Flower Child

Chapter Seven

   After dinner, Eric leads us to, well, I don't know. He didn't tell us. It was strange having a Dauntless leader watching over a bunch of initiates, unsettling. Eric himself is unsettling, something about him was just, wrong..
   We walk the maze of tunnels, in perpetual darkness for the most part, a single blue lamp at the end of each hallway. I try to make a map in my head, remembering little land marks, a water fountain here, a large crack in the wall there, every detail I can remember.
   Eric stops in front of a wood door and turns to look at us, his arms crossed. He stares us all down, like we're about to be lead to slaughter.
   "For those of you who don't know, my name is Eric," he says, "I'm one of five leaders of the Dauntless. We take the initiation process very seriously here, so I volunteered to oversee most of your training."
   The way his eyes land on me as he says that sends a chill down my spine. Having a Dauntless leader oversee us was bad, let alone it being Eric.
   "Some ground rules," he says, "you have to be in the training room by eight every day. Training takes place every day from eight to six, with a break for lunch. You are free to do whatever you want after six. You will also get some time off between each stage of initiation."
   Anything I want? Here, the possibilities are endless.
   "You are only allowed to leave the compound when accompanied by a Dauntless member," Eric adds, "behind this door is where you will be sleeping for the next few weeks. You will notice that there is ten beds and ten of you, I guess we were accurate with our calculations."
   "But we started with eleven," Christina protests, I would have thought she would have learned with Four.
   "There is always at least one transfer that doesn't make it to the compound," he says, glancing at me again, "anyway, in the first stage of initiation, we keep transfers and Dauntless-born initiates separate, but that doesn't mean you are evaluated separately. At the end of initiation, your rankings will be determined in comparison with the Dauntless-born initiates. And they are better than you are already. So I expect—"
   "Rankings," asks a mousy haired Erudite girl to my right, "why are we ranked?"
   Eric smiles, vicious, and cruel, "your rankings serve two purposes. The first is that it determines the order in which you will select a job after initiation. There are only a few desirable positions available."
   The way his eyes brighten with pure malice, tells me that something bad is about to happen, something bad that he is going to really enjoy telling us.
   "The second purpose," he says, "is that only the top ten initiates are made members."
   And there it is, the truth of it all, the truth behind the promise of freedom and adventure that Dauntless promises. All of us stand, shocked, still as the unmovable stone around us.
   "What," Christina asks, her voice wavering.
   "There are ten Dauntless-born, and ten of you," Eric continues on, "four initiates will be cut at the end of stage one. The remainder will be cut after the final test."
   Out of twenty initiates, ten of us will fail. Even if all of us transfers make it through stage one, six of us could still be cut.
   "What do we do if we're cut," a candor transfer, Peter, asks.
   Eric opens his mouth to answer but I beat him to it, "factionless. We become factionless."
   The Erudite girl covers her mouth with her hand to conceal a sob. Factionless, was worse than death to her, to most of them. Seraphina, and little Bella-Rose flash through my mind, an image of happiness, and I am not scared, if I fail, it is because this is not where I belong, and I will find where I do. So my will hardens, I will do this for them.
   "But, that's.... not fair," Molly, a large Candor transfer shouts, 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."
   Eric turns towards wooden doors and throws them open.
   "You choose us," he says, turning back to us, his eyes again landing on me in a way that made me want to rip his head off, "now we have to choose you."

   I lay in my bed, listening to nine other people's breathing as they sleep. I stare towards the ceiling, my mind traveling miles away, to my bedroom in Amity, to where my mom and brother probably sat, reading my poem.
I'm sorry
   I'm sorry I couldn't stay
   I'm sorry
   I'm sorry I couldn't find the words to say
   I hope you know
   I hope you know I love you still
   I hope you know
   I hope you know my heart is yours till
   Till the sun no longer shines
   Till the light no longer is captured in your eyes
   Till we met again in a heaven
   Till we see the stars and I am forgiven
   I'm sorry.
   I can almost hear my mother's sobs as Taylor holds her. The guilt eats away at me, how could I feel so happy when I have left them so lost.
   But I can also hear my mother's promise, of loving me forever. We always knew this day would come, when I would leave, but it didn't ease the pain. My family was my entire world and I left them behind, all so I could attempt my wild fantasies of adventure.
   A sound breaks the steady repetition of breathing, a cry. The springs of their bed squeal as they shift, to cry into their pillow, to muffle the sobs, but it doesn't help, we can all still hear them. It comes from the bunk to the right of mine. A large, broad Candor boy, Al.
   He looked like the strongest of all of us, physically anyway. But I guess there is always more than meets the eye. I won't be getting any sleep anyway, might as well try to get him to.
   I turn on my side and reach my hand over to him, finding his hand which grips his pillow tightly. He gasps as my fingers pry his from the pillow, entwining them together. He relaxes as I tightly squeeze his hand, which dwarfs my own, in comfort.
   Or hands hang between our beds, his sobs becoming sniffles. I begin to hum quietly, a song that my mother used to sing to Taylor and I every night before bed. It is soft, but I know that anyone who is awake can hear it, but no one says a thing.
   Al's breathing becomes steady, his grip on my hand not as tight. He is asleep, but I keep humming. Even though they aren't sobbing like Al, I know there are people awake, crying, missing home, and scared, so I continue to hum, for them.
   I don't know when, but my eyes had closed, and I felt myself fading into the land of dreams, the last note of the song never escaping me.