MONSTER ✰ DIVERGENT

01 ATHENA, UNRAVELED

𝖒𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗
—CHAPTER ONE!
( athena, unraveled. )

☆彡

THE THING IS, ATHENA BLAKE HAS HER FUTURE LINED UP ALREADY. Nothing can go wrong. After calculated choices and following the path laid out in front of her, she knows exactly where the dominos will fall and where she'll end up. The certainty of it all thrills her; she can't wait for every piece to fall into place.

She likes knowing that what will happen, will happen according to plan—according to whatever she sets into motion. If everything is controlled, nothing can go wrong. There's a logical conclusion to every logical question. Everything has its place, its own role in the game of life, and so does she.

She was born into a long line of Erudites, from age old tradition, and she always knew in her heart that nothing had changed within her to predicate any tipping of the scales. She is Erudite through and through, and what comes next is what was always meant to come next. She made it so.

But that doesn't mean that her last day of school with her classmates is any less difficult than usual. In fact, it seemed that she, her brother, and other Erudites in attendance were the only ones to value knowledge and logic. Everyone else seemed to take their upcoming aptitude tests with a grain of salt, knowing it meant that the sixteen year olds would no longer be indebted to their education, and therefore, would no longer need to attend. They were practically counting down the seconds and ready to throw confetti in the air as soon as the timer ran out.

"Ugh!" she groans under her breath, chair scooted in all the way, elbows on the table and her chin supported by her hands. Knowing full well that only her seat partner would notice, she rolls her eyes, as the room roars once more, running a hand through her dark hair as her annoyance grows.

Luckily for her, she's been paired with her older twin brother since birth—and he didn't mind her interruptions. They worked well together, having spent their entire lives together, and if the teachers dared separate the duo, the two raised hell until everything went back to the way it was before. It is a rare occurrence for students to share schedules, but the two managed to get the exact same schedule, even down to the exact same elective classes; it came down to their insistence, and maybe also because they got their parents involved. They did everything together, ever since they were babies, and while some teenagers grew apart from their siblings, they grew closer. Even before she let her frustrations loose, she's already awaiting his chuckle of a response.

And of course, her annoyance merely gains a laugh in reply from him. It almost interrupts the lesson their math teacher is giving, but the man faced other obstacles more impertinent than the teenage boy's laugh: the fact that the rest of the class is paying absolutely no attention. So as Ares turns toward his twin with a crooked smile, she meets his eyes.

"Just don't mind them," he whispers, learning over to her and using his head to gesture towards the other students.

Their table of two was front and center, but juxtaposing them was the fact that the chaos lay all around them. The other few Erudites in their class were also in the same row, mostly alert and attentive. One boy—who didn't mind the use of he/him pronouns, but generally preferred they/them—Alidante, is reading a book, blatantly paying no mind to their surroundings, sitting with their back against the classroom wall and their feet cushioned by the other chair; they never had a partner in any class, always refused having any because they never cared for people or for academics. Other than them, a pair of Erudite girls chat casually, occasionally interrupting the class with their bursts of giggles.

Their insistence on making their last day of classes about everything but actual class is only on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of disruptions. The rest of the class is mostly made up of other factions, namely Candor and Dauntless, with a few spare Amity and Abnegation. In order to get rid of the educational tracks of the past and work towards equitable education, the institutions themselves had long instituted randomized student makeup of classes, but sometimes, it just meant that what the different factions treasured became the reasoning behind which students succeeded and which ones didn't. For this class in particular, as usual, most of the Dauntless-born haven't showed up, but the Candor made up for it by using their time as a gossip session, and the remaining Dauntless and Amity teenagers join in.