Sebastian Alfaro | D13 President | Finished

They would always be thirteen.

No matter the close to hundred years that passed nor the way their numbers remained stagnant like pools of water in the furthest reaches of a cave, not much had changed.

His grandfather would tell stories of what life could’ve been like, had the districts not lost their uprising. Panem practically sounded like a place of possibility the way that he had told it. Hot steel racing along highways between districts. Men and women unbothered by the littlest of things, and hopeful of what could be.

But all of that may as well have been a dream.

He grew up the youngest of three, and his brothers never let him forget it. Seb joked that’s how he learned how to fight. He and his brothers were never the tender loving kind; they’d settle things through shouting matches and purpled bruises. Yes, he still loved them, and they loved him, but that remained less in what was said than how they looked at one another.

Maybe he came from a family that had not forgotten how to dream.

So much of thirteen was lost to the machinery of the day to day. The necessity of following orders had eroded what little could break through; one had to be strong to stand on his own two feet. His mother had always said to him that he needed to have his own ideas, to nurture them like flowers in the rain. And his father had never let him forget his history – that no matter how district thirteen had changed (or hadn’t) there was far more to them than the hundred years here.

Perhaps his service to family or his curiosity for something more had led him to becoming part of the defense force.

It’d been easy work for someone so keen on following orders. He’d even tasted the fresh air out along their borders. Those were the days he’d liked best of all, the times when he’d sit out on the edges of the rocks and look out at the world. So few got such a taste of freedom, the least he could do was savor it.

He’d specialized in medicine while in the service. Healing had been a calling, much like the world beyond these walls had. He’d threw himself into his work. Away from any possible romantic connections, his family, or friends, he was free to focus on what truly mattered.

Funny though, how he could turn around and so much of his life had passed.

Did he need to have children or a family of his own? Did he need to have an ordinary life, where he’d have settled into the humdrum of a fixed schedule with no hope of advancement?

It seemed fates worse than death for Seb.

He was a man who’s hope and ambition remained unbridled.

And now – he sat as leader of the free world, as it were.

Someone free to make decisions on behalf of Thirteen, a nuclear power. A space of thousands of free thinking individuals, they could become something far greater. And if they wished, they could bring together (or tear apart) the panem that had sprung up around them.

Heavy would be the head that wore the crown – but he would not fall to the weight.

He had plans, big plans, for what was to come.

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