Dauntless

chapter 1

I sat on the floor of the train with a load of other dauntless kids, messing around and being loud. I stood up and walked over to the open door, I put my hands on either side of the door way and leaned out, the wind making my long, brown, curly hair lash against my face. the school suddenly came into view, but the train didn't stop, it carried on at its usual fast speed. I stepped back and launched myself out of train, I rolled and landed on my feet, running from the momentum, suddenly I was joined by hundreds of other dauntless, running and laughing from the jump.

"I don't understand how you do that." says a voice next to me. I turn to see my sister- Michelle- standing beside me. She was dauntless like me, but she just couldn't bring herself to jump off the train.

"It's easy once you do it once." I reply simply, shrugging my shoulders.

"But I just can't get myself to do it once. It's dangerous you know, a dauntless born broke her leg badly doing it once she was sixteen, and you're only fourteen." She informed me.

"I know." I mumbled, I didn't like it when people talked about my age, I wanted to be older, to start the initiation test.

"Come on." Michelle ushered me into the school building.

Once I was in the class, (I had no idea which one it was) I looked around the class room, usually my friend, Ella, would entertain me, but we don't have this lesson together. so I just day dreamed.

The aptitude test is what you have when you're sixteen, no one really knows what it is unless they've already had it, from what I've heard, you get put through a series of tests and each test is supposed to cross out one faction, and by the end of it you are left with what faction you belong to.

The choosing ceremony is the day after, all the sixteen year olds get called out individually and they have to cut their palms and drip their blood into the big silver bowl that belongs to the faction they choose, amity has earth in their bowl, candor has glass, erudite has water, abnegation has grey stones, and dauntless has fiery coals. You can choose to stay with the faction you were born in or you can transfer.

Afterwards you start initiation with the faction you chose, some kids will be knocked out if they don't do well, they will become factionless, homeless, with no faction to belong to. but if you make it through, you can start your own life with a job.

The bell rang to mark the end of the lesson, I ran out towards my next class and found Ella leaning up against a wall. Ella had long, really, REALLY, curly hair, it was sort of a blonde/brown colour. She was tall and tanned, we had been friends since the first day of school, and we were constantly daring each other to do things.

"Hey El." I said, walking over to her.

"Hi Zo." she replied, "Did you die of boredom in class without me?" She asked, putting a hand to her heart.

"No actually, I like it when you're not there." I said, my face and tone serious.

"Ok, so I guess I'll just sit on my own then." she said crossing her arms.

"Fine." I said, copying her. "I dare you to ask the teacher if you can move places." I challenged, usually this wouldn't be a big deal, but this teacher was really strict with his seating arrangements, we were allowed to sit with each other because if we didn't we would ruin the lesson.

"Challenge accepted." Ella said, she walked to the front of the class and up to the teacher.

"Sir, could I move places coz I don't want to sit with Zoe?" I noticed she was pretending to chew gum, and we weren't allowed to in class.

"Only if you take that chewing gum out of your mouth." said the teacher, not looking up from his work.

"What chewing gum, I don't have any." I bit my lip, she was playing a dangerous game.

"Then what do you have in your mouth?" asked the teacher, looking over his spectacles.

"Nothing!" Ella shouted, opening her mouth wide and sticking out her tongue. it wasn't this that was particularly funny, but it was the teachers face that cracked me up, I fell to the floor laughing, and Ella joined me, she sprawled across the desk she was standing next to. then, as if the laugh was contagious, the whole class started laughing.

Once the teacher had managed to get everyone to sit down and shut up, the lesson started. I wasn't really listening, just staring out of the window, until the teacher said,

"Zoe, what do you think the answer is?" I turned and looked at the teacher, bringing myself back to reality.

"What?" I asked.

"What do you think the answer is?" he asked again.

"Uuhm... I... I don't really know sir." I replied, I didn't like saying I didn't know something, not because I'm proud, but because I knew that would mean a bad mark, and then that would mean disappointing my parents.

"Ok, well, Jonathan can you tell us the answer?" the teacher focused his attention on the smart ass of the class.

"Well yes I can actually. hypothetically speaking, if..." I had no idea what the heck the freak was talking about.

Me and Jonathan had never gotten on, he was always trying to get better than me, you know, like those annoying people who are like, "you don't know the answer to the question and I do, you're so stupid blah blah blah." and he was always saying how dauntless are stupid and they can't do anything except shoot a gun, which is apparently easy because you just have to press the trigger. Anyway, we really didn't get along, he was a good for nothing erudite kid who all the teachers loved, mostly because they were erudite as well. He had blonde hair with a curtain styled fringe, he had round glasses, and always tucked his blue, grandpa jumper into his corduroy trousers, he was a real wierdo.

"Hey, how do you fancy going on the zip wire today after school?" asked Ella, I guess she had realized I was upset. the zip wire wasn't just a normal zip wire, it was massive, it spread our across nearly the whole city and it went really fast. We could never really go on it because we were to young, but every now and again we sneaked out with some older dauntless kids.

"Love to." I replied, a huge grin spreading over my face.

This was going to be a fun day.