I’m bearing down on a woman in gray, an Abnegation. I don’t know how but I know that this woman is evil, that I must protect the city from her. I raise my gun and take aim, flicking the safety off mechanically, lightly touching my finger to the trigger.

“Please!” She begs me through her sobs. “We have done nothing. Why are you doing this? I don’t understand!”

I have no response for her as I draw in a breath, steadying myself so I can squeeze the trigger. I blink rapidly, taking my finger off the trigger and pointing my gun at the ground. It’s like awakening from a fog. I look around perplexed, my fellow Dauntless and I are in the Abnegation section of the city. I see Abnegation bodies lying in the street, Dauntless soldiers standing over them, most of them looking as perplexed as me.

I look at the woman I was about to kill, I want to apologize, I want to tell her I didn’t know what I was doing when I hear a gun go off. The woman’s blood splatters onto me and I turn to see that one of my Dauntless brothers has killed this woman. I raise my gun, training it on his torso. “What are you doing?” I ask as I see other Dauntless choosing sides between me and the Dauntless boy.

“Come on Erudite,” he identifies me by my born faction. “Your family didn’t tell you? The Abnegation cannot be trusted with power.”

I don’t understand. The Abnegation are the most selfless of all the factions, they offer no resistance and yet my brothers and I are killing them. For what purpose? Erudite power? “When did the Dauntless become Erudite puppets?” I growl angrily. Dauntless are trained lethal weapons but I want my lethality to be my choice.

The boy doesn’t answer me, instead he shoots me. The bullet collides with my shoulder and I bite my lip so hard I can taste the blood as I raise my gun and open fire. I take cover behind one of the abnegation houses, glad to see that I am not the only one staying true to our faction. Then I realize that my hands are shaking, the adrenaline leaving my system makes me more acutely aware of the pain in my shoulder. I look down and see that my shirt is soaked with blood, and I hope that all of it isn’t mine.

I watched as the Abnegation died in front of my eyes, I saw a woman fall down after being shot by another. My eyes widened in horror and I backed away as someone got shot in the shoulder. I pulled out a pistol and backed up against a wall trying to defend myself while I watched the innocent die. I saw an Abnegation hop onto the back of one of the Dauntless, I shot her pistol three times and the Abnegation fell.

"Thank you, lets get moving." The soldier I had just helped was motioning towards the city, I shook my head and frowned. "No, why are we even doing this? What did the Abnegation do to us?" The soldier's eyes widened and he shook his head looking at the countless bodies on the ground. "I-I don't know." He said, I reached a hand out to him and smiled. The soldier shook his head and shot at me the bullets moving rapidly, I had no time to dodge as one hit my chest, my shoulder, and somewhere else.

I didn't know where that bullet went as she hit the ground staring at the soldier who ran into the city killing the Abnegation in his path. I shook her head and got up, thats when I realized the bullet hand went in my leg. I screamed in pain and started walking, I saw the girl with the bullet in her shoulder and limped up to her. "Help, what are we doing?"

A girl limped up to me, asking for help. I was checking my ammunition when she approached. I didn't respond at first, I was trying to process and come up with a plan. I looked her over, she needed some medical attention and was clearly not working with the Erudite. I inclined my head towards the house we had been taking cover behind, "It would be best if we got off the streets." I readied my gun and began to clear the house. To my great relief the house was empty and for now was safe.

The house was decorated sparsely in true Abnegation fashion. I sat the girl down on the couch while looking for any medicinal supplies I could find in the house. I returned to the living room, and sat on the edge of the abnegation coffee table so I could easily work on the girls wounds. I handed her a strip of cloth to bite down on as I pulled my knife out. "This is going to hurt I warned," and with no further explanation I used the blade to pull the bullets out of her wounds. "I'm Tahra," I offered as I tried to clean and dress her wounds. "We need to find others who are true Dauntless. I think that tracker we were injected with last night was really a simulation. The Erudite and the Abnegation have been fighting over control of the city government for ages now. Neither the Erudite nor the Abnegation are fighters so Erudite found a way to make the Dauntless fight for them. Let's make them pay for it. We need to get to Candor headquarters, hopefully they will side with us and not the Erudite."

I handed her my knife, "I can do it if you can't but I would rather not." I didn't fancy digging the bullet out of my own shoulder but I knew it needed to come out.

I had bit down on the cloth and screamed a few times, when she offered me the knife I took it gingerly and handed Tahra the cloth. I smiled at Tahra before carefully laying her down and inserting the knife into her shoulder, the bullet moved about and I had to tilt the knife to dig it out. "My name is Akira." I said as I quickly removed the knife and bullet from her shoulder.

I went to the kitchen and turned on the black faucet, water and rust came out for a short while but eventually it turned clear. I rinsed of the knife and took a bowl of water back over to the Tahra. I started cleaning her wounds carefully and kept a small smile on my face the entire time. "Thank you for helping me." I said politely, now that Tahra was bandaged up I moved away and watched my work before going to the door and locking it. "What are we doing now?" I started to fidget out of habit and pulled out my pistol, when I did I pointed it at the floor and started to clean it.

(I have no idea why that happened...)

(Its OK, I think the system is still being laggy.)

Akira took the knife from me and I quickly shoved the cloth in my mouth, I didn’t think my lip would handle being chomped on again. I winced as she dug around in my shoulder and was grateful that she was skilled with the knife. She thanked me for helping to which I simply nodded, she was Dauntless, of course I helped her.

“We should wait till nightfall to leave here, we’ll be harder to spot. Maybe we can find some more Dauntless that aren’t allied with the Erudite before then, lead them back here and wait.” I suggested. I grabbed my gun and checked to make sure everything was in working order before flipping the safety on and letting myself out of the house, I needed to find more Dauntless. I needed to know that more of my Dauntless had survived than just the idiot puppets of the Erudite. I wondered if my parents knew about the attack…if they knew that I was going to be turned into a mindless slave of an Erudite program. The thought pissed me off, I knew I was going to have to find them, get answers but for now…I needed to find my true family.