MIRACULOUS DIVERGENTS.

CHAPTER ONE

THERE IS ONE mirror in my house. It is behind a sliding panel in the hallway upstairs. Our factions allows me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month, the day my mother cuts my hair.

     I sit on the stool and my mother stands behind me with the scissors, trimming. The stands fall on the floor in a midnight blue,ring.

     When she finishes, she pulled my hair away from my face and twists it into a knot. I note how calm she looks and how focused she is. She is well-practised in the art of loosing her self. I can't say the same of myself.

          I sneak a look at my reflection when she isn't paying attention - not for the sake of vanity, but out of curiosity. A lot can happen to a person's appearance in three months.

       In my reflection, I see a   narrow face, wide, bluebel doe eyes, I looked like a attractive growing girl. I never payed attention thought. Sometime in the last few months I turned sixteen. The other factions celebrate birthdays , but we don't. It would be self-indulgent..

"There, " She says when she pins the knot in the place. Her eyes catch mine in the mirror. It's to late to look away, but inside of scolding me, she smiled at our reflection. I frown a little. Why doesn't she reprimand me for staring at myself?

" So today is the day, "she says.

" Yes,"I reply.

"Are you nervous? "

I stare into my own eyes for a moment. Today is the day of the aptitude test that will show me which of the five faction I belong in. And tomorrow ,at the choosing ceremony, I will decide on a faction;I will decide the rest of my life; I will decide to stay with my family or abandon them.

"No, " I say " The tests don't have to change our choices. "

"Right." She smiles. "Let's go eat breakfast. "

"Thank you. For cutting my hair. "

She kisses my cheek and slides the panel over the mirror. I think my mother could be beautiful, in a different world. Her body is thin beneath the gray robes. She has high cheek bones and long eyelashes, and when she let's her hair down at night, it hangs in a waves over her shoulders. But she must hide that beauty in Abnegation.

We walk together to the kitchen. On these mornings when my brother makes breakfast , and my father's hand skims my hair as he reads the newspaper, and my mother hums as she clears the table - it is on these mornings that I feel the guiltiest for wanting to leave them.

                   + + +

The bus stinks if exhaust. Every time it hits the patch of uneven pavement, it jostles me from side to side, even though I'm gripping the seat to keep my self still.
        
      My older brother, luka, stands in the aisle, holding a railing above his head to keep himself steady. We don't look alike. He has my fathers features  and my mothers brown eyes and dimpled cheeks. If he wasn't abnegation, I am sure the girls would stare at him.

He also inherited my mother's talent of selflessness. He gave his seat to a surly candor Manon the bus without a second thought.

     The Candor man wears black suit with white tie-
Candor standard uniform. Their faction values honesty and sees the truth as white and black, so that is what they wear.

     They gaps between the buildings narrow and the roads are smoother as we near the heart of the city. The building that was once called the Sears Tower -we called it the hub- emerges from the fog, a black pillar in the skyline. The bus passes under the elevated tracks. I have never been on a train, though they never stop running and there are tracks everywhere. Only the dauntless ride them.