Writer Games: The Final Twist & A Night in Wattpad Manor & Faction Wattpad

The Funeral: Arin Freestone

The day of my mother's  funeral is drab and grey and dull. The sky cries soft pattering tears at  her passing and a cruel wind rails against her death. Mourners dressed  in black assemble at her grave. I see the grief etched on every single  one of their faces as they come to pay their respects, gathering in an  ocean of black. It's like the ocean I see every day at Dauntless, except  it's not, because these people aren't all Dauntless. There are Candor,  Erudite, Abnegation and even Amity here as well. All wearing identical  expressions of sadness. All clothed in identical silvery masks of tears.

It shouldn't be like this.

My mother's funeral  should be bright and effervescent and vivacious and lively and maybe  even a bit scandalous because those were all the things she was. She was  the light of my father's life. She was the shining leader of our world.  She was the one who would comfort me whenever I felt said, the one who  would give me a glimpse of that famous grin of hers and tickle me and  make me laugh. She was the one who brought our country to peace and  prosperity and made few enemies along the way.

I'm sixteen and I'll never see her again.

My father shuffles his  notes as he steps behind the lectern. His glasses, prescribed by the  doctor in his later years, pinch the end of his nose, which is still  tainted red from crying. He clears his throat and begins to speak, voice  still strong even at the ripe age of sixty. My mother's age. She won't  get any older.

"Citizens of Chicago, I  thank you all for coming to pay your respects to my wife. To your  leader, Arin Freestone. She was, I think you will all agree, one of the  greatest leaders our city has ever known. She made peace with the  factionless and gave them a life away from poverty. She gave our  children a better future and made a new world for all of us. But I am  not here to bore you with tales of her achievements, and to tell you  about Arin Freestone, the leader. That is not what my wife would have  wanted. She would have wanted you to know who she was, really, the woman  few of you ever got to see.

"I met my wife during  initiation. She was a transfer, I was Dauntless-born. The first time we  talked, she almost choked on her muffin; I still tease her about it  now," he trails off as he realises what he has said. The momentary  silence hangs heavy in the air, and I will him to keep talking, to keep  helping me think of happy memories. "We went through the trials and  tribulations of initiation together, and we were over the moon when we  both made it. I remember that that was the first time I really  understood what she meant to me, though she realised it sooner. I was in  her fear landscape the first time she went through it. To this day it's  still something I regret; that it was only the third or fourth time I  went through mine when she began to become a regular feature."

"Arin and I shared our  first kiss on a night stained with rainfall and the snapping of family  ties. She had just refused to stand up for her own brother so that she  could keep me. I didn't know how to respond, and so my befuddled mind  did what I suppose it had been waiting to do since I first saw her. I  kissed her. She kissed me back. I remember the night as a blur of lust  and love, a mishmash of kisses and I don't know what. The next morning I  was terrified that she would think it a mistake on her part and send me  away, and that the fluttering hope I had in my stomach would be  crushed. But it wasn't, and here I am now, standing at her grave with  our legacy of three children and a peaceful nation.

"I thank you for keeping  faith in my wife. I thank you for, even when the road towards peace was  tough and Arin made bad decisions-for we all make mistakes-for never  doubting her. I thank you for turning up here, and for mourning her  death and celebrating her life as one. The unity you have shown today is  the thing she has been dreaming of ever since she became ruler at the  tender age of sixteen. I know that in your hearts, the name of Arin  Freestone will not be forgotten. I want to preserve her image forever,  and I know that I shall; it is carried on in this city, in the hope that  remains here. It is carried on in each and every one of you, her  faithful citizens. But above all, it is carried on in our children.