𝑭𝑶𝑼𝑹 𝑴𝑶𝑹𝑨𝑵𝑻 . Tobias Eaton

*ೃ༄ 13 ༄ೃ*

The next morning, I don't hear the alarm, shuffling feet, or conversations as the other initiates get ready. I wake to Sarai shaking my shoulder with one hand and tapping my cheek with the other. She already wears a black jacket zipped up to her throat. If she has bruises from yesterday's fight, her dark skin makes them difficult to see.

"Come on," she says. "Up and at 'em."

The clock reads eight. We're supposed to be at the tracks by eight fifteen.

"I'll run and get us some breakfast. You just...get ready. Looks like it might take you a while," she says.

I stretch, trying not to bend at the waist, I fumble in the drawer under my bed for a clean shirt. Luckily Peter isn't here to see me struggle. Once Sarai leaves, the dormitory is empty.

I unbutton my shirt and stare at my bare side, which is patched with bruises. For a second the colours mesmerize me, bright green and deep blue and brown. I change as fast as I can and let my hair hang loose because I can't lift my arms to tie it back.

I look at my reflection in the small mirror on the back wall and see a stranger. She is brown like me, with a narrow face like mine, but that's where the similarities stop. / Do not have a split eyebrow. / Am not as pale as a sheet. She can't possibly be me, though she moves when I move.

By the time Sarai comes back, a muffin in each hand, I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at my untied shoes. I will have to bend over to tie them. It will hurt when I bend over.

But Sarai just passes me a muffin and crouches in front of me to tie my shoes. Gratitude surges in my chest, warm and a little like an ache.

"Thank you," I say.

"Well, we would never get there on time if you had to tie them yourself," she says. "Come on. You can eat and walk at the same time, right?"

We walk fast toward the Pit. The muffin is banana-flavoured, with walnuts. I ignore the pinch in my stomach that comes every time I half walk, half jog after Sarai.

We climb the steps from the Pit to the glass building above it and run to the exit. Every thump of my feet sends pain through my ribs, but I ignore it. We make it to the tracks just as the train arrives, its horn blaring.

"What took you so long?" Will shouts over the horn.

"Stumpy Legs over here turned into an old lady overnight," says Sarai.

"Oh, shut up." I'm only half kidding.

Four stands at the front of the pack, so close to the tracks that if he shifted even an inch forward, the train would take his nose with it. He steps back to let some of the others get on first. Will hoists himself into the car with some difficulty, landing first on his stomach and then dragging his legs in behind him. Four grabs the handle on the side of the car and pulls himself in smoothly, like he doesn't have more than six feet of body to work with.

I jog next to the car, wincing, then grit my teeth and grab the handle on the side. This is going to hurt.

Al grabs me under each arm and lifts me easily into the car. Pain shoots through my side, but it only lasts for a second. I see Peter behind him, and my cheeks get warm. Al was trying to be nice, so I smile at him, but I wish people didn't want to be so nice. As if Peter didn't have enough ammunition already.

"Feeling okay there?" Peter says, giving me a look of mock sympathy—his lips turned down, his arched eyebrows pulled in. "Or are you a little... stiff?"

He bursts into laughter at his joke, and Molly and Drew join in. Molly has an ugly laugh, all snorting and shaking shoulders, and Drew's is silent, so it almost looks like he's in pain.

"We are all awed by your incredible wit," says Will.

"Trust me, I'm fine." I reply. In that moment I knew that the pain I was feeling physically was something that I needed to ignore and get used to, and so I straightened up and pretended that I was perfectly fine.

Four, standing in the doorway, speaks before Peter can retort. "Am I going to have to listen to your bickering all the way to the fence?"

Everyone gets quiet, and Four turns back to the car's opening. He holds the handles on either side, his arms stretching wide, and leans forward so his body is mostly outside the car, though his feet stay planted inside. The wind presses his shirt to his chest. I try to look past him at what we're passing—a sea of crumbling, abandoned buildings that get smaller as we go.

Every few seconds, though, my eyes shift back to Four. I don't know what I expect to see, or what I want to see, if anything. But I do it without thinking.

All of us either stood or sat. I stood. We all matched in long sleeved black shirts and mixing with black leggings or cargos, I took the cargos that day and a plain body protector that fitted us nicely. Four turned back to all of us.

"As dauntless, we fight to protect every life inside the fence, without fail. That's why we train you the way we do. To teach you not to give up." He looks over towards me, we held the contact for a little before I stopped it by looking down to the ground, "And to find out who has what it takes."

The train slowly made its way to a halt.

"Even though it's been quiet out there for years, that could change at any moment – so we have to be ready for everything." He says before all of us running out of the train.

We walked towards the wall and climbed the stairs; it led us to a solid ground floor that overlooked both sides of the city.

Sarai asks me, "What do you think is out there?" she nods out into the fields. "I mean, beyond the fence."

I shrug. "A bunch of farms, I guess."

"Yeah, but I mean...past the farms. What are we guarding the city from?"

She wiggles her fingers at me. "Is it monsters?"

I roll my eyes.

"We didn't even have guards near the fence until five years ago," says Will. "Don't you remember when Dauntless police used to patrol the factionless sector?"

"Yes," I say.

"Oh, right," he says. "How come you knew?"

"The same way you do?" I state a little too sharply. I think he forgets that we were part of the same faction.

"What did you do, memorize a map of the city for fun?" says Sarai.

"Yes," Will and I both spoke, looking puzzled. "Didn't you?"