TW: Murder in Dahlia's POV. Please DM me here or on discord if you would prefer a summary
Klara Esosa, 18, District 2
1 year ago…
When asked, Klara would admit that her life was nothing short of privileged. They grew up in a beautiful mansion with her two parents and two older siblings. Her Dad was a very successful architect, having easily built a third of the district's apartment units. Her mom took care of the children until they were self-sustaining. After that, well, Klara never knew what she did. But Klara didn't care. Klara didn't care about much that didn't concern them.
Klara trained alongside her siblings when they were younger, but none of the Esosa siblings had any intention of competing in the Games. Training was just what they did, and Klara enjoyed the social aspect of it all. As the three of them got older, Hector and Eugene's time for volunteering came and went, and Klara thought she would follow in their footprints.
Her scores put her in the middle of their class, and that was perfect for them. She didn't have to think about the future, their family's fortune would carry her through life.
She had no idea things were about to crumble down around them.
It was a normal day for her. They were going to school, then to the academy. The decision for volunteer slots were about six months out, and it was a tight race. Klara knew the boy, they were familiar with the Zanetti family and the misfortune that fell among them. She knew he was a strong fighter.
And a fighter never quits.
Before they left their house, they saw her dad sitting in his favorite rocking chair. She rarely saw him at home, as he was usually working. They took advantage of the moment.
"Hey dad," Klara said, kissing him on the cheek as he drank his coffee.
"Hey, kid. Training today?" he asked. They nodded.
"Will you be home for dinner?" Klara inquired. He shook his head.
"I'll be with the contractors all afternoon. But maybe tomorrow." he half-heartedly promised. Klara was used to these promises, so she just nodded and headed out the door to go about their day.
(It should have been another normal day, after all.)
School came and went, and soon she was at the academy for training. They were sparring with another girl, and Klara felt like she had the upper hand. The girl's movements were slow and predictable, so they were able to disarm her within minutes. She felt good about it.
They were so fixated on the fight she hadn't realized the ground was shaking until someone started yelling. Klara froze. It was too light to be an earthquake
What was happening?
The floor shook. Little rocks snuck under the doors and through the open windows. Glass shattered in the distance.
(Screams. Klara remembered the screams. That was the worst part.)
A loud BANG, a gust of air, and a large cloud of smoke started to settle around the area. Trainees and trainers alike ran outside. No one knew what had happened right away. For a long while, everyone was still.
She wished it stayed that way.
She was one of the first outside, fixing their shirt over their nose and mouth as a shield against the dust. She followed the crowd.
The first thing they saw made them sick to her stomach. Someone was carrying a small child away from the direction Klara was moving in. The girl's entire body was covered in dust, and cuts decorated her skin.
Klara couldn't look at her any longer. They kept their attention focused on the direction of the crash.
She didn't think it could get worse - but it did. What used to be an apartment building was now a crumbling mess on the ground in front of them. People were pulling victims out of the rubble. Some were alive. Some…
Klara fell to their knees. At some point, she vomited. The dust settled over it quickly. Her breathing was rapid, their heart was racing nonstop.
They were too familiar with the building. It was one her dad's company constructed.
District Two finds Mr. Esosa guilty of manslaughter, willful harm to another human, and intentionally creating dangerous living spaces.
Klara's world shattered in seconds.
Employees of Mr. Esosa corroborated that he knew the materials were of poor quality, and instructed the builders to use them anyway.
Lives lost. Lives ruined. The Esosa name dragged through the rubble, coming out completely scathed.
Disgraced. Embarrassed. Ruined.
He was sentenced to execution. Klara couldn't bring themselves to watch.
The Esosa family had to sell their mansion. They moved into an apartment on the other side of the district. It might as well have been a whole new district.
No one said so, but Klara knew this apartment was identical to the one that collapsed, and likely built just the same. How long until it was their turn?
She was distraught at their father's actions. How could he so willingly ruin his family's life like this?
Klara shared a room with her mother. The first night, they didn't get a minute of sleep. She stayed sitting on the mattress, their legs pulled to their chest. With every creak in the floorboard and every step on the stairs, Klara was convinced they would meet the same fate as those who died.
Klara Esosa could not be killed. She would not join her disgrace for a dad.
They had nothing left. Or so she thought.
It took a few weeks for her to realize they were still enrolled in the academy. Their tuition was prepaid for the year.
At first, she simply kept going as a way to reduce their time in the death trap of an apartment. But they were fueled. Whether it was by rage, vengeance, or a desire for redemption, Klara didn't know. What she did know was her average scores ever so slowly started to rise.
And that's when it hit them. A way to get her and her family out of the situation they were put in. The Hunger Games.
A win would bring glory to Klara Esosa and to all who held the Esosa name. It would provide them with a new house, one free of defects. And the money to support the lifestyle they had before.
She had never worked this hard in their life, but she was invigorated. She fought for the spot and they fought hard. They heard the whispers of her new prowess. They kept at it. And the day her name was contesting the top spot, they'll admit, they were proud.
It never fully wiped away the hardships she's been through. It didn't help that her older brother, Hector, had completely cast out the rest of his blood. Klara understood his anger. But it didn't make it hurt any less.
Eugene still came around. He too wanted to return glory to the Esosa name. He wanted to go into Two's politics, to uproot the corruption from within. The corruption that had led to the Esosa's downfall in the first place.
(Klara didn't tell him about her training. They didn't think he would support her trip into the arena.)
But Klara saw no other choice for herself. Their father left them with no choice. She watched her mother fall apart, with no skills to bring in income for herself. They watched her oldest brother disappear completely. And her middle brother, well, he was trying.
So Klara needed to do this. For themselves, sure. But for her family. She would not let one man ruin it.
Not if they had any say in the matter.
Dahlia Akhem, 18, District 8
5 years ago…
There's no shortage of outlandish spectacles in the world, especially in a place as colorful as Eight. Sewn-in with the dull and drab, it took a remarkable eye to find the things worth seeing.
Fortunately for Dahlia Akhem, she was a natural.
A day didn't go by where she wasn't threading her way around the comings and goings of the district. She was privileged; as privileged as a district-born citizen could be. Her parents were alive, well paid, and she was well loved. She had freedom.
(Maybe a little too much freedom.)
She was everywhere and nowhere at once. Dahlia Akhem greeted anyone worth greeting and left them wanting more. Giving them enough to interest them, but not too much.
No one could hold Dahlia back.
It was her apt for the extravagance that attracted Faulkner into her life. He was her age with a similar flair for the world. He introduced her to the things worth seeing. He had nothing of his own, living in the orphanage, so he made the most of his time around the district.
"What's this, about a show?" she had asked him one day.
"Let me show you," he said, taking her arm in his. The two embarked on a journey Dahlia never regretted taking.
Sitting in a tattered chair, Dahlia was enthralled with the performance put on in front of her. Singing, acrobatics, and drama all played out in front of her. Talented individuals, each with a story to tell.
Dahlia Akhem had a story to tell, too.
She was the first to arrive at the theater every week. She was the last to leave. She met the usual patrons. She met the owner, and…his daughter, the beautiful Virginia Faraday.
She was only thirteen, but she was building up the foundations for what would become…her. Dahlia Akhem would be the one name everyone wanted to see.
(If only the rest of the Akhem family took care of the damn foundations.)
Dahlia understood her father's hesitation in keeping others out of their home. If they let too many people in, they were bound to regret it. But Dahlia could never have imagined everything collapsing around her, as it did.
(Literally.)
Poe Akhem had built their home from scratch. He took pride in his work. Yet there was always a fault hiding in plain sight. Virginia had pointed it out to Dahlia once, and Dahlia relayed the concerns to her father. A beam with too many cracks decorating the wood. An unsteadiness to the beam when people were on the second floor.
"The Akhem's don't need assistance from outsiders," he had told her after she mentioned it.
(How wrong he would be.)
It was the middle of the night when the splinter grew too unstable. The beam split, causing the upper flooring of the house to begin collapsing. Dahlia and her parents were woken up by the noise. In a panic, they gathered together to try and escape. Poe Akhem took one step down the staircase and it collapsed under his weight.
(A broken neck. Dead on impact, Dahlia was later told.)
Her mother helped her down to the bottom floor as wood continued to collapse around them. Dahlia could see the exit, she could feel the breeze brush against her skin. But the continued cracking and snapping from above caused her to freeze. If her mother hadn't shoved her to safety, Dahlia believed she would have met the same fate as her father.
(And her mother. The roof collapsed moments after Dahlia fell to the ground. Except Dahlia was covered in the soft dew of the grass, and her mother was crushed by wooden beams.)
In a blink of an eye, Dahlia's entire world collapsed around her. She was taken in by her only living relative, a cousin by the name of Dante Akhem. His parents had been tried and executed only three years prior for suspicions of supporting the rebellion. Dahlia never knew the truth behind those accusations.
She didn't like Dante. He was weird, if not a little unstable. He made strange comments, to both himself and to her. He glared at her for just a moment too long as she passed. But Dahlia could not condemn herself to the orphanage. No, Faulkner's warnings kept her away.
(She thought she could handle Dante. She could handle anything, after all.)
Even if it meant handling it in her own way.
6 months ago…
The sun shone through the tiny attic window. Dahlia's back ached from the wood underneath her body. She pushed herself up to a seated position, allowed herself a moment to stretch, then stood up.
(She could hear faint voices below. Footsteps to indicate the arrival of the theater's owner.)
And her love. Dahlia quickly prepared herself for visibility. It was show day.
She dressed casually, knowing her true wardrobe would come that evening. She prepared her hair and her makeup, also casually, but for a different audience.
Virginia. Mr. Faraday. The love of her life, and her boss. Two worlds, as equally separated as they are ingrained. And Dahlia balanced them both like the showwoman she was.
She never intended to take up refuge in the attic of Mr. Faraday's theater business. But after Dante's…untimely demise, she had to move somewhere.
"We can take you in," Virginia had said with a kiss on the cheek. Dahlia shook her head.
"Your dad would never allow us to be together, darling," Dahlia reminded her.
That's where the attic became the perfect solution.
(A temporary setback for Dahlia.)
She snuck downstairs, then out the back door. Ensuring no eyes were on her, she lingered around the downtown area. Shopkeepers were just opening their doors, and the early-bird patrons were just starting to rise. Dahlia smiled at them all, loitering her way around to the front of the theater.
She pushed the double doors in and stumbled directly into the arms of her beautiful girlfriend. Sharing a quick kiss, they pull apart before anyone else sees.
"Well, you're here early," Virginia said with a smirk.
Don't remind me. It was all Dahlia could do but smile back. Footsteps approached the girls, and soon Mr. Faraday joined them at the entrance.
"Ah! Good morning, Della. You're here bright and early," he said.
Yes. I've just arrived. Early, for my shift. Dahlia's smile said so. And Dahlia was not known for being a liar.
"I've been looking forward to it all week," she said.
"Well don't let me stop you. Excuse me," he said, pushing past the girls to attend to something else. With him gone, Dahlia can't help but pull Virginia into another kiss.
The day passed, and the two girls moved backstage to prepare for the nightly show. Surrounded by their colleagues and fellow performers, Dahlia could just get lost in the extravagance surrounding her. And who surrounded her? A man named Scar, who was wildly flexible yet hardly spoke a word, and was decorated with a large scar across his cheek. Parker, a comedian who Dahlia appreciated, but thought tried just too hard. Virginia, of course. Dahlia, frequently introduced as 'Della', or better known as "The Ruby". And the beautiful Valentine- a dancer, a master of hair and makeup, and someone Dahlia was just so very fond of.
Together they each performed their own act. Yet every night, Dahlia stole the show. Dressed in a gorgeous scarlet and copper dress, she danced on the stage. She sang melodies to a man she "once knew". When she cried, the audience cried with her. When she sang of hope, of love, it touched the heartstrings of those around her. And when she finished her performance with a flair, swinging in on silks, she had them in her grasp. The audience was hers. For the night, that is.
It was needless to remind herself how temporary it all was. The Peacekeepers were actively searching for the murderer of Dante Akhem. Mr. Faraday would soon find evidence of a stowaway in the attic. And Dahlia Akhem would be on the run, for the third time in her life.
Dahlia Akhem did not run. Not anymore. No. She had a plan. A plan to keep her head above the water. To make a name for herself on her own terms.
No one would stop her.
Bazooka Wildbrand, 17, District 3
6 years ago…
The Wildbrands were an average family, at least by Three's standards. They managed and worked in the local library, a pastime they took very seriously. When they found themselves pregnant, albeit a little later in life, they were ecstatic. They couldn't wait to bring their child into the world and teach them about all the things the world had to offer them. They had the perfect person to take over their work when they were too old to keep the place maintained.
In all honestly, the Wildbrands couldn't have been happier.
So it was a shock when Bazooka Wildbrand was born wanting none of the same things they wanted.
It was hard to notice at first. She was a curious girl. She was walking soon after she was crawling, and words came to her and stuck with her. Little keywords never seemed to leave Bazooka's life.
Fire. Boom. Explosion. She didn't have a full concept of what it all entailed. But she was intrigued.
Much to her parents' effort, she found no interest in the four walls of the library. She could read but hated doing it for long periods of time. She couldn't stay still. How could she stay still when there was so much to do?
It didn't help that she struggled to differentiate between the various faces in her life. Sometimes, she mistakes her mother for her father. Many times, she was greeted by a person she had met before, yet her brain couldn't connect them to a person. It frustrated her, and her parents even more. Most thought she was just rude, but it was through no fault of her own. It was just how she was.
So she preferred digging into her creations. Into doing her own thing. At least she didn't have to worry about people when she was alone.
She was ten when she caught a glimpse of the Hunger Games on television. Her parents were at work, and she just happened to turn the small TV in the living room on. Frankly, she was going to start disconnecting it to see the intricate wirings inside, but something else caught her attention.
Fire. There was a tribute seated at a campfire. Bazooka didn't recognize them.
A cut away. A tribute was building something small on the ground in front of him. Bazooka almost turned away to return to her dismantling, but a voice on the television caught her interest.
"He's crafting an explosive from his sponsor gift," the strange person with the colorful hair said.
She sat on the ground in front of the television, wanting to be as close to the action as possible. She watched eagerly as the tribute crafted multiple things from his sponsor's gift. She watched as they set them in various spots around the large caverns that the kids were running around in and fighting in. And she watched as they were detonated, either by a poor foot coming in contact with the device or by him activating it manually. Regardless, the results were the same.
Boom. Explosion. Fire.
"Bazooka!" The front door opened and her mother was rushing to turn off the television. Bazooka looked up at her.
No, up at her dad. Her dad turned off the television. Her mom was yelling behind her.
"You shouldn't be watching that, sweetie," he said to her. She didn't understand. She wanted to see how he built the toys! Why are they taking this away from her now?
Unable to find the right words, Bazooka pouted her lip and ran into her bedroom. Her parents tried to coax her out, but she couldn't pay them any mind. She had to work.
She grabbed the first object she could write on, one of her library books, and started taking notes. On the components the tribute used on TV. On the connections. Anything she could remember, she jotted down or drew.
She was going to build one herself. And nothing would stop her.
1 week ago…
Bazooka stands on the other side of Three's fence, having cut a hole just big enough for her to fit through. It was easy enough for the Peacekeepers to fix, so she wasn't too concerned about her damage.
Hopefully, they won't notice the electrical interference until I clear out, she thought to herself as she started setting up her creation. She went back and forth the last few weeks simplifying the design, keeping it compact, yet powerful. She had two - one here in the field and one stored in the basement at home. For reference for future creations.
This is going to be BIG, she thought to herself with glee as she connected the last of the wires. She made sure the device was connected to her remote, and then she moved far away. She hadn't set the radius to be that large, but she was not going to risk it.
Giddy, she set the remote and held her breath, plugging her ears with silicone earplugs. She was making history.
Click. She pressed the button on the remote, muffled by the earplugs. But all that followed was silence. She looked at the remote and checked it for disconnections or errors. Nothing.
"Why aren't you wor-" Bazooka's question was answered almost instantly with a loud, ear-piercing explosion. The dirt particles flew all over the area, covering Bazooka. The trees shook, branches falling to the ground. The birds that were resting in the branches fly away from the disturbance.
"Yes!" Bazooka raised her arms in the air with a shout. She ran over to where the creation was. Emphasis on was. There was nothing left of the device, no evidence to prove she was there.
Other than the crater in the earth and the loud explosion, of course.
Bazooka took pride in her success and skipped back to the gate of the district. As she crawled through the hole in the fence, she heard an army of boots headed her way. She ran to the nearest hiding spot, a cluster of leaves and bushes, and she sat and waited.
"We found damage to the fence. The perpetrator must have come through here," one of the Peacekeepers said.
"Who authorized the cessation of electrical flow in the fence?" another one asked.
"No one, sir. We believe there was a jam," a third one explained. The first two crouched through the hole Bazooka left behind.
"Search the area. They couldn't have gotten far. And check the cameras. We'll find them," the one barked orders as the men started to scramble. Bazooka waited for the right moment when there was enough scatter and chaos to sneak out stealthily.
Cameras? Bazooka hadn't intended to get caught. She hoped the electrical interference she set up was enough to knock them out but…it was only a matter of time before someone figured it out.
She needed a plan. She needed something. She couldn't go to jail, not when she was on this high of a breakthrough in her work! No, no, no, she couldn't be without her creations. She couldn't-
Her mind wandered to the television. To the tribute creating a similar device during the Hunger Games, and all the devices that were built in the subsequent years. In some years, they were incredibly efficient, even leading to victory.
It all clicked in Bazooka's mind, and she knew how she was going to leave her mark on the world.
A big thank you to Professor R.J. Lupin for Klara, Paradigm of Writing for Dahlia, and AlexFalTon for Bazooka! And a big thank you to District11-Olive for beta'ing. I hope you all enjoyed the chaos of this chapter.
One more set of intros and then we're off to pregames! After intros there will be a reaping recap chapter with some subplot nonsense, then we'll be onto the train rides.
Till next time~
~Moose