IZAR, deval {d11}

GENDER
male

AGE
15 16 17 18 19 20 21

DISTRICT
11

LOOKS

Considering how charming Benat was, with his wide smile and overall alluring appearance, as well as Sampson's pixie-like innocence that radiates off him like light from the sun, I don't believe I have such defining qualities as my siblings do/did. It's hard to compare them to me now, even if I wanted to, for one lives in my past and the other dwells in the present. The issue doesn't really come up however, as most people have the decency not to bring up Benat much anymore. If you can call that decency. I call it running scared.
It used to be easy to describe myself. "Take Sampson and Benat, slam them together, and you get me," was always my response. Now, I have no other brother to combine with Sampson. It forces me to think about what I look like a whole lot more. There's no easy way to explain me anymore, no easy excuse that I am just the middle child who looks like both the youngest and the oldest.
It scares me a little that I still can't decide if I like the fact that people can no longer compare me to my brother(s). I'm... relieved that I have this new burst of identity, but terrified to decide on whether or not I truly do like the idea. If I do resolve the conflict in my mind, it'll be like picking whether or not I like having Benat gone. It'll be like finally accepting he's dead and wondering how I feel about the whole thing.
So, ask me how I'd describe myself and I'll simply say, "I'm me, but I'm Sampson and Benat, too." I dare you to look surprised when I mention his name.

But maybe you won't ask me how I'd describe myself. You've got eyes, so you put the puzzle pieces together by yourself. Most people can't, so I wouldn't judge you if you hadn't realized my connection to that boy from 11 who died in the 63rd Hunger Games. That boy who had two brothers, and lived in a district that can't even say his name anymore. I think maybe they fear his ghost, his freshly dead vengeance that could maybe come back to bite them in the ass. Maybe that's why they don't particularly like looking at me much anymore. I carry some of his charm, some of his dark hair and dark eyes. My features carry the memory of my dead brother, but also some of the one that still lives. Our parents realized this quickly. I am the middle child, a mix of both parents and both other members of their trio of offspring.

Sometimes I smile or laugh with everyone at the dinner table and it instantly kills the mirth my entire family had just experienced after a joke that was just good enough to pull us from our common sorrows. They all look at me, stunned by the sudden glimmer of Benat they have just seen in my toothy smile or heard in the notes of my laugh. It kills me.
Even in death, Benat can still overshadow me. He's still the older brother and I am still the one just beneath him.

PERSONALITY

I'm more blunt than either of my brother(s). Damn. Is it plural? Do I have brothers? Or a brother? I still don't know if I should keep referring to them as my brothers or allow Benat to rest and call just Sampson my brother. He's still related to me, even in death, but I feel it confuses people when I say I have "brothers". Because I don't. Or I did. I still do. Well, not really. Damn...

Anyways, I am now the oldest of the Izar brothers. Sometimes, I think Sampson might resent me because of it. Because I took Benat's place. Because I took a spot I don't deserve. It's a place with too big of shoes and my feet are just really little compared to his. Sometimes it makes me so upset, when someone tells me I need to step up. I heard it a lot after Benat died. Complete strangers, whose knowledge of my family consisted of knowing that Benat had died and I was now the oldest, sometimes came up to me. They'd peer at me, looking me over as if to just make sure I am definitely nowhere near the greatness that was my older brother, and say with raspy voices, "You've got big shoes to fill. Be strong, m'boy." But I was not their boy. And I was pretty sure, at the time, that I would be consumed whole by Benat's shoes if I stepped into them.
I hope Sampson understands that. I hope he's not waiting for me to step up, too.
It's one thing if I let other people down, or my parents are disappointed in me, but it's a completely different scenario if I were to let Sampson down. He's already lost so much. And people, well, they're just people. I could care less about what they think of me or my family or how I deal with Benat's death. They're just people—unfamiliar faces that don't mean anything to me. I don't want their face to be something I recognize or anything that means something to me. People are truly horrible; I judge them when I see them. Maybe if Benat had been like me, had not given that damned girl from 5 or the crazy one from 9 the benefit of the doubt, he'd still be alive. Maybe not. He just wouldn't have died at the hands of those monsters. At least they're dead now. All of them—all those other 23 tributes—are, except one.

Thinking of his death makes me remember his last moments, of that stupid joke he made right before his cannon fired. "Get like a tree in spring and leave" he'd coughed between the words, his blood pooling in his mouth as I'd stared at the screen. I'd stopped breathing like it just might save him, like if I suffocated, he'd be alright. I remember mother pulling on father, asking for him to get Sampson to stop watching. I'd wondered what made me mature enough to bare witness to Benat's death. The three years I had over Sampson were what qualified me to stay by the television?! I wanted my mom to pull me away instead, for her to make father escort me from the room. It didn't matter anyway. Sampson had every right to stay and father knew it. We'd all stayed to listen to his punch line, his cannon. It wasn't his best joke, by far, and that only made me more afraid. I'd remembered his best puns; his tongue was gifted with the ability to lighten any mood with humor.

But Benat is no longer around to throw a joke into the quarrels to smooth things over. Maybe that's why I get into so much more trouble nowadays. Or maybe it's my big, fat mouth that I suddenly can't keep shut. I'm always looking to hit someone or something, even it means getting my ass handed to me in the end. I don't mind getting beat or winning; they feel like the same thing to me. When it's all over, everything wasted on punches and useless words, I'm still exhausted whether I've triumphed or fallen. I'm still angry and bruised and tired and lost and sad. It doesn't make me feel any better, but I continue to fight because I can, while Benat cannot.

HISTORY

When I was 6, I fell out of a tree in one of the orchards. I'd wanted an apple, one of the best ones that dangled beyond my reach in the swell of branches beyond the trunk. That apple, even though I never actually reached it, had the cost of one broken leg. I paid in full, but never received my purchase. Laying on the ground, left leg bent awkwardly beneath me, I remember realizing it was broken and deciding to begin a strict breathing pattern to ensure I did not a) pass out from the shock or b) begin crying like a baby. I'd promised myself that I'd be strong and just wait it out, because I knew that someone would eventually find me and everything would be alright. I think everything would have been alright, if I hadn't knocked the wind out of myself when I'd landed and the pain in my leg hadn't been so excruciating. My lungs, that demanded for more air, overpowered my mind and I began gasping, abandoning the idea of establishing some kind of pattern. This made me panic. The pain in my leg kicked in and I started screaming. Through gasps of air and pulses of pain that wrecked my body, I wasn't at all controlled like I'd planned. I'd prepared myself to handle it yet, somehow, I'd failed miserably to control anything about the situation.

That was how I felt when Benat headed into the Games. Before the tributes even headed to the Arena, I'd started preparing myself for his end. I was stacking bricks to build a wall. I was falling from the branch to break my leg, planning how I would handle the pain once I met the inevitable. But I'd still could have never been ready to handle his end. It also didn't help that I started believing he just might make it home. When he'd made it through the Bloodbath, I'd started reaching out to grab at the branches, because maybe I thought I didn't have to fall. I didn't have to meet the inevitable. He'd come out unscathed for a majority of the beginning of the Games as the numbers fell. Faces lit up the sky and the anthem played its dirge for all those who died. But Benat was still there.
And then the fight against that other big alliance happened at the lake, where the children perished in flames so close to water. Essence and William fell away, their cannon blasts signaling the end of my older brother's alliance. But Benat was untouchable. I just wish he hadn't stuck around with that Elodie girl. She wasn't good for anything anyhow. She'd even managed to pull in that girl from 9, Ivy. If anything—if Elodie Magpie was worth anything other than the blood she'd spilled—she was a curse. The alliance was a curse. I hate those girls.

And then another day at the lake meant my brother's final moments. I had been preparing since he left for Capitol for his goodbye, his end. Even so, as the girls turned on him and began to break my brother, I had screamed. My composure left me just like my brother had. I'd erupted, damning both the Magpie family and the Soren family. I'd told them that I'd go straight to hell after I died, just so I could meet up with them and let them know just how I felt about everything. Roaring at the screen, I'd coached Benat as if he could hear me. "Watch for Ivy's flail. Duck left, strike right. Elodie's spear coming fast! Benat! BENAT!" but he'd been hit so much. It was two against one. It was two against one... It was so unfair.

My voice left me when he finally fell for the last time. I remember his body, marred by blood and gore that was so out of place. I was not ready. My wall I'd built had already been taken down, weakened by the hope I had that he would make it home. The falling feeling returned to me, but this time there was no hope of latching onto a branch and saving myself from being broken all over again. My body slammed into the ground when his cannon fired. In my chest, my heart collided with my stomach. I could feel pain all over my body. It was nothing like when I had just broken my leg when I was 6. No, I was 15. I was such a fool. I was a fool the day Benat died and the days leading up to it, but I will never be a fool again.

LYRICS
Stars - Grace Potter & The Nocturnals