The Other Prior: Candice Prior || Divergent Fanfiction

Chapter 7: Initiation

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"Alright! Everybody up!"

Amar's voice echoes through our small dormitory, instructing us to get up. He then resorts to banging a metal stick on the wall resulting in a loud clanging sound.

"Stop! It's too early" I mutter under my breath, grumbling at the fact that I've barely had any sleep. A quick look at my watch tells me it's 6AM. Are you kidding me?!

I groan, totally forgetting I sleep on a bunk bed, kicking my legs over the side to get off the bed. My feet hit an unaware Mia who screams out in pain. Her scream wakes me up, causing me to be a little more careful as I climb off the bunk bed and apologize to her. We change, not worrying about being seen because It's too dark to make sense of anything and head out the door.I'm wearing the long sleeve top along with a pair of leggings, Mia is wearing a low cut tank-top with the same black leggings. Our previous factions show in our choice of clothing. The sight of her bare skin still feels odd to me.

Mia and I follow Amar, through the twisting glass staircases and dark stone tunnels, with the rest of the initiates lagging a few paces behind. We reach a large training area complete with mats, punching bags, and some other things I can't even identify.

"Today is the start of phase one of your initiation." Amar says loudly to the room at large. "The first stage is all about physical fighting. We will start, by practicing with the punching bags."

We all split up to find a punching bag. I find one at the corner of the room, but do not start punching immediately like the rest of my peers. Instead, I stand almost out of sight and observe.

My Erudite side kicking in, I notice everything. I notice Eric's stiff punches leads to a slouch in posture to cope. I notice Tobias seems to want to inflict pain on himself, hitting the punching bag harder and harder with each punch. Mia holds her guard up against her breasts, bouncing slightly as she punches. I notice the things Amar fixes. He fixes the way Eric holds his fists, Mia, her guards, the Candor-transfer, his punching style.

Slowly, I get into position, fully aware of every dip in my body. I ball my fists and get ready to punch. Once I start, my hands sting. My shoulders become sore from the force of the bag and sweat drips down my forehead. We go on like that, simply punching, until our knuckles split and a Candor transfer by the name of Bill, collapses on the floor.

"First Jumper! Take Bill to the infirmary!" I walk towards Bill and help him up slowly. His knuckles are split, though I think the primary reason for his collapse was exhaustion. I don't know where the infirmary is, but I don't ask either, scared of being taken for a fool. Instead, I help Bill out of the training room and sit him on the ground. I tell him to take a little bit of rest, ripping a small strand of fabric from my shirt and wrapping his knuckles with it. I pick up a stray water bottle, pour a little on his head to cool him down, and hand it to him to drink.

When I enter the training room again, Amar has already made pairs for fighting.

That jerk! With Bill gone, we are an uneven number of people. He's left me out of the pairing, using my absence to help Bill as an excuse to leave me out of the fighting. If anything, I need the fighting practice, so I need as many matches as I can get. My punches were definitely the weakest, and my stamina was the lowest. And he took away one of the only break fights I would get at the start.

I put away my bubbling anger because it's Mia's turn to fight. To fight Four.

"No." he says. "I can't fight her."

"And why not?" She asks, clearly disgruntled, mistaking Four's unwillingness to fight her for the fact that he thinks she's weak.

I understand his plight. We both have grown up in a faction that encourages following the rules of society. One of them simply being: Don't hit a girl. It's 19th century, old fashioned, but that's how he's grown up.