TRIS POV
It is hard to let go of that day.
Rain splatters against the window, pulling my attention away from the hot, crumby classroom and the ignorant children that scribble answers down on their papers. I sit among them and watch the droplets trace the glass. They slide down, begging to be let in, before they connect with other drops of water and die at the bottom of the window.
It was raining that day too.
I sigh as quietly as possible as to not disturb the class and focus my mind elsewhere. But try as I might, the only object in the room that can claim my attention at the moment is the repetitive clock that makes me cringe with each tick.
So I slip into the dirty past, where I can at least find some action.
Ironically, the day that the war ended is the day that I lost everything. It is the reason why I am depressed. It is the reason that I lost the only family I had left, or so I believed at the time. It is the reason I am here in this Upper Levels classroom today, my brain rotting with each second I remain idle and get fed useless information.
After I managed to get all the way up to Jeanine's private office and literally fought myself off so that the poison didn't take me, my life fell apart. Jeanine was there, with Tori about to shoot her. I stepped in because Jeanine was the only one who could access her computer, which had vital information about Divergents and the city on it. Tori and I wrestled for the gun—she even bit me—until Tobias barged in with Uriah and a few armed factionless soldiers and broke up the fight.
Taking a deep breath, I glance up at the lights above my head and try to shove him into the deepest part of my mind, but his voice struggles to be heard.
Tobias, my only family, the only person I could trust with anything I asked of him, betrayed me that day as I had betrayed him. He was crushed when he found out that I went behind his back to work with his father. I remember the heinous words that he threw at me for lying and risking my life once again, followed by the two word sentence that caused my heart to drop in my stomach: We're done. The dead look in his unforgiving, dark eyes almost made me content with our split.
But he is the only man I've ever loved, so I was not okay with it in the slightest.
Uriah then escorted me downstairs and handed off his weapon to a factionless soldier. It was their plan all along, to collect the guns so that they could have total control over everybody in Erudite, although I know they wanted to go further and take over the city.
When we reached the main level, I found that Christina was fine, aside from the bullet in her leg. I also recognized a few more faces in the crowd. One of them was Lynn, who died that day with Uriah and I by her side.
An Erudite girl next to me bounces her foot against the ground in a nervous manner. I have to grit my teeth to restrain myself from telling her to stop.
Images burn in my mind, first of the fatal wound in Lynn's stomach, and then the coup that occurred just minutes after her death. Jeanine was nearly shot by Evelyn, and she would have been had it not been for the Candor backup she had.
The mind controlled Candor that confronted our group while we were infiltrating Erudite were used by the Erudite to overthrow the shortlived factionless government. They hadn't even gotten to the execution before the Candor stormed the building and commanded everyone to drop their weapons in monotone voices. The factionless had no choice but to surrender.
Chaos ensued. Riots broke out, and Chicago was reduced to an anarchy. With nowhere to go, especially nowhere safe, I stayed with Christina in the Erudite hospital, where she got her leg fixed. It was a miserable time, but at least I had my best friend.
Meanwhile, what was left of the Abnegation leaders joined together to create a "new" government. Within three days, they declared that we would all go back to the type of society that we knew best: the factions.
For the most part, it worked. Everyone returned to their homes. The city settled down. We knew how to make this work; we had before, so surely there would be no problem.
Except for me.
A short Candor boy with glasses slams his pencil down repeatedly on his paper in a frenzy across the room. I try not to judge him, but it is difficult. These people are all my age, and yet they are mentally much younger. While I constantly dwell on the horrid memories of war, they are all hellbent on getting perfect grades like any of this will matter in their lifetime.
Ignoring the constant noise sounding from the clock on the wall, I go back to reflecting.
The Abnegation leaders ordered the sixteen-year-olds that had chosen their new factions that year to return to their former factions. They explained that Erudite did not finish its initiation process, and therefore it was unfair for the initiates to be thrown back in after all of this time. They would not end up in their rightful order, so it would only ensure equality if all of us chose our factions and went through initiation again. It was also claimed that since a war broke out that year, the year of our choosing, there was some fault in our choices and in the system.
Therefore, I was sent back to Abnegation, to the household where I grew up. Caleb came too after he was released from prison after Candor judges found him young and impressionable—in other words, his choices weren't his fault.
I was coerced to live in the house I ran from. I have had to dwell another nine months in the place where my now deceased parents raised me, and where my traitor brother is supposed to live too. It was extremely rough in the beginning, but the fact that Caleb and I have since moved on from his actions has made it bearable.
And still, beneath everything that happened that day, there is an underlying solution that could have prevented everything.
The video on Jeanine's computer was never released. Instead, the device was wiped clean, and it will not be found again.
I was dependent on that video. I could have proven to Tobias that I was correct in risking our relationship for the greater good. We could be together now. I could be in Dauntless, and there could possibly be no more factions.
Maybe I wouldn't be struggling to get out of bed in the morning, or attempting to find every reason to end it all.
Maybe I wouldn't be trapped in a classroom and taking a damn test with a bunch of immature teenagers who have no idea what it is like to survive near-death experiences and still want to take their own life on some days.
"Beatrice?"
I startle, dropping my pencil on top of my incomplete test. It rolls until it falls off the desk, hitting the floor with a thump.
"Sorry, what?" I say, looking up at the nondescript, faction history teacher clad in blue. It is then that I notice that the classroom is empty. The bell must have gone off, clearing the room of students. I must have missed it in my daydreaming haze.
"Are you all right?" she asks, tilting her head and offering me a pitying look. "Do you need more time to finish the test?"
I shake my head before I even check to see how many unanswered questions I have left. "No."
"Would you please just take the time to fill in that last question?" She flashes me an encouraging smile and retreats to her desk at the front of the room.
Carelessly responding to the last question on the test with sloppy handwriting, I slip my bag over my shoulder. Then I deposit the test on her desk on my way out.
The last question on the test was a short answer question. In your opinion, who (which faction) won the most recent war and why?
My answer was one word.
Nobody.
xXxXx
Hey guys! Thanks for sticking with me! I'm so excited for this story! Here are a few things you need to know:
This is set after Insurgent, but the ending is very different, as you can tell from this prologue.
Tris and Tobias actually slept together the night she left for Erudite. (Makes you hate her more for doing it, right?)
There is some history in their nine months apart that will be covered throughout the story, so don't worry if Tris or Tobias mentions an event and you're totally confused for a bit. Hang tight, your questions will be answered.
And even though I am writing a story that kind of follows the books for once, if it seems sort of OOC at times (i.e. swearing), then good because that's what I'm aiming for. They both are still only teenagers who are being shaped, and the war changed something in each of them. (Speaking of that, you should check out the warnings in the summary.)
Last but not least...
Disclaimer: I do not own the Divergent series or any of its characters.