A Place To Be Afraid

Chapter One

Chervyl Adams. In my home, Amity, it is just another name. Just as I am just another face. Another grinning girl who has everything she could ever want. Except I don't.

I know that I should be happy with what I have. My life is wonderful. My mother and father are kind and caring just as everyone in my faction are. My sister is the nicest person I know. And where I come from that's saying something. I have lots of friends. Other grinning teenagers who have everything in the world, and a best friend who I am as close to as I am my twin sister. But I am not happy. And that is not right.

Life should not be so peaceful. Everyday is calm. Routine. No one argues. No one so much as disagrees. It has always bothered me. I watch the dependents from other factions, and I am jealous.

They have debates. They playfully hit each other. They are not afraid of what others will feel. They are to busy feeling what they feel. I want that.

I shouldn't. But I do.

Yet the thought of changing factions has never occurred to me. I could never leave my sister Madeleine on her own. We are twins. We have not been the separated but for the brief time between her birth and mine. I could not leave Fe behind either. We are best friends. She is better at this than me. Dealing with the suffocating kindness. At least, I think she is. She might just be a very good actor.

But I have always yearned for more. A place where I am allowed to feel. Where I can be free of the wants of others. I would like a place like that. But when I do think about it, on the eve of Madeleine and my sixteenth birthday, I do not know where I would go. Abnegation is much to like Amity for it to help. I am not smart enough for Erudite. I do not know that I could be so completely honest as to belong to Candor. And I fear that I am not brave enough for Dauntless.

So, I decide, with these factors, and a fear of leaving behind those I love, I will stay in Amity. I will grow, and marry, and die, all the while pretending that I am happy. Perhaps one day, I truly will be happy. Maybe I could learn to love my home as my sister does.