Seeva Andino

District 2 Female, 18
District 2 Central Square
Reaping Day

We're already on our way to the Central Square for the Reaping when my stomach growls loudly and Imari decides it's time for a quick snack break. I don't object, I love food as much as the next guy, but the nerves are getting to me a little bit.

After all, I'm volunteering for the Hunger Games in a few hours. I'm the chosen female volunteer. As much as I wanted to downplay it initially, it's kind of a big deal. A huge fucking deal that might end with me in a coffin, so sue me for being a little nervous. Imari is my best friend, my partner in crime, name it whatever you want, so obviously he sees right through my bullshit attempts at staying calm. He's the most important person in my life, so naturally, he does what all best friends do.

"Seeva, you having doubts?" he teases, knowing hell would freeze over before I quit something I started or backed down from a challenge. He pokes me in the ribs deftly, for maximum effect. I have to refrain from dislocating his finger, as we are wont to do in the Training Center, whenever someone tries to infringe upon our personal space.

"Nah, just worried we'll be late for my big moment, because of your fat ass."

The guy is a huge mass of corded muscle, so he knows I'm kidding. It's all insults, the two of us.

Imari laughs, a genuine warm sound.

"Fine, let's be the people that show up at 8AM to a ceremony that starts at 2PM. That's definitely not weird at all and won't make anyone question your sanity."

I laugh too, slapping myself on the forehead out of mock-embarrassment.

"First off, fuck you, and second, fine you're right," I yield, already turning towards our go-to bakery at the outskirts of the Districts. We'll take the long way back, because Imari's right. It's way too early still, even though my nervous system is going into overdrive.

As we cross the door of the bakery, a sourdough delicious smell assaults my nostrils. The heat from the ovens at the back can be felt all the way up to the counter at the front of the store, where a plump nice-looking lady is staring at us expectantly. Imari buys two twelve-inch sandwiches, and we go out of the store and sit in the shade, scarfing down our impromptu breakfast.

If there's one thing I can't get enough of, it's food. It's my favorite thing in the world, except for maybe Imari. It's pretty counter-intuitive then, that I'm willingly putting myself in a competition entitled the Hunger Games. Imari joked that the hunger is what I'd have the hardest time with. I don't even know if he's wrong, I hate going hungry. I'm not a huge fan of murder but like, that's what I'm signing up to do, but the hunger? I guess I'm signing up for that too. It's complicated. I don't think I'm a bad person necessarily, and it's always at the back of my mind…the fact that all this hard work, all this training might be turned against me, with the audience slapping a villain label on my starving ass. It'll be what it'll be, but all I know is that I'll do my damn hardest not to die.

"You know, you're going to look like an absolute beast next to Luther, right?" Imari remarks, his mouth full. "I'm pretty sure you could crush him with your bare hands if you wanted to."

Luther is our male volunteer this year and it's…kinda true? I mean, Luther's tall, but I'm just as tall and I've got muscle. God knows I've bulked like there's no tomorrow.

He's got the speed, though. I have to remind myself again and again how dangerous speed can be, in hand-to-hand combat. In our tests, I know I scored much lower than Luther in terms of quick reflexes and speed of inflicting injury. But Sujax clearly thinks I'm good enough to send in, and he doesn't have the same reservations about me as Athena does. Rebellion family ties and all, she's not too hot on sending me as a District 2 representative, but that's too bad for her. I think that if we can get along, Luther and I, we'll have quite the complimentary skill set.

Imari is watching me, and can probably see the wheels turning in my head, as I furiously munch and chew.

"He's a fast one, I'll give him that," I finally object, sounding almost defensive even though Luther absolutely does not need me standing up for him. I'm pretty sure he could stab Imari, me and a majority of the population of District 2 before we even noticed. Athena's been really flipflopping all over the place this year with the male volunteer decision, so I'm pretty sure Luther's already in a stabbing mood.

What I've heard is that she's getting angsty about not bringing home any Victors. The last news that reached me was that she was leaning towards Gregory, another prospective trainee, but that Sujax veto-ed her decision. That's why I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Luther's going in with me, because I've trained with Sujax and he's our main Victor and Gregory just seems like a less sensible choice. Imari seems to share my opinion that Luther is the one District 2 will be sending, in the end.

I don't want to rehash our conversation about my doubts and anxieties about Luther, so I shut up and busy myself with the sandwich. When I initially told Imari how stressed I was about how this whole Career alliance thing will pan out, my friend just told me that once we stepped foot on the train, everything would fall into place. He understood what kind of implications and hidden meanings my worries had.

That's what's nice with Imari. We get each other. To a point where we both don't even have to say anything for it to make sense.

Imari knows all about my history, my convoluted complicated and fractured history that some days I wish I could just bury. A history that I am not ashamed of, but one that had caused me so much unnecessary grief in my life. He knows both my parents died fighting for the rebels. In District 2, that kind of shit simply doesn't fly. God knows I was reminded of that fact when I was bouncing from community orphanage to foster home to government housing. No one took too kindly to an orphan whose parents had caused, in their eyes, great pain to our great nation.

Imari's parents are also gone, dead during the Dark Days.

I don't know if they were on the same side, my parents and Imari's, but it doesn't matter if I'm being honest. We live in a new world where they're not here anymore. We need to pave our own way now, and my way was always with Imari.

He knows all about my sister Chaya and her twin Venthan. They were taken away the night my parents were killed, and I still don't know where they are. I grieve for them, I've explained to Imari that much. I still remember their faces, as they were carted away by Peacekeepers. I screamed and cried a lot, I remember too.

They left such a gaping hole that nothing can mend, but maybe volunteering will help. Maybe winning will finally give me the agency or the power to find them, or to finally put to rest the millions of theories I've concocted in my childhood. I had been so happy with them, so naïve and I still yearn to have someone like that, who could dispel my doubts and my worries. Imari's been like that for a while now.

Training and giving myself a purpose through the Games, that's another positive step as far as I'm concerned.

I don't really have another goal in mind. I'm eighteen and it might be the existential crisis talking, but I don't see what else is out there for me, what could finally make me into my own person. Into a Seeva that isn't just a daughter of rebels.

Like, in a hypothetical scenario where the Games were never in the cards for me, what would my options be?

If, somehow, I got a Peacekeeper job at the end of the line, I'd be shipped off to a district seething with rebels and dissidence. Probably District 10 or 12 with my luck, to prove my loyalty… the higher-ups have alluded to this much.

It's also important to note that I have approximately zero desire to oppress rebellion through violent means. It would almost be poetic, that I grew up to be the thing my parents tried to rid the world of, and quite frankly, it would be a stain to their image and I can't bring myself to do that.

My parents were both medics and they never advocated for or condoned violence. Their purpose was to help and heal, and they had deemed that the Capitol was hurting people, a disease worth eradicating. That's all there was to it. Maybe I don't necessarily agree with their methods, but I can't ever imagine myself wielding a weapon, and straight-up executing people like them, people with rebellious inclinations. I've been in enough homes, surrounded by children whose parents got shot in front of them for instigating the rebellion and I can't be a cog in the Capitol's machine.

And on top of that, by becoming a Peacekeeper, I might never see Imari again. Once you serve, your life is the Capitol's. With a person like me, with rebellion roots digging deep into my tumultuous past, there's no way in hell they won't test me at every given moment.

They'll watch me like a hawk and make my entire life a payment of the huge debt my parents saddled me with, by fighting for the losing side. A debt I have no business repaying, if we consider the fact that I was fucking five and didn't even know what they were doing until it was too late.

Not that I'd ever renounce my heritage. I'm an Andino through and through, and I have hope that somewhere in Panem, my siblings are out there. Maybe someday, if I win, I'll find them. Or maybe, they'll see me on-screen and remember the little girl who they used to play with, all these years ago. Maybe they're gone and I'll never know. But as it is right now, there is no way for me to reconcile my training, my family, my past and my allegiance to myself. That's why I'm going in the Games right? That's what I explained to Imari when he struggled with my decision.

He didn't understand at first, this drive to be me, to shrug off the burden of what my parents had done, to leave behind the weight of my older siblings' disappearance that forced me into a lifestyle I'd do anything to forget. The community homes and the derision, I'm done with that for better or for worse.

He understands now, I think, as he watches me. We finish our sandwiches in comfortable silence. I know that what comes next is going to be painful for him. To let me go after we spent so many years trusting and relying on each other. I already know he's the only one coming to say goodbye, once I'm led into the Justice Building.

In a way, there is really no one else significant left in this District for me, apart from Imari.

But he's such a strong tether that leaving is still incredibly hard. Everything that needed to be said has already been taken care of, so all we've got to do is spend the last minutes in that room, our foreheads together, our eyes closed, taking comfort in each other's presence. Sharing these possible last moments of a beautiful friendship that burgeoned from necessity and became something so much more.

This trust…this isn't something I will have in the Games. Imari might be the last person I can wholeheartedly say knows me as I am, and I want to take advantage of that before I leave.

I look at Imari with all the love I can muster for a person who essentially became the family that was taken from me so many years ago.

"So… you enjoying the view?" Imari suggests as he wiggles his eyebrows, stands up and hauls me on my feet.

I swat his arm away and replace my facial expression with a smirk.

"No, stupid, I was just thinking how much I'll miss you, when I'm away," I say, my words muffled as he brings me into a hug.

Realizing the time of the Reaping is approaching, we take the long winding way through the district, on our way to the Square. Even as I get signed in and walk to my spot in the eighteen-year-old section, I think about how fitting of a goodbye this day was. Imari has been good to me, and now was a time to make him proud and do my very best to come back. To come back as my own person, with someone dear to me waiting for my return.

As I'm lost in thought, our escort begins and finishes his spiel. Picks a paper slip, the usual. As I expected, our male volunteer Luther steps in for a sixteen-year-old boy. I risk a look at Imari who I spotted hovering at the back. I told you it would be Luther, I try to convey with a small smile.

That's when shit goes sideways.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I don't really know Luther all that well, even in training. Girls and boys were always separated, the former trained by Sujax, the latter trained by Athena. I don't know who decided that but either way, that's how it's been ever since I started.

Anyways, I heard rumors that Luther had essentially forced himself into the volunteer position, that Athena wasn't completely sure because of some issue or another. I was only notified about a week ago, which is incredibly late by District 2's standards. I didn't really give it too much thought. If I'm being honest, I was always banking on the fact that Athena would pick Luther eventually due to Sujax pressuring her, that everything would turn out easy. I mean shit happens and I'm not judging. I trust that whatever choice our mentors make is the correct one, and I'll just have to make the best of it.

Anyways, instead of thunderous applause, shit gets really awkward. Athena stands up, piercing Luther with a million daggers metaphorically flying out of her narrowed eyes. He's either pretending he doesn't understand what is going on, or he is as stupid as a rock, but the guy keeps walking.

Athena puts her hand up slightly. If I was anyone else, I might have mistaken that for timidity. I can already predict bloodshed.

"There must be an error, there has been a change of plans in the proceedings," she utters slowly, her words dripping with warning and general promise of unimaginable torture to come.

I guess Luther wasn't supposed to volunteer. I know she can't say out loud that we have planned volunteers, but this is as close as she's ever gotten to blatantly stating it on live television. Even Sujax seems innerved.

I thought Luther had the position locked in, and I'm glad I'm not on stage yet because I'm confused out of my mind. Clearly, I'm not the only one misinformed, because Luther just keeps advancing, paying no mind to anyone.

Sujax glares at Athena, who subtly tries to convey some sort of secret message to someone in the crowd. All eyes are rivetted on Luther.

Suddenly, movement breaks the tension. Luther never did strike me as the kind of guy who gets stage-fright but out of nowhere, he jerks, and I think for a second he's completely lost it and is going to run down the steps, crushed by Athena's disapproving stare.

Instead, he dodges an attack from Gregory who literally looks like he appeared out of nowhere. The man is enormous and literally looks possessed, his face red and angry, but clearly Luther has no fucks to give. He side-steps and bashes his hand into Gregory's temple in one fluid elegant motion. The guy's reflexes are astounding. Either way, even if Athena was banking on Gregory to volunteer, that's not happening anymore because the guy is splayed on the ground, unconscious.

There's a weird little moment where it's almost as if there's a collective "what the fuck" moment, and I hold my breath. That's not good for when I need to step up, but I'll roll with the punches.

Luther narrows his eyes a little bit. And then the crowd goes wild for him.

I release my breath. That's what I like about District 2. They might judge you or even hate you, but in the end they'll still root for you over anyone else. There's something comforting in that almost-blind loyalty, especially for someone like me. Someone with rebellion ties and a mountain's-worth of prejudice stacked up against them.

Luther straightens himself and peers almost-naively at the crowd. He's actually quite different from our typical guys the district has been sending in for the past few years. Guys like Gregory who are huge and, in my opinion, boring.

That's why Luther's so striking and beautiful and new, looking like he's going to shake things up. He's very tall, lean and probably the fastest person I've ever seen in my entire life. I've actually tried building a rapport with him, banking on the fact that we'd be going together into the 13th Games,, but like…mixed feelings about that whole deal, to say the least. We'll see how it goes. I'll save my judgement until then, because he's on stage now, which means we're going in together.

And as quickly as the crowd cheered for Luther, it goes silent again expectantly, as the escort walks to the other bowl. The moment seems to stretch and stretch, and I find myself having an out of body experience… I'm Seeva, but I'm also floating above myself, savoring the last possible second where my future is still uncertain. Where nothing's really locked in. The sun beats down upon my head, and I smile because I'm almost free.

And then the moment is over, and the escort calls a name. I hold my breath, my heart involuntarily beating faster.

"Meliora Sandoul," she punctuates the unknown girl's last name with a click of the tongue. That's my cue. I part the people in front of me, not forcefully but not gently either, lock eyes with Imari, who is hovering at the edge of the adults' section, giving me a look of such amazement, compassion, sadness and overwhelming pride. I've got no show or drama like Luther did. It's all me, real and genuine. Here we go.

"I volunteer."

Notes: This concludes our look at the District 2 volunteers! Let me know what you think of Seeva? Is her attempts at becoming her own person through volunteering and competing in the Games justified? Did you like her? What did you think of Luther's awkward volunteering moment and how do you think Athena will react?

Next up, my District of origin. I'm very excited to show you what I've got in store.

Peace and love.