I was woken by the sound of clashing against the railing. As I pulled my body up to face the sound, it was four.
"I want everyone in the pit. Two minutes."
As we all gather up into the pit after getting ready, we stood in the middle ready to listen to Four and what he has to say.
"There are two stages of training. The first is physical. Push your bodies to the breaking point and you'll master the methods of combat. The second is mental, again breaking point. Face your worst fears and conquer them, unless they get you first. You will be trained separately from the dauntless born but you'll be ranked together. After initiations, ranking will determine what jobs you move into. Leadership, guarding the fence, or keeping the factionless from killing each other."
Eric then spoke up, "The second purpose is that the rankings will also determine who gets cut."
I look around the room where I meet Sarai's worried face.
"-Cut?" Sarai curiously questions.
"At the end of each stage of training, the lowest ranking initiates will be leaving us."
"To do what?" The boy, Al, interrupted.
"There's no going home to your families, so you'd live factionless."
Will, a friend from Erudite who was next to Al spoke up, "Why didn't we know that?"
"It's a new rule."
"But that's...not fair!" the broad-shouldered Candor girl, Molly, says. Even though she sounds angry, she looks terrified. "If we had known —"
"Are you saying that if you had known this before the Choosing Ceremony, you wouldn't have chosen Dauntless?" Eric snaps. "Because if that's the case, you should get out now. If you are really one of us, it won't matter to you that you might fail. And if it does, you are a coward."
"You chose us," he says. "Now we have to choose you."
We separate into sections dauntless born and transfers once again as four led us outside.
"The first thing you will learn today is how to shoot a gun. The second thing is how to win a fight." Four presses a gun into my palm without looking at me and keeps walking. "Thankfully, if you are here, you already know how to get on and off a moving train, so I don't need to teach you that."
I shouldn't be surprised that the Dauntless expect us to hit the ground running, but I anticipated more than six hours of rest before the running began. My body is still heavy from sleep.
"Initiation is divided into three stages. We will measure your progress and rank you according to your performance in each stage. The stages are not weighed equally in determining your final rank, so it is possible, though difficult, to drastically improve your rank over time."
I stare at the weapon in my hand.
"We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure to act in the midst of fear," says Four. "Therefore, each stage of initiation is intended to prepare you in a different way. The first stage is primarily physical; the second, primarily emotional; the third, primarily mental."
"But what..." Peter yawns through his words. "What does firing a gun have to do with...bravery?"
Four flips the gun in his hand, presses the barrel to Peter's forehead, and clicks a bullet into place. Peter freezes with his lips parted the yawn dead in his mouth.
"Wake. Up," Four snaps. "You are holding a loaded gun, you idiot. Act like it."
He lowers the gun. Once the immediate threat is gone, Peter's green eyes harden. I'm surprised he can stop himself from responding, after speaking his mind all his life in Candor, but he does, his cheeks red.
"And to answer your question... you are far less likely to soil your pants and cry for your mother if you're prepared to defend yourself." Four stops walking at the end of the row and turns on his heel. "This is also information you may need later in stage one. So, watch me."
He faces the wall with the targets on it—one square of plywood with three red circles on it for each of us. He stands with his feet apart, holds the gun in both hands, and fires. The bang is so loud it hurts my ears.
I turn to my own target. Mannequins were laid out in front.
I delicately wrap both hands around the handle of the gun. It's heavy and hard to lift away from my body, but I want it to be as far from my face as possible. I squeeze the trigger, hesitantly at first and then harder. The sound hurts my ears, and the recoil sends my hands back. I don't know where my bullet went, but I know it's not near the target.
Even from the two seconds of firing a gun, I needed to take a breath, and get use to recurring sounds of the gun. Looking over at Sarai, I notice her failed attempts at her firing, nearly missing each target as they bang against the wall from behind instead.
"Statistically speaking," I spoke up to Sarai, "you should have hit the target at least once by now, even by accident."
"Is that so," she says without inflection.
"Yeah," I reply. "I think you're actually defying nature."
"I would like to see you try then." Sarai challenged.
Looking back over to the dummy that was there. I repositioned my arm and gun so that it was facing the target. Keeping my elbows close to my sides and my eye examining the position and distance from the target, I already calculated the distance, speed and time it will take for the bullet to approach.
"Any day, I suppose?" Sarai replied, growing impatient.
Firing the trigger, I stood taller from my position and noticed that the bullet hit directly into and through the dummy's chest area. Turning my head ever so slightly to take a glimpse at Sarai's reaction.
"Impressive." She grins.
By continuing our practice before lunch, we decided to go for a run around the tracks of the city. Out of all the training that we have and are planning to do I think running was going to be easiest for me. Keeping up front, leaving Sarai a little behind, I was beside Peter, who continually kept nudging me.
Four noticed other leaders of Dauntless standing on the middle of the pathway to which he slowed down as we approached them.
"Hey. What've you got?" He asked.
"Factionless. Not doing anything." The man replied.
"Check it out, Nose. That's going to be your new family." Peter turned to me.
"Or yours." I suggest, giving a fake smile.
"Go say hi." He last spoke up as we continued to stare at them.
Returning for lunch, I move my peas around with my fork, and my thoughts drift back to the aptitude tests. When Tori warned me that being Divergent was dangerous, I felt like it was branded on my face, and if I so much as turned the wrong way, someone would see it. So far it hasn't been a problem, but that doesn't make me feel safe. What if I let my guard down and something terrible happens?
"Oh, come on. You don't remember me?" Sarai asks Al as she makes a sandwich. "We were in Math together just a few days ago. And I am not a quiet person."
"I slept through Math most of the time," Al replies. "It was first hour!"
What if the danger doesn't come soon—what if it strikes years from now and I never see it coming?
"Quinn," says Sarai. She snaps her fingers in front of my face. "You in there?"
"What? What is it?"
"I asked if you remember ever taking a class with me," she says. "I mean, no offense, but I probably wouldn't remember if you did. All the Erudites left our class quickly- too smart. I mean, they still do, but now you're not one of them."
I stare at her. As if I need her to remind me.
"Sorry, am I being rude?" she asks. "I'm used to just saying whatever is on my mind. Mum used to say that politeness is deception in pretty packaging."
"I think that's why our factions don't usually associate with each other," I say seriously. Candor and Erudite don't hate each other the way Erudite and Abnegation do, but they avoid each other. Candor's real problem is with Amity. Those who seek peace above all else, they say, will always deceive to keep the water calm.
"Can I sit here?" says Will, tapping the table with his finger.
"What, you don't want to hang out with your Erudite buddies?" says Sarai.
"They aren't my buddies," says Will, setting his plate down. "Just because we were in the same faction doesn't mean we get along. Plus, Edward and Myra are dating, and I would rather not be the third wheel."
Edward and Myra, the other Erudite transfers, sit two tables away, so close they bump elbows as they cut their food. Myra pauses to kiss Edward. I watch them carefully. I've only seen a few kisses in my life, and all of them were from Myra and Edward.
Edward turns his head and presses his lips to Myra's. Air hisses between my teeth, and I look away.
"Do they have to be so public?" I speak.
"She just kissed him." Al frowns at me. When he frowns, his thick eyebrows touch his eyelashes. "It's not like they're stripping naked."
"I saw them all the time at Erudite, I'd rather not see them here."
Al, Will, and Sarai, all give me the same knowing smile.
"What?" I speak.
"Your Erudite is showing," says Sarai. "The rest of us are all right with a little affection in public."
"Oh." I shrug. "I didn't mean it like show no affection, I just mean the whole tongue down each other's throat business... I'll guess I'll have to get used to it again."
"Or you can stay frigid," says Will, his green eyes glinting with mischief. "You know. If you want."
Sarai throws a roll at him. He catches it and bites it.
"That's not what I meant." I shook my head.
"Sure." Sarai teased as she lengthened the end of her word.