Dauntless

Aptitudes and Choosing

Authors Note

Anonymous Kay

Hey Guys... If you like this story you'll also adore "Another Choice"By:OnCloudTen. Please continue. I do not own Divergent –Kay? Get it. Got it. Good. Also to check out is "The Land of No Return Slow Updates"By:EndlessWolves.

Caleb's P.O.V.

The bus we take to get to the choosing ceremony is full of people. In grey shirts and grey slacks. A pale ring of sunlight burns into the clouds like the end of a lit cigarette. I will never smoke one myself - they are closely tied to vanity - but a crowd of Candor smokes them in front of the building when we get off the bus.

I have to tilt my head back to see the top of the Hub, and even then, part of it disappears into the clouds. It is the tallest building in the city. I can see the lights on the two prongs on its roof from my bedroom window.

I follow my parents off the bus. Beatrice seems calm, but I'm not. I still remember my results.

Flashback Start

I step into the Aptitude Test room. Mirrors cover the inner walls of the room. I can see my reflection from all angles. The grey fabric obscuring the shape of my back. My dark hair, hooked nose, green eyes, and dimpled cheeks. When I was younger, that collection of features looked strange, but now it suits me.

The ceiling glows white with light. In the center of the room is a reclined chair, like a dentist's, with a machine next to it. It looks like a place where terrible things happen.

"Don't worry," a woman says by the side of the room manning a device. It looks like a simulation device I read about in my books. "It doesn't hurt!" She didn't even glimpse up. She seems to be an Erudite since she's wearing a blue dress and hairclip.

"My name is Cara! Have a seat." She says. "My brothers choosing this year."

"Oh... my sisters choosing this year. I'm five months older." I say.

I sit down an put my head back. I'm not scared. But I can't help wondering about her brother. I try and think about my future to distract myself from the cold of the wire she's putting on herself and me.

"Drink this!" She passes meeting a vial of clear liquid. "Bottoms up!"

I drink it before I can show my curiosity.

I open my eyes and I am in the cafeteria. It's empty though. On a table in front of me I see two baskets. One holds cheese and the other holds a dirk. Outside its snowing.

Behind me a woman's voice says "Choose."

I turn around and see a dog. "That's an Omega Lupus Dominiancas! When it sees a human it turns aggressive because it's scared so it protects himself." I lay on the ground and lowered my eyes off his to show I wasn't a threat. When he calmed down I grabbed the cheese and threw it to him. Suddenly he was like a puppy. Then I saw a little Abnegation kid come in and the dog turned aggressive.

I turn around and grab the knife to kill it to save the kid. Then I turn around and I'm at the testing room, now empty. I turn in a slow circle and can't see myself in any of the mirrors. I push the door open and walk into the hallway, but it's not the hallway; it's a bus, and all the seats are taken.

I stand in the aisle and hold on to a pole. Sitting near me is a man with a newspaper. I can't see his face over the top of the newspaper, but I can see his hands. They are scarred, like he was burned, and they clench around the paper like he wants to crumple it.

"Do you know this guy?" he asks. He taps the picture on the front page of the newspaper. The headline reads: "Brutal Murderer Finally Apprehended!" I stare at the word 'Murderer'. It's been a long time since I read that word but I still feel the dread in my gut. I feel like I know him, though how I don't know.

"Well?" I hear anger in his voice. "Do you?"

"Yes. I think I've seen him before!" I answered truthfully.

The man looks at me and smiles evilly. He had a beard that was shaved off and wore sunglasses. His face was covered in scars.

"If I told you that was me, would you turn me in to stop a war, even if you lost your own life doing so?" He spits at me. His voice smelling like cigarettes.

I lock my eyes square in his and say one word!

"Yes!"

I wake to see Cara's surprised face. She gets up and takes off the wires on me and her.

"I am now manually entering Abnegation." She says.

I look at her surprised. Did I fail? How can I fail a test I wasn't allowed to prepare for? As the seconds pass of her not explaining I get more and more nervous. She finally turns around and looks into my eyes. I sit up because I know she wants to talk to me.

"Your results were inconclusive. Typically, at each stage of the simulation eliminates one or more factions, but in your case none have been ruled out." She explains.

I stare at her. "N-n-n-none?" I ask. My throat is so tight it's hard to talk.

"You first before proceeding started off by showing Erudite knowledge. Then you selected the cheese. That shows Amity. Dauntless are the only ones to kill the dog. That was very Dauntless of you. Then I had to alter it to check if your Candor. Which when you told the truth showed you were Candor. You killed the dog to save the girl which showed a lot of Abnegation. And telling the Truth was Abnegation. So your Abnegation." She says calmly.

She's calm and I'm hyperventilating.

Flashback Over

The elevator is crowded, so my father volunteers to give a cluster of Amity our place. We climb the stairs instead, following him unquestionably. We set example for our fellow faction members, and soon the four of us are engulfed in the mass of gray fabric ascending cement stairs in the half light. I settle into their pace. The uniform pounding of feet in my ears and the homogeneity of the people around me makes me believe that I could choose this. I could be subsumed into Abnegation's hive mind, projecting always outward.

But then my legs get sore, and I struggle to breathe, and I am again distracted by myself. We have to climb twenty flights of stairs to get to the Choosing Ceremony.

My father holds the door open on the twentieth floor and stands like a sentry as every Abnegation walks past him. I would wait for him, but the crowd presses me forward, out of the stairwell and into the room where I will decide the rest of my life with my sister.

The room is arranged in concentric circles. On the edges stand the sixteen-year-olds of every faction. We are not called members yet; our decisions today will make us initiates, and will become members if we complete initiation.

We arrange ourselves in alphabetical order, according to the last names we may leave behind today. I stand between Beatrice and Toshiro Pim, an Erudite boy with a blue suit and glasses.

Rows of chairs for our families make up the next circle. They are arranged in five sections, according to faction. Not everyone in each faction comes to the Choosing Ceremony, but enough of them come that the crowd looks huge.

The responsibility to conduct the ceremony rotates from faction to faction each year, and this is Abnegation's. Marcus will give the opening address and read the names in reverse alphabetical order. Beatrice will choose after me.

In the last circle

are five metal bowls so large they could hold almost my entire body if I curled up. Each one contains a substance that represents each faction: grey stones for Abnegation, water for Erudite, earth for Amity, lit coals for Dauntless, and glass for Candor.

When Marcus calls my name, I will walk to the center of the five circles. I will not speak. He will offer me a knife. I will cut my hand and sprinkle the blood into the bowl of the faction I choose.

I have narrowed it down to three. My blood on the stones where I will be with Susan and my parents not betraying my faction. My blood sizzling on the coals where I can enjoy my life with action. Or my blood on the water so I can find out why I'm like this. I'm Divergent... The most powerful Divergent ever recorded in history.

Before my parents sit down, they stand in front of Beatrice and me. My father kisses Beatrice's forehead and claps me on the shoulder, grinning.

"See you soon." He says. His voice held no trace of doubt of me and Beatrice leaving. But I know I might not stay. Even in what be my final moments in Abnegnation I think of what my life would be with or without them. Do I want to leave them?

My mom hugs me for a long time and before she turns away she flicks one of my hairs above my ears then whispers to me: "I love you. No matter what!" then she does the same for Beatrice whispering the same thing in her ear. This is what gives me confidence about choosing to leave them.

I grabbed Beatrice's hand and squeeze it harder than I mean to. I have choosen my path. I will walk away from this bravely. Even if it means leaving my sister behind. That's why I hold her hand scared about the choice I may make in what may be our final moments together. And she doesn't let go. The last time we held hands was at my uncle's funeral, as my father cried. We need each other's strength now, just as we did then.

Marcus stands at the podium between Erudite and Dauntless and clears his throat into the microphone. A famous Erudite invented that maybe. Just a guess. I won't be able to go since I've decided on something else. My gut is yelling "CHOOSE DAUNTLESS! YOU WON'T REGRET IT!"

"Welcome," he says. "Welcome to the Choosing Ceremony. Welcome to the day we honour the democratic philosophy of our ancestors, which tells us that every man has the right to choose his own way in this world."

Or, it occurs to me, one of five predetermined ways. Beatrice starts squeezing my fingers as hard as I am squeezing hers.

"Our dependents are now sixteen. They stand on the precipice of adulthood, and it is now up to them to decide what kind of people they will be." Marcus's voice is solemn and gives equal weight to each word. "Decades ago our ancestors realized that it is not political ideology, religious belief, race, or nationalism that is to blame for a warring world. Rather, they determined that it was the fault of human personality—of humankind's inclination toward evil, in whatever form that is. They divided into factions that sought to eradicate those qualities they believed responsible for the world's disarray."

My eyes shift to the bowls in the center of the room. What do I believe? I do know; I do know; I do not know? Do I know? Maybe I do! Maybe bravery... no, Intel... no, I don't know! But I'm still choosing Dauntless.

"Those who blamed aggression formed Amity."

The Amity exchange smiles. They are dressed comfortably, in red or yellow. Every time I see them, they seem kind, loving, free. But joining them has never been an option for me.

"Those who blamed ignorance became the Erudite."
Erudite was the only part of my choice that wasn't easy.

"Those who blamed duplicity created Candor."

I have never liked Candor.

"Those who blamed selfishness made Abnegation."

I blame selfishness; I do.

"And those who blamed cowardice were the Dauntless."

But I am not selfless enough. Sixteen years of trying and I am not enough.

"Working together, these five factions have lived in peace for many years, each contributing to a different sector of society. Abnegation has fulfilled our need for selfless leaders in government; Candor has provided us with trustworthy and sound leaders in law; Erudite has supplied us with intelligent teachers and researchers; Amity has given us understanding counselors and caretakers; and Dauntless provides us with protection from threats both within and without. But the reach of each faction is not limited to these areas. We give one another far more than can be adequately summarized. In our factions, we find meaning, we find purpose, we find life."

I think of the motto I read in my Faction History text-
book: Faction before blood. More than family, our factions are where we belong. Can that possibly be right?

Marcus adds, "Apart from them, we would not survive."

The silence that follows his words is heavier than other silences. It is heavy with our worst fear, greater even than the fear of death: to be factionless.

Marcus continues, "Therefore this day marks a happy occasion—the day on which we receive our new initiates, who will work with us toward a better society and a better world." A round of applause. It sounds muffled. Marcus reads the first names.

One by one, each sixteen-year-old steps out of line and walks to the middle of the room. The first girl to choose decides on Amity, the same faction from which she came. I watch her blood droplets fall on soil, and she stands behind their seats alone.

The room is constantly moving, a new name and a new person choosing, a new knife and a new choice. I recognize most of them, but I doubt they know me.

"James Tucker," Marcus says.

James Tucker of the Dauntless is the first person to stumble on his way to the bowls. He throws his arms out and regains his balance before hitting the floor. His face turns red and he walks fast to the middle of the room. When he stands in the center, he looks from the Dauntless bowl to the Candor bowl—the orange flames that rise higher each moment, and the glass reflecting blue light.

Marcus offers him the knife. He breathes deeply—I watch his chest rise—and, as he exhales, accepts the knife. Then he drags it across his palm with a jerk and holds his arm out to the side. His blood falls onto glass, and he is the first of us to switch factions. The first faction transfer. A mutter rises from the Dauntless section, and I stare at the floor.

They will see him as a traitor from now on. His Dauntless family will have the option of visiting him in his new faction, a week and a half from now on Visiting Day, but they won't, because he left them. His absence will haunt their hallways, and he will be a space they can't fill. And then time will pass, and the hole will be gone, like when an organ is removed and the body's fluids flow into the space it leaves. Humans can't tolerate emptiness for long.

Caleb Prior," says Marcus.

I squeezes her hand one last time, and as I walk away, I cast a long look at her over my shoulder. I walk to the center of the room trying not to catch attention – Abnegation to the end - and my hands are steady as they accept the knife from Marcus. My hands are deft as I press the knife into the other hand. Then I stand with blood pooling in my palm, and my lip snags on my teeth.

I breath out. And then in. And then I hold my hand over the Dauntless bowl, and my blood drips into the coals, boiling the deep shade of red.

I scan the crowd of the Dauntless - they are cheering and whooping. I walk over and get lots of hard smacks on the back and a band-aid.

"Excuse me," says Marcus, but the crowd doesn't hear him. He shouts, "Quiet, please!"

The room goes silent. Except for a ringing sound.

I hear Beatrice's name and a shudder propels her forward. Halfway to the bowls, she looks sure that she will choose Abnegation. I can see it now. I watch her grow into a woman in Abnegation robes, marrying Susan's brother, Robert, volunteering on the weekends, the peace of routine, the quiet nights spent in front of the fireplace, the certainty that she will be safe, and if not good enough, better than I am now.

The ringing, I realize, is in my ears.

I look at Beatrice and nod a little. She stares back at me. Her footsteps falter. Marcus offers her a knife. She looks into his eyes— I can tell from a distance they are dark blue, a strange color—and she takes it. He nods, and she turns toward the bowls. Dauntless fire and Abnegation stones are both on her left, one in front of her shoulder and one behind. She holds the knife in her right hand and touches the blade to her palm. Gritting her teeth, she drags the blade down.

She opens her eyes and thrusts her arm out. Her blood drips onto the carpet between the two bowls. Then, with a gasp she can't contain, she shifts her hand forward, and her blood sizzles on the coals.

We are selfish. We are brave.