Divergent: Christina's point of view

Chapter Twenty!

That morning I was sitting in the Dauntless cafetiria with Wil and Uriah, when we see Four walk in. We start talking about how we haven't seen him for a while. 

"What do you think happened to him?" Asks Uriah. We all look at him he looks healthy except for a cut right above his eyebrow.

"I dont know, but what happened to Tris, we have barley seen her since the second stage of initiation." I say.

"Yeah, but we have seen her in the dorms."Will says.

"Do you ever feel like lately everyone has been ditching us. We haven't seen Tris, for a while. Al has been with his own mood with all the crying." I say to Will.

"Exactly, like we're the only sane ones." Says Will. Uriah coughs, as if to say 'hello, I'm sane too.'

"I'm so-" I stop with a gasp. Whta my eyes are looking at is traumitizing. I see the doors open and Tris walks in, she limps. She has black and blue marks....everywhere! She looks aweful. Her hair is tangeled. She has fingernail marks on her throat. She scans the room, and walks over to our table. Noarmally Tris so small, but the way she walks, with a straight back makes her look tall, and strong. Now looking at her walking into the cafetiria she look small, fragile. Her back is hunched, as if she was punched in the ribs over and over again.

She sits next to Will, and Uriah slides into the seat next to her. For a second we all just stare at her with disbelief. What could ahve possibly happen, that made her look like that? I think.

"What happened?" Will says, lowering his voice. She looks over his shoulder at the table behind ours. Peter sits there, eating a piece of toast and whispering something to Molly. Drew is missing, which is strange because I knew them since we were kids in Candor, and I have never seen them apart. Something serious must have happened!

“Peter, Drew…,” She says quietly. She tries to reach across the table for a piece of toast. She stretches out her hand, she winces, and hunch over. “And…” she swallows. “And Al.” Now that was unexpected.

“Oh God,” I say, my eyes widen. I look behind Tris and scowl at Peter. I always knew he was sick. I knew it when he stabbed Edward in the eye, but he must have known it wouldn't kill Edward, but he was going to kill Tris.

“Are you all right?” Uriah asks. Peter’s and Tris meet eyes, and she looks away. It brings a bitter taste to my mouth to even look at him.

“Not really,” She says, she looks so defeated. If he really wanted to look cool he would've fought him himself, but instead it was three against one.

“But you’re just…” Uriah purses his lips. “It isn’t fair. Three against one?”

“Yeah, and Peter is all about what’s fair. That’s why he grabbed Edward in his sleep and stabbed him in the eye.” I snort and shake my head. “Al, though? Are you sure, Tris?” I stare at my plate. I know Al has been acting wierd, I was the one who hugged him and told him that everything is going to be alright.

“Yeah,” She says. “I’m sure.”

“It has to be desperation,” says Will. “He’s been acting…I don’t know. Like a different person. Ever since stage two started.” Then Drew shuffles into the dining hall. I drop my toast, and my mouth drifts open. Calling him “bruised” would be an understatement.

His face is swollen and purple. He has a split lip and a cut running through his eyebrow. He keeps his eyes down on the way to his table, not even lifting them.

“Did you do that?” hisses Will. She shakes my head. “No. Someone—I never saw who—found me right before…” she gulps, leaving me in suspence. “…I got tossed into the chasm.”

“They were going to kill you?” I say in a low voice.

“Maybe. They might have been planning on dangling me over it just to scare me.” She lifts a shoulder. “It worked.” I give her a dour expression. Will just glares at the table.

“We have to do something about this,” Uriah says in a low voice.

“What, like beat them up?” I grin. “Looks like that’s been taken care of already.”

“No. That’s pain they can get over,” replies Uriah. “We have to edge them out of the rankings. That will damage their futures. Permanently.”

Four gets up and stands between the tables. Conversation abruptly ceases.

“Transfers. We’re doing something different today,” he says. “Follow me.” We stand, and Uriah’s forehead wrinkles. “Be careful,” he tells Tris.

“Don’t worry,” says Will. “We’ll protect her.” Four leads us out of the dining hall and along the paths that surround the Pit. We all stand next to her. I for one don't want to leave her. Will is on her left, and I'm on her right. Then I remember something. I did something horrible to Tris, and I never apologized. If she did die I would have never been able to make things right.

“I never really said I was sorry,” I say quietly. “For taking the flag when you earned it. I don’t know what was wrong with me.”

When I  meet eyes with Tris, she nods.

“Let’s just forget about it.” She says, and I sigh with relief. We climb higher than I’ve gone before, Tris grabs Will’s arm. I look at her with envy, I don't want to because the poor girl, but I can't help but feel a ping of jealousy. There just friends! I tell myself.

Four turns around and walks backward a few steps—backward, on a narrow path with no railing. How well does he know this place? He eyes Drew, who trudges at the back of the group, and says,

“Pick up the pace, Drew!” It’s a cruel joke, but it’s hard for me to fight off a smile. That is, until Four’s eyes shift to Tris, and all the humor drains from them. I don't understand I've seen them so many times together, whats going on?

We get closer and closer to the glass ceiling, and for the first time in days, I see the sun. Four walks up a flight of me tall stairs leading through a hole in the ceiling.

They creak under my feet, and I look down to see the Pit and the chasm below us. We walk across the glass, which is now a floor rather than a ceiling, through a cylindrical room with glass walls. The surrounding buildings are half-collapsed and appear to be abandoned, which is probably why I never noticed the Dauntless compound before.

At the edge of the room, two Dauntless fight with sticks, laughing when one of them misses and hits only air. Above me, two ropes stretch across the room, one a few feet higher than the other. They probably have something to do with the daredevil stunts the Dauntless are famous for.

Four leads us through another door. Beyond it is a huge, dank space with graffitied walls and exposed pipes. The room is lit by a series of old-fashioned fluorescent tubes with plastic covers—they must be ancient.

“This,” says Four, his eyes bright in pale light, “is a different kind of simulation known as the fear landscape. It has been disabled for our purposes, so this isn’t what it will be like the next time you see it.” Behind him, the word “Dauntless” is spray-painted in red artistic lettering on a concrete wall.

“Through your simulations, we have stored data about your worst fears. The fear landscape accesses that data and presents you with a series of virtual obstacles. Some of the obstacles will be fears you previously faced in your simulations. Some may be new fears. The difference is that you are aware, in the fear landscape, that it is a simulation, so you will have all your wits about you as you go through it.”

Four continues, “The number of fears you have in your land scape varies according to how many you have.” How many fears will I have? I think of facing the crows again and shiver, though the air is warm. “I told you before t hat the third stage of initiation focuses on mental preparation,” he says. I remember when he said that. On the first day. Right before he put a gun to Peter’s head. I wish he had pulled the trigger. “That is because it requires you to control both your emotions and your body—to combine the physical abilities you learned in stage one with the emotional mastery you learned in stage two. To keep a level head.”

One of the fluorescent tubes above Four’s head twitches and flickers. Four stops scanning the crowd of initiates and focuses his stare on me. “Next week you will go through your fear landscape as quickly as possible in front of a panel of Dauntless leaders. That will be your final test, which determines your ranking for stage three. Just as stage two of initiation is weighted more heavily than stage one, stage three is weighted heaviest of all. Understood?” We all nod. Even Drew, who makes it look painful. If I do well in my final test, I have a good chance of making it into the top ten and a good chance of becoming a member.

Becoming Dauntless. The thought makes me almost giddy with relief.

“You can get past each obstacle in one of two ways. Either you find a way to calm down enough that the simulation registers a normal, steady heartbeat, or you find a way to face your fear, which can force the simulation to move on. One way to face a fear of drowning is to swim deeper, for example.” Four shrugs. “So I suggest that you take the next week to consider your fears and develop strategies to face them.”

“That doesn’t sound fair,” says Peter. “What if one person only has seven fears and someone else has twenty? That’s not their fault.” Four stares at him for a few seconds and then laughs.

“Do you really want to talk to me about what’s fair?” The crowd of initiates parts to make way for him as he walks toward Peter, folds his arms, and says, in a deadly voice, “I understand why you’re worried, Peter. The events of last night certainly proved that you are a miserable coward.”

Peter stares back, expressionless. “So now we all know,” says Four, quietly, “that you are afraid of a short, skinny girl from Abnegation.” His mouth curls in a smile.

Will puts his arm around her. My shoulders shake with suppressed laughter. Tris smiles as well.

When we get back to the dorm that afternoon, Al is there. Will stands behind her and holds her shoulders—lightly, as if to remind her that he’s there. I edge closer to her. Al’s eyes have shadows beneath them, and his face is swollen from crying. Pain stabs my stomach when I see him. I can’t move. The scent of lemongrass and sage, once pleasant, turns sour in my nose.

“Tris,” says Al, his voice breaking. “Can I talk to you?”

“Are you kidding?” Will squeezes her shoulders. “You don’t get to come near her ever again.”

“I won’t hurt you. I never wanted to…” All covers his face with both hands. “I just want to say that I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I don’t…I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I…please forgive me, please….” He reaches for her like he’s going to touch her shoulder, or her hand, his face wet with tears.

“Stay away from me,” She says quietly. “Never come near me a gain.” Our eyes meet. His are dark and glassy. “If you do, I swear to God I will kill you,” She says. “You coward.” For a momment the threat hangs in the air, but after a momment we all relize what had just happened, and we all stay quiet.

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Authors note:

Hey readers I want to thank you for reading my book already this far It's been amazing. Every chapter I'm getting closer to the end of the book which is actually really soon. I also want to make an Insurgent Christina's point of view, but I'm not sure if I should, any thoughts?

-Tali21