Pit

Chapter 17

TRIS POV

"The chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy."

Every place in Dauntless has a lesson to teach.

Each section of the compound has its own jeopardizing features, whether it be no railings, hundred-foot drops, jagged rocks, or a combination of the three. It is supposed to represent that the Dauntless have no fear, when in reality it proves to the other factions that they are just as eager to throw themselves into peril as they believed.

They say that the Dauntless are mentally insane; initially, I admired them for it, for their nonconformity that gave everyone a bad impression. But their definition of rebellion is narrowly pulling off risky stunts and sometimes not pulling them off, leaving their fellow faction members in the dust as they move on to the next daredevil act. I learned this only after a few days of running with them.

We live a life of combat that supposedly prepares us for real warfare, when it only makes us more callous to casualties. And instead of picking up the pieces we need to continue on, we pick up guns despite our broken minds and expect to carry on past the grief with brutality.

That is why we have strange, reflective names around our home. The chasm. The Pire. The fear landscape.

And the Pit.

Pit is a negative term, a sunken hole, a state of deep emptiness. I wonder if the Dauntless embraced the name for their center of life just as they embraced their lifestyle that drives them in to such a place.