through the mass of initiates as your classmates began pushing and pulling each other on their way toward the stairs. You felt bodies move behind you, but Tris's question had disturbed some untouched curiosity inside of you and you found yourself unable to tear your eyes away from the horizon.
It always looked so empty before. So unassuming. But tiny, distorted figures glinting in the setting sunlight seemed to move just beyond the last meadow of Amity territory.
You narrowed your eyes, drawing closer to the edge. Was it just your imagination, or was there something moving out there?
"Initiate, I said let's go," Four barked. Something about being up there was making him tense. Maybe he too felt like he was being overseen by this invisible thing. Or maybe his unease had more to do with how far up from the ground you were.
His command fell on deaf ears and your knees wobbled as you drifted too close to the crumbling ledge before getting swept up in a sudden riptide of wind that made you lose your balance all together.
"(Y/N)!" Four shouted, but like your body, his voice was swept up and lost by the sudden zephyr. You felt a rough yank as his arm hooked around your front and hauled you back onto the safety of the wall. You barely registered that you had been inches from falling but when you finally caught up, you latched your fingers around the bulk of Four's forearm, letting him anchor the both of you against one of the heavy supportive posts.
He turned so that his back was once again facing the fields. A shudder rolled through his body ー you could feel it. A heavy beat passes before either of you said anything and you lulled your heartbeat back to normal by matching pace with his labored gasps of air.
"You alright?" He panted, eyes screwed shut.
The sun was setting now; burnt golden light blinding you and obscuring any monster that may or may not have been out there before. "Ye-Yeah. I'm...I'm sorry."
Four locked his arm tighter around your waist, making sure you wouldn't just go flying off again, before slowly loosening his grip. "Don't be sorry. Just...be more careful."
There was a commotion from down below ー people from your class calling up the stairs, wondering where you were. Four glared them down, gaze hardening right back up like he didn't just save your life out of the goodness of his stone-cold heart. "Take a minute," he rasped, purposefully not meeting your eye. "As long as you need. We'll be waiting."
You couldn't conjure the right words so he accepted your dazed nod and shrugged off down the steps as if his life depended on it. You didn't brave a single step closer to the ledge, afraid of what might happen while Four wasn't there to swoop in and rescue you. Instead, you sank down the length of the beam until you were sitting against the rough cement platform, planting yourself there for as long as it took to feel safe again.
(A/N: I cut a line from the end that was something about it being her last 'Amity sunset' but im trying so hard to drift away from her talking about her old faction. Cause Tris like immediately forgot that she was Abnegation after she defected. I digress. Happy reading! My hyperfixiation is going away, I can feel it, so expect like regular updates for my other books soon!)