THE BUS WE take to get to the Choosing Ceremony is full of people in gray shirts and gray slacks. A pale ring of sunlight burns into the clouds like the end of a lit cigarette. I will never smoke one myself—they are closely tied to vanity—but a crowd of Candor smokes them in front of the building when we get off the bus.
I have to tilt my head back to see the top of the Hub, and even then, part of it disappears into the clouds. It is the tallest building in the city. I can see the lights on the two prongs on its roof from my bedroom window.
I follow my parents off the bus. Yoongi seems calm, but so would I, if I knew what I was going to do. Instead I get the distinct impression that my heart will burst out of my chest any minute now, and I grab his arm to steady myself as I walk up the front steps.
The elevator is crowded, so my father volunteers to give a cluster of Amity our place. We climb the stairs instead, following him unquestioningly. We set an example for our fellow faction members, and soon the three of us are engulfed in the mass of gray fabric ascending cement stairs in the half light. I settle into their pace.
The uniform pounding of feet in my ears and the homogeneity of the people around me makes me believe that I could choose this. I could be subsumed into Abnegation’s hive mind, projecting always outward.
But then my legs get sore, and I struggle to breathe, and I am again distracted by myself. We have to climb twenty flights of stairs to get to the Choosing Ceremony.
My father holds the door open on the twentieth floor and stands like a sentry as every Abnegation walks past him. I would wait for him, but the crowd presses me forward, out of the stairwell and into
the room where I will decide the rest of my life.
The room is arranged in concentric circles. On the edges stand the sixteen-year-olds of every faction. We are not called members yet; our decisions today will make us initiates, and we will become members if we complete initiation.
We arrange ourselves in alphabetical order, according to the last names we may leave behind today.
I stand beside Yoongi. Rows of chairs for our families make up the next circle. They are arranged in five sections, according to faction. Not everyone in each faction comes to the Choosing Ceremony, but enough of
them come that the crowd looks huge.
The responsibility to conduct the ceremony rotates from faction to faction each year, and this year is Abnegation’s. Junwoo will give the opening address and read the names in reverse alphabetical order.
Yoongi will choose before me.
In the last circle are five metal bowls so large they could hold my entire body, if I curled up. Each one contains a substance that represents each faction: gray stones for Abnegation, water for Erudite, earth for Amity, lit coals for Dauntless, and glass for Candor.
When Junwoo calls my name, I will walk to the center of the three circles. I will not speak. He will offer me a knife. I will cut into my hand and sprinkle my blood into the bowl of the faction I choose. My blood on the stones. My blood sizzling on the coals.
Before my parents sit down, they stand in front of Yoongi and me. My father kisses my forehead and claps Yoongi on the shoulder, grinning
“See you soon,” he says. Without a trace of doubt.
My mother hugs me, and what little resolve I have left almost breaks. I clench my jaw and stare up at the ceiling, where globe lanterns hang and fill the room with blue light. She holds me for what feels
like a long time, even after I let my hands fall. Before she pulls away, she turns her head and whispers in my ear,
“I love you. No matter what.”
I frown at her back as she walks away. She knows what I might do. She must know, or she wouldn’t feel the need to say that.
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Divergent | Jungkook AU
Fanfic"We have war inside of us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. Sometimes it threatens to destroy us"
