Eric Coulter Imagines

Another Stiff

Wind rushes around your head, under your feet. You're weightless, hanging freely in the air. There's a loud sound, clanging out of the emptiness that surrounds you.

Where are you?

Then you hit the floor of the train car, catching yourself in a contained roll, and you remember. The Choosing Ceremony. Red blood on black coals, hissing in the fire. Cut hands bandaged, feet running on pavement. You just jumped from the platform to the train car, and it's carrying you away from here. You've barely left, but already you feel your mind taking you somewhere else, to linger on the future. You don't want to spend another second thinking about the first part of your life, every waking moment that took you to this time right here. The future is the only thing for you now.

A derisive voice sounds from the train car. "You alright there, Stiff? You look a little shaken. Are you sure that Dauntless is right for you?" You raise your eyebrow, turning slowly and deliberately to face the challenging Candor boy. You shrug. "Guess I'll fit in about as much as you. Is it going to hurt that everyone isn't going to tell the truth, or are you used to living in a place where no one likes you?"

There's a ripple of surprised laughter from the other initiates in the train car, and you turn around with a slight grin. You may be from Abnegation, but you don't intend to act like one any longer. And why should you? You've left that place behind you now, and you intend to take full advantage of the sudden freedom.

You've only been on the train for a short while before one of the Dauntless raises his voice in a shout, gesturing out the open doors to the waiting roofs below. "Jump." He only needs to say the one word before he turns, plummeting out of the speeding train to land decisively on the roof below.

Candor boy, the one who'd challenged you earlier, is clearly looking for a way to gain back his confidence, so he comes and stands by you. He glances out over the roof. "Think it'll hurt?" You grin. "Not in the slightest." You're in the mood for some showboating, so you launch yourself out of the train car, twisting your legs underneath you midair to land after a perfectly timed flip. Your feet don't waver for a second.

You're one of the first jumpers from the train, so your little stunt catches the eye of one of the Dauntless trainers standing next to you. He snorts in disbelief. "Maybe things have changed a bit since I've last been there, but of all the initiates to be doing a flip out of the train car, I didn't expect it to be the Stiff." You glance over at the Dauntless, who's decked out in black from head to toe. Even with his jacket, you can tell he's covered with tattoos. Despite being only a couple of years older than you, the other trainers seem to look at him with respect.

You realize he's waiting for an answer, so you cock your head to one side. "Not all of us are boring," you grin, "Some of us want to do more than just sit around all day." The man's gaze flickers up and down your form. "I guess that explains the flip." More transfers are starting to fill the roof, so the man jerks his chin at you in a goodbye and walks over to rejoin the other Dauntless on the edge of the roof.

Once everyone has started to cluster in around the Dauntless leaders, the man clasps his hands in front of him. "I'm Eric. I'm one of your leaders." He's standing on the barrier of the roof, pacing back and forth despite the fact that he's only got a couple of inches in between himself and a seemingly endless drop. Seeing everyone's gaze on the empty space behind him, Eric gestures a hand loosely backwards. "You want to enter Dauntless, this is the way in."

Muttering breaks out around you. You know that being the first one to jump would be the bravest thing to do, certainly the thing to get you noticed. But that drop does seem rather deadly, and you'd prefer to find out that this was all a test to mock those who'd jump blindly from a roof after the first kid dies, rather than be the one with their legs broken in a hospital room.