𝐎𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 [𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫 - 𝐃𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭]

7 | Bram the Corgi

— THE DAY BEGAN WITH RAIN. Well, in all actuality the rain had hardly stopped all week, so the day really began with Vega sprinting through the rain. So far, he'd put all of his success during physical training down to luck and continued with ease — enjoying the new strain of obstacle courses, midnight training drills and monitored fistfights. Somehow, he'd discovered muscles he'd never even known of before and his stocky build expanded before his eyes, body nothing but strength piled on strength, sharp cutting corners and gentle expressions. If anything, he'd been struggling to pull his punches to keep fights going past the first couple blows, and even then, it was simply expected that he'd win. And maybe some would resent him for that if he hadn't been so apologetic for his numerous successes, always quick to tend to someone else's bruise before his own.

The 4am training drills were refreshing once he'd adjusted to the loss of sleep. But this week had been hideous. Arms pumping, muscles twitching from the cold, fists clenched and nails digging into crescents to keep himself awake and upright as his feet pounded against the concrete roofs of the Dauntless compound, weighed down by the water-logged layers of his uniform and the heavy artillery slung across his back. He was ahead of the others marginally, pushing himself through the sluggish exhaustion and deep chill settling in his bones, staring a little maliciously at Four's back. The trainer carried himself like he was taking a walk in the park, light and spritely as he led the trainees on what was the longest, most torrential route they'd ever done.

Vega's body screamed. It had been three hours of this if the now fully risen sun burning behind the heavy clouds said anything. There was one little joy of this kind of exertion, though. Beneath the thudding of blood, Vega's mind was silent.

And then came a commotion from the back, a musclebound man dropping in a faint, taking a willowy, barely conscious girl down with him. Neither got back up and Four shouted for the group to continue, same direction and pace, as he looped back to assist, snaring Vega's shoulder in the process until he found himself being dragged back too.

The group thundered on ahead as Four sent him a flat, cruel stare and said, "You look like you could use an extra push," then hoisted the girl — dead asleep once her body had fallen out of routine and swiftly shut down — over his shoulders like a sack of grain and gestured for him to do the same. Growling with frustration, he hauled the large man over his shoulders in the same manner, missing Four's suddenly heated look as he thinned his lips and squinted his eyes with the effort.

Up ahead, Eric leaned against a concrete column safely beneath the cover of the open-ended shooting range, watching as initiates stumbled out of the rain and swiftly collapsed against each other, marking down their placing on a holographic screen clenched between rough hands. He was but a speck in the distance, a smear of black clothes and ashen skin amongst the never-ending grey of the compound and skyline alike. Chicago was bathed in a meagre light and everything around glistened through the sheets of heavy rain. Back in Amity, everyone would be restricted to the safety of their homes, praying for the exposed crops that the soil wouldn't become little more than marshland. Vega remembered rainstorms like this; when things went badly, they'd have to pull up what they could and plow the fields all over again, setting back crop yields to an almost zero. People went hungry in those times.