manu albañil . d2m . fin

HHe eats his dinner alone in the attic while the rest of them chatter downstairs. This is how it has been ever since he got to this new place. A foreign world on the side of District Two were mansions, at least in comparison to the north end of the district, stood tall. The attic, the top of a three-story building owned by the Albañils, is Manuel's place of comfort. It's cooler, spacious, and less invasive. He's away from them, and they are away from him. Manu stays here unless he's going to school or have to attend one of the family meetings.

He is not family, though. Manu isn't even a real Albañil boy. Nine years ago, guns and warfare shattered already fragile memories and left behind a new skin for him to live in. The pieces that inflicted wounds hold on inside of him. The Rebellion was hard on Manuel's family. They weren't wealthy individuals who could carry on in their day-to-day lives. War obstructed them. There was Manu, his two siblings, and his parents. He recalls his mother's wailing cries as bombs and guns, one by one, collapsed upon the family's street. They didn't stop at his. It was routine violence. He remembers the smoke that suffocated the air and the bullets that cracked vases and family pictures.

Three executed, two left for pick-up.

Manu was too little back then to understand fully what that meant. The sound of his sibling, Judit, coughing, sends him rushing toward comfort. An arm clothed in black leather catches his chest pulls him back and picks him up.

"Manu? Manu?" Their voice carries on as a couple of armed people trade him to the back of a van. He did not see them again.

Manu was brought to a new home a few weeks later. The soldiers in black promised Manu a new life, a safer life. He nodded along because it was all he knew. His madre spoke often of this safer life being the motivation for the war. If they will give it to him, Manuel will graciously accept.

"What about Roc and Judit? And mama, papa?" Three executed. He remembers. Safety is what they fought for, but not what they achieved. They achieved death, darkness, nothingness.

The Albañils were nice to Manuel at first. The prospect of taking in an orphan boy excited them. They had a lot of kids already, all biological. Manu remembers the exchange that the soldiers and Albañils had when they dropped him off.

"Anything to support the war effort, sir." A shake of hands sealed the deal.

They grew to dislike Manu. He asked too many questions that they didn't like. He grew up with a temper and the ability to burst into tears in the blink of an eye. But they raised him, even if begrudgingly. Every day, Manu along with the other boys and girls had to attend loyalty classes and patriotism meetings as part of the caretaking program.

This program molded Manu's thoughts, cornering them into confusion and acceptance of reality.

The Capitol will stay. The Capitol will win.
The Capitol will always reign.

Manu takes the obligatory stance of agreement. What better, safer option is there?

Memories collide and collapse from him every day. He doesn't remember his real last name, where he used to live, or what his family looks like. The memories Manu can still hold on to are the foundations that inflicted tearing wounds upon him and the ones he has been told to accept.

The rest fade, dematerializing.