Divergent: Christina's point of view

Chapter Ten!

I crawl across , my mattress and heave a sigh. So far the training continued normally, I fought against Drew, and I won. So far things have been pretty good, and not too bad. I'm wearing my pijamas which is a black long big T-shirt, and no pants underneath.

Latley It's been hard for me to fall asleep. Everytime I feel like I'm about to fall asleep, I always here someone shift, and I wake up. This time I'm sure that I'm going to fall asleep. I feel it pulling at me-

the door to the dormitory opens, and people stream into the room with flashlights. I sit up, almost hitting my head on the bed frame above me, and squint through the dark to see what’s going on.

“Everybody up!” someone roars. A flashlight shines behind his head, making the rings in his ears glint. Eric. Surrounding him are other Dauntless, some of whom I have seen in the Pit, some of whom I have never seen before. Four stands among them.

“Did you go deaf, Stiff?” demands Eric. I stand, wearing only a T-shirt, my long legs bare. I fold my arms and stare at Eric. I hope that if I stare at him long enough his head will explode.

 “You have five minutes to get dressed and meet us by the tracks,” says Eric. “We’re going on another field trip.” I shove my feet into shoes and sprint, together with Tris on the way to the train. A drop of sweat rolls down the back of my neck as we run up the paths along the walls of the Pit, pushing past members on our way up. They don’t seem surprised to see us.

I wonder how many frantic, running people they see on a weekly basis. We make it to the tracks just behind the Dauntless-born initiates. Next to the tracks is a black pile. I make out a cluster of long gun barrels and trigger guards.

“Are we going to shoot something?” I hiss in Tris's ear. Next to Tris are piles of boxes are what looks like ammunition. I inch closer to read one of the boxes. Written on it is “PAINTBALLS.” I immediatly get excited I went one time paint-balling with my family, I remeber how fun it was. laugh at the memory.

“Everyone grab a gun!” shouts Eric. We rush toward the pile. I am of the first to snatch a gun, which is heavy, but not too heavy for me to lift, and grab a box of paintballs. I shove the box in my pocket and sling the gun across my back so the strap crosses my chest.

“Time estimate?” Eric asks Four. Four checks his watch. “Any minute now. How long is it going to take you to memorize the train schedule?”

“Why should I, when I have you to remind me of it?” says Eric, shoving Four’s shoulder. A circle of light appears on my left, far away. It grows larger as it comes closer, shining against the side of Will's face, who is right next to me, creating a shadow in the faint hollow beneath his cheekbone. 

I run after Will, and he helps me in, after me comes in Al, we sit next to Tris, who came in first.Once everyone is in, Four speaks up.

“We’ll be dividing into two teams to play capture the flag. Each team will have an even mix of members, Dauntless-born initiates, and transfers. One team will get off first and find a place to hide their flag. Then the second team will get off and do the same.” The car sways, and Four grabs the side of the doorway for balance. “This is a Dauntless tradition, so I suggest you take it seriously.”

“What do we get if we win?” someone shouts. “Sounds like the kind of question someone not from Dauntless would ask,” says Four, raising an eyebrow. “You get to win, of course.”

“Four and I will be your team captains,” says Eric. He looks at Four. “Let’s divide up transfers first, shall we?”

“You go first,” Four says. Eric shrugs.

“Edward.” Four leans against the door frame and nods. He scans the group of transfer initiates briefly, without calculation, and says, “I want the Stiff.” A faint undercurrent of laughter fills the car.

“Got something to prove?” asks Eric, with his trademark smirk. “Or are you just picking the weak ones so that if you lose, you’ll have someone to blame it on?” Four shrugs.

“Something like that.”

"Your turn,” says Four.

“Peter.”

“Christina.” I frown a bit. I Four is only picking the weak ones, do I count as weak?

“Molly.”

“Will,” says Four, biting his thumbnail.

“Al.”

“Drew.”

“Last one left is Myra. So she’s with me,” says Eric. “Dauntless-born initia next.”

I look at Will as he throws an arm around me, and gives me a high-five. They finish choosing teams, and Eric smirks at Four. “Your team can get off second,” says Eric.

“Don’t do me any favors,” Four replies. He smiles a little.

“You know I don’t need them to win.”

“No, I know that you’ll lose no matter when you get off,” says Eric, biting down briefly on one of the rings in his lip. “Take your scrawny team and get off first, then.” We all stand up. Al waves to us, I feel bad, but I'm kind of happy, If any of the four of us had to end up on the same team as Eric, Peter, and Molly, at least it was him. They usually leave him alone. The train is about to dip to the ground. I get ready to jump off, and on my turn I jump.

One of the Dauntless-born initiates touches Four’s shoulder and asks, “When your team won, where did you put the flag?”

“Telling you wouldn’t really be in the spirit of the exercise, Marlene,” he says coolly.

“Come on, Four,” she whines. She gives him a flirtatious smile. He brushes her hand off his arm.

“Navy Pier,” another Dauntless-born initiate calls out. He is tall, with brown skin and dark eyes. Handsome. “My brother was on the winning team. They kept the flag at the carousel.”

“Let’s go there, then,” suggests Will.

No one objects, so we walk east, toward the marsh that was once a lake. When I was you ng, I tried to imagine what it would look like as a lake, with no fence built in to the mud to keep the city safe. But it is difficult to imagine that much water in one place.

“We’re close to Erudite headquarters, right?” I ask, bumping Will’s shoulder with my own.

“Yeah. It’s south of here,” he says. He looks over his shoulder, and for a second his expression is full of longing. Then it’s gone.

 We walk across the bridge. We still need the bridges because the mud beneath them is too wet to walk on. I wonder how long it’s been since the river dried up. Once we cross the bridge, the city changes. Behind us, most of the buildings were in use, and even if they weren’t, they looked well-tended. I n front of us is a sea of crumbling concrete and broken glass. The silence of this part of the city is eerie; it feels like a nightmare. It’s hard to see where I’m going, because it’s after midnight and all the city lights are off. Marlene takes out a flashlight and shines it at the street in front of us.

“Scared of the dark, Mar?” the dark-eyed Dauntless-born initiate teases.

“If you want to step on broken g lass, Uriah, be my guest,” she snaps. But she turns it off anyway. I have realized that part of being Dauntless is being willing to make things more difficult for yourself in order to be self-sufficient. There’s nothing especially brave about wandering dark streets with no flashlight, but we are not supposed to need help, even from light. We are supposed to be capable of anything. I like that. Because there might come a day when there is no flashlight, there is no gun, there is n o guiding hand. And I want to be ready for it.

The buildings end just before the marsh. A strip of land juts out into the marsh, and rising from it is a giant white wheel with dozens of red passenger cars dangling from it at regular intervals. The Ferris wheel.

“Think about it. People used to ride that thing. For fun,” says Will, shaking his head.

“They must have been Dauntless,” Tris says.

“Yeah, but a lame version of Dauntless.” I laugh. “A Dauntless Ferris wheel wouldn’t have cars. You would just hang on tight with your hands, and good luck to you.”

We walk down the side of the pier. All the buildings on my le ft are empty, their signs torn down and their windows closed, but it is a clean kind of emptiness. Whoever left these places left them by choice and at their leisure. Some places in the city are not like that.

“Dare you to jump into the marsh,” I say to Will.

“You first.”

We reach the carousel. Some of the horses are scratched and weathered, their tails broken off or their saddles chipped. Four takes the flag out of his pocket.

“In ten minutes, the other team will pick their location,” he says. “I suggest you take this time to formulate a strategy. We may not be Erudite, but mental preparedness is one aspect of your Dauntless training. Arguably, it is the most important aspect.” He is right about that. What good is a prepared body if you have a scattered mind? Will takes the flag from Four.

“Some people should stay here and guard, and some people should go out and scout the other team’s location,” Will says.

“Yeah? You think?” Marlene plucks the flag from Will’s fingers. “Who put you in charge, transfer?”

“No one,” says Will. “But someone’s got to do it.”

"We should develop a more defensive strategy. Wait for them to come to us, then take them out,” I suggest.

“That’s the sissy way out,” Uriah says. “I vote we go all out. Hide the flag well enough that they can’t find it.” Everyone bursts into the conversation at once, their voices louder with each passing second.

I defend Will’s plan; the Dauntless-born initiates vote for offense; everyone argues about who should make the decision. After a while of fihgting we decide to send some of us to search for Eric's team, including Will. So only half of us were left. That's when we all hear and see the ferris wheel moving.

Tris, and Four apear a while later, the both of them looking excited.

 “Did you guys turn on the wheel?” one of the dauntless-born-initiates says. “What the hell are you thinking? You might as w ell have just shouted ‘Here we are! Come and get us!’” She shakes her head. “If I lose a gain this year, the shame will be unbearable. Three years in a row?”

“The wheel doesn’t matter,” says Four. “We know where they are.”

“We?” I say, looking from Four to Tris,

“Yes, while the rest of you were twiddling your thumbs, Tris climbed the Ferris wheel to look for the other team,” he says.

“What do we do now, then?” asks one of the Dauntless-born initiates through a yawn. Four looks at Tris. Slowly the eyes of the other initiates, including mine, migrate from him to Tris.            

“Split in half,” She says. “Four of us go to the right side of the pier, three to the left. The other team is in the park at the end of the pier, so the group of four will charge as the group of three sneaks behind the other team to get the flag.” I look at Tris, l no longer recognize her.

"Sounds good,” says the dauntless-born girl,  clapping her hands together. “Let’s get this night over with, shall we?”

I join Tris in the group going to the right, along with Uriah, whose smile looks white against his skin’s bronze. I didn’t notice before, but he has a tattoo of a snake be hind his ear. I stare at its tail curling around his earlobe for a moment, but then I starts running and Tris follows her. As I run, I realize that only one of us will get to touch the flag, and if I want to make tonight worth something I need to be the one to grab it.

We reach the end of the pier, and I clamp my mouth shut to keep my loud breaths in. We slow down so our footsteps aren’t as loud. I look around trying to see a clue that's out of the ordinary. Tris points, and I follow her finger. I see flickers of light.

Then I hear a chorus of yells, so loud t hey make me jump. I hear puffs of air as paintballs go flying and splats as they find their targets. Our team has charged, the other team runs to meet us, and the flag is almost unguarded. Uriah takes aim and shoots the last guard in the thigh. The guard, a short girl with purple hair, throws her gun to the ground in a tantrum. I continue to run, if I get there first I could get the flag. The flag hangs from a tree branch, I reach for it, but so does Tris.

“Come on, Tris,” I say. “You’re already the hero of the day. And you know you can’t reach it anyway.” I give her a patronizing look, and snatches the flag from the branch. I turn, so everyone can see it, and give a whoop of victory. Uriah’s voice joins mine and then I hear a chorus of yells in the distance.

                                            .....................................................................................

“I can’t believe I missed it!” Will says again, shaking his head. Wind coming through the doorway of the train car blows his hair in every direction.

“You were performing the very important job of staying out of our way,” I say, beaming. Al groans.

“Why did I have to be on the other team?”

“Because life’s not fair, Albert. And the world is conspiring against you,” says Will. “Hey, can I see the flag again?” Peter, Molly, and Drew sit across from the members in the corner. Their chests and backs are splattered with blue and pink paint, and they look dejected. They speak quietly, sneaking looks at the rest of us, especially me.

“So you climbed the Ferris wheel, huh,” says Uriah to Tris. He stumbles across the car and sits next to her. Marlene, the girl with the flirty smile, follows him.

“Yes,” says Tris.

“Pretty smart of you. Like…Erudite smart,” Marlene says. “I’m Marlene.”

“Tris,” she says.

“Yeah, I know who you are,” she says. “The first jumper tends to stick in your head.”

Uriah takes one of the paintballs from his gun and squeezes it between his thumb and index finger. The train lurches to the left, and Uriah fall ls against her, his fingers pinching the paintball until a stream of pink, foul-smelling paint sprays on her face. Marlene collapses in giggles. She wipes some of the paint from her face, slowly, and then smear it on his cheek. The scent of fish oil wafts through the train car.

“Ew!” He squeezes the ball at her again, but the opening is at the wrong angle, and the paint sprays into his mouth instead. He coughs and makes exaggerated gagging sounds. Everyone starts to laugh, but I'm too focused on Wills arm which is wrapped around me, he smiles at me, and I smile back. This was an amazing day, if I make it through initiation every day can be like this.