Bite Me || Eric Coulter Fanfic - Divergent

4. Oh boy here we go

Yellow was all around me. It was as if I was inside the sun itself, floating momentarily before beginning my descent. In reality, it was my yellow dress surrounding me as I fell towards the gaping, black hole. I admired the blue sky and the worn, chipped paint of the buildings between which I fell. It might be the last time I see them.

Just I was contemplating my imminent death, the breath was nearly knocked out of me. My back fell harshly on what appears to be a rough net and I bounced a few times before finally letting out a laugh in the sheer disbelief that I survived.

The net dipped and I look to my left to see a pair of warm brown eyes staring at me expectantly; probably thinking whether I needed to be hauled out of the net or not. My legs finally move and I jump off, landing surprisingly more gracefully than when I jumped out of the train. Maybe I was slowly getting the hang of this? Yeah, right.

"Name?" asked the tall, brunette man that had been holding the net. "If it's a hard one, you can choose a new one, but make it good" he said, already looking a little bit bored.

"Iris" I said, having decided to shorten my name even before leaving Amity.

He gave me a curt nod, his eyes showing less disinterest than a few moments ago, probably realizing that I had recovered from the fall and wasn't about to throw a fit.

"First jumper, Iris" he yelled as another transfer fell on the net.

I shuffled closer to the back of the room where a few Dauntless members stood, some giving me encouraging smiles, others patting me on the back.

When everyone had jumped, I found myself standing between Sean and Chloe. The man from before cleared his throat. That alone was enough to silence the whole room. Authoritative attitudes must run in Dauntless.

"Alright everyone. My name is Four. I usually work in intelligence, but for the next few weeks, I'll be involved in your training." he said, surveying the room.

"Four? What, like the number?" said a Candor girl, with short, black hair, who had been introduced as Christina.

"Exactly like the number" said Four, eyes shining, head bent low just a little bit; a stance that could only be described as 'the calm before the storm'. Christina didn't seem to get the memo though because she continued, in an almost flirtatious tone.

"What? One, two, three were taken?" she asked.

Four was in front of her in two confident strides, eyes blazing.
"What's your name?" he asks lowly

"Christina" she says, finally showing some trepidation.

"Well, Christina" he says her name almost mockingly "The first lesson you learn from me if you want to survive, is to keep your mouth shut. Do you understand?" he nearly growls.

"Y-yes" Chrisitna stutters.

Satisfied with her reaction, Four begins to walk to the center of the room. The Dauntless born had left with a woman named Lauren, as they didn't really need a tour. But lucky for us, Mr. Big and Scary was giving us a tour of the Dauntless compound.

The highlights of the tour; seeing how lively and vibrant the Pit is and seeing the Abnegation transfers' reaction when Four told us we would be living in a completely communal space, shared bathroom and everything. The look on their face was priceless, seriously, Chloe looked mortified. Talk about differences in upbringing.

After changing into our new, all-black clothes, we burned our old ones. I'm sure there's some kind of symbolism in there; new beginnings and whatnot, but this was seriously a waste of fabric. Again, my inner Amity was not particularly happy with the change in scenery.

Four led us through the halls of Dauntless to the main training grounds. We started of with a few laps around the large room. We knew we were being closely watched and evaluated the moment we started running, which of course allowed some people to try to show off to our instructor. What they didn't realize though, is that you can run impressively fast for a very limited amount of time. After that, you start looking like a chicken without a head; running and stumbling around while bumping into everything and everyone. Thankfully, I was used to running around a lot back in the fields in Amity, so I knew how to pace myself and not drop to the ground after a few laps. Apparently, so did Sean along with most of the Dauntless born initiates and a few transfers. I knew that this was a competition, so I pushed myself to finish first.

"Okay everyone, that was our warm up" shouts Four.

Warm up? Cool, cool, that's absolutely fine, I'm not drenched in sweat at all.

"There are two stages to your training. The first stage is physical; reach your breaking point and learn to overcome it. The second stage is emotional and mental; again, breaking point" said Four, not bothered whatsoever by the looks of horror some of the initiates were giving him.

I look to the left and meet turbulent, blue eyes.

"The first stage also determines who gets cut" says Eric, his commanding voice lowering the temperature in the room.

"Cut?" Chrisitna asks, confusion lacing her voice.

"By the end of the first stage, the ones who perform the worst will leave Dauntless" Eric continued

"Leave?" asks Al, another transfer "And go where?"

"Well you wouldn't be accepted back into your old factions, so you'd live out the rest of your days as factionless" answered Eric, as if he was talking about the weather. His eyes though held something dangerous.

"Why didn't we know about this before?" asked Will, one of the Erudite transfers.

Now Eric's gaze was menacing.

"What's the problem initiate? Would you have chosen differently?" he asks, looking down at him, even though he was only a couple of inches taller.

"Out of fear?" he directs that statement to all of us, slowly walking left to right.

"There's no going back to your families now" he continues, his eyes briefly meeting mine. Ice started forming in my veins, only melting after Eirc removed his eyes from mine, one long moment later.

"You chose us" he pauses. "Now, we get to choose you".

Oh boy, here we go.