▼ Ⓙⓔⓡⓔⓜⓘⓐⓗ Ⓚⓔⓐⓣⓞⓝ ▼

Name: Jeremiah Keaton
Age: Twenty-six [26]
Date of Birth: April 14th
Gender: Male
Marital Status: Single
District of Assignment: Ten [10]

My name is Jeremiah Keaton and I am a true Peacekeeper.

I was a young boy of barely seventeen when I signed myself over to the Peacekeepers in order to be trained to be a protector of Panem and its peace. My home in District eight was a nice place, my parents were good people and did what they could to do their jobs and provide for me. I had an older brother and a younger one as well. Our not-so-little family of five managed semi-successfully with our mother doing mending as a side business along with washing and making clothes. Our father was a tailor, and together he and our mother made all of our clothes and those of the handful of people who lived around us that weren't in the clothing business. When my older brother got to be about seven, mother taught him how to stitch and I remember how he often ended up sticking himself with the needle. I was five then, and my little brother was only two.

As with my older brother, my mother taught me how to sew at the age of seven. I took to it better than my older brother - I understood more of the subtleties of the practice and saved myself half of the pain that my brother did to himself in his haste. I tried to envision everything before I did it, see how it was suppose to lay out and how I had to go about it. My older brother always jumped headlong into everything and his constant swearing as he tried to stitch things showed he never once learned. Life was simple in my young age, and thankfully it remained so for most of my life. It only changed once I glimpsed the efforts put into running the District that the Peacekeepers enacted that I had any idea I wanted to train as one.

I was fourteen at the time, young enough to be childish and old enough to believe I wasn't, when I became caught up in a round of bullying - something I had accidentally stumbled onto but was then dragged into. The boy the three bullies were beating on was cowering and it was clear to see he wasn't sorry that their attention had turned away from him. I tried to fight in the beginning, but the boys were all bigger than me and they hit hard. I thought they might kill both me and the other boy but I heard a shout and a peacekeeper came in and bashed the older kids aside. I guess one of them was a known thief and he had been spotted snatching something else just that morning. Whatever it was, I was glad for my luck - and for my new hero.

Ever since then, I haven't been able to forget the peacekeeper who saved me though I haven't had the chance to speak with him as of yet. It took a year to convince my family that this was what I really wanted - and not just a passing fancy - before they allowed me to actually start working towards it. Soon enough I was signed up for training and attempted to get myself into a self-run training schedule. I could see that my mother became more and more proud of my choice as I worked, a fact that allowed me to drive myself all the harder knowing it would please her and my father. Still, for all each of us knew it was coming and were excited for it, our parting shortly after my seventeenth birthday was hard on all of us. My brothers had mixed reactions and I didn't know who I would miss more.

As I said goodbye to my older brother I couldn't help but smile. I was taller than him by a couple inches, and we both were taller than our father. We used to have the same messy hairstyle until I got mine cut short in preparation for the training. However, our similarities pretty well ended there - aside from our slightly crooked noses. After this many years in service my nose is a lot more crooked with the handful of times I've broken it. Still, I see glimpses of his face in mine even so. My younger brother and I seemed to have more in common, but we were actually so much more different that I can only ever see a faint resemblance. Except for our eyes, they are almost exactly the same. They were both watery as we said farewell, me having to bend over on account of our height difference. I still remember the look in those hazel eyes of his - of ours I suppose - as I tried to smile for him. Sometimes I want to forget it.

I went away to training for two years before I was able to go back to District eight for a time, both to visit my family and to act as a probational peacekeeper for a couple months before returning to District two and training. Our reunion was a happy one, for the first day, and I marvelled at how much my brothers had changed in that time. I'm sure they were just as surprised about my change too. I know I had become gruffer in my attitude, two years of being trained to either follow or give orders leaves you a little lacking in flexibility, but I did my best to soften for my family. The next day I reported in for the first shift of my probation, and most of the day passed with little of note happening. I spotted a filch, but my training officer merely took notes on them for later. Part of my felt a bit like I was on a leash, but I played the dutiful canine and stayed at my trainer's heel.

All of my training seemed to have flattened by old sense of reckless abandon and smartened me up - as the trainers used to say - but sometimes I still felt the need to challenge orders or ideas. I had learned early on that it was a bad idea to do that. Even so, it doesn't stop my tongue from slipping. This time I had managed to keep quiet. It wasn't until we were almost done our shift that anything changed. A commotion was going on at a fruit vender's and we went over to see what the problem was. I was astonished to see that it was my older brother with the stolen fruit in his hand, and another in his mouth. He looked so frightened when he recognized me while I just felt shock. My younger brother poked around him and my stomach dropped out of me. I flushed, I was sure, and I couldn't look either of them straight in the eye - not that they could look me in the face either.

They whipped my younger brother, and my older brother was sent to the Capitol to be judged - meaning they didn't know if they would make him into an avox or simply kill him. I was distraught, as were my parents, and I started to renounce my ties to my family. However, I also began to mistrust my fellow peacekeepers - enough of whom I had heard muttering about me that I felt without a friend anywhere. I withdrew into a cold shell and became about as human as one of the Capitol's perfectly engineered mutts. I did as I was told, and that was all. I rarely spoke and rarely paid attention to anyone except a senior officer. It only got worse once I had heard that my older brother had been sentenced to death for multiple thefts and apparently carrying a potential weapon. My routine was the only thing keeping me sane enough to avoid stupidity, but I got dangerously close a couple times.

Slowly my life began to even out again and I sunk further into my gruff personality, stuffing the old affections I had had for my family in a little box to never touch again. After almost seven years I am finally becoming able to face the idea of returning to District eight, but I would still rather avoid it if I could. Instead, I serve as a full rank peacekeeper in District ten where I can sometimes escape my own coldness around the animals. I never tell anyone, but a horse or a cow or a dog, even a chicken, can help me to relax and be able to talk about some of the stuff I've dealt with. Still, I don't have a pet of my own, and I don't think I would be able to sustain one anyway. A dog might be nice to have around though, some company for a man without a family.

I continue to serve the Capitol loyally, and will, most likely, do so to the end of my days. Panem today, Panem tomorrow, Panem forever.

Jeremiah Keaton