.: KOHL ROGUEZ .:. D11 :. (FIN)

He’s different, that boy.

He came here six years ago, and a scrawny thing he was back then. I remember his long, gangly limbs, his thin body of all knobs and sharp angles, the way his narrow shoulders hunched and his feet shuffled across the floor whenever he walked. He was barely five feet tall when he first arrived, eleven years old, dark-skinned with black hair with black eyes to match. And ah, his eyes. They’re always the first thing you notice.

They were dark, haunted eyes. Many children in my home are here because their parents were killed or dead or maimed somehow, but very few had to see it happen. The hopelessness and despair in those hollow, red-rimmed eyes as I gazed down at him for the first time, I’ll never forget. The eyes are the windows to the soul, some say, and it is from this boy that I know it’s true.

And then there are his arms. His poor arms. The burns. The mutilated tissue. The scars. Skin that was once the color of caramel and just a smooth now warped and distorted, the flesh twisted into horrid imitations of limbs. He tried- and still tries- to hide them from view, wrapping them up from knuckles to elbows in long strips of cloth. You’ll hardly ever see his fingers out in the open. In the six years I’ve known the boy, I’ve never once shaken his hand.

There was always something strange about him, too, even when he was younger. He would look at you, and I mean look at you. Like he was memorizing you, quietly calculating, watching your every move like a hawk watches an unsuspecting mouse. He did this to nearly every person he met for the first time, like he was mapping them out in his head. He still does it, though now he’s at least a bit more subtle about it.

He’s bigger now. He’s growing up. I believe he turned seventeen just last month, and he is no longer the gaunt, piteous boy he was when he first arrived. He’s gotten taller, just a few inches shy of six foot now, and he’s filled out as well. He’s still thin, but in the way that a young man who spends most of his days slipping between the limbs of the highest branches of the trees would be. His face has filled out, his jaw a bit more square, his narrow, straight nose and thin lips more prominent. His hair has gotten longer, too. Sometimes I wonder if he ever combs it, it’s always so unkempt. He still wraps his arms, just his scarred fingers exposed. But now one can see the bulge in the biceps above the wrappings, skin stretched over the sinewy muscle beneath. He has changed much in the last six years.

But his eyes, they’re still the same. Same somber, sorrow-filled eyes as black as cool obsidian and bright as stars glittering in the glossy waters of a midnight sea.

And still just as empty.

He's curious, that boy.

More than once I’ve found him snooping around in my study, or heard the soft creak of wooden floorboards in the night, far past curfew. I’m not sure what he’s looking for. An adventure, perhaps. He has a strange assortment of keepsakes in his room, things I never even knew I had until he dug them up. Pre-rebellion junk like an old, broken cassette player, a snow globe depicting towering skyscrapers and sandy beaches, Christmas lights that he was quick to string about his room, a postcard from “Germany”, a wooden chessboard that he spends hours upon hours honing his already impressive logistic skills on. He seems to like odd, useless knick-knacks from days long gone. They fascinate him.

He doesn’t tell me where he found these things, and I don’t ask. I assume that he found it all in the attic (which is strictly off-limits to the children), but I’ve never caught him sneaking around up there before and I can’t punish him for something I can’t prove; it’s hard to catch him in the act. Besides, I rather like our chess matches together, even though I never win. The boy’s always got his wits about him.

But he’s a good kid, you know. Thoughtful, always thinking things through, practical. He prefers to keep to himself most of the time and can come off as a bit distant and unapproachable, but he’s not unfriendly. I get him books whenever it is I can afford them, though he’s already got himself a little library of books from before the war and such (that I’m positive he found in the basement, which is also off-limits. I believe he has a problem with authority). He likes to read. Anything he can get his hands on.

He’s rather interested in what life was like back before the Dark Days, as his room is practically a museum of the stuff. Perhaps it reminds him of a time when people were free, in a country where you could express yourself without worry and do what you wanted to do, without the Capitol’s ever-present shadow looming in the back of your mind, steering your decisions and keeping you in line; of towers glittering with sunlight and crystal beaches dusted white. Like the magical world within the snow globe.

But he is flawed, mind you. What would you expect from a boy who watched his parents go up in flames right before his very eyes? He cries in his sleep. This I know only because I can sometimes hear him at night, sobbing quietly in his room. I always want to check up on him during these times, but he keeps his door locked most of the time and he very much values his privacy. I can only imagine the horrors that plague his dreams.

He doesn’t like to be touched. Not only does he not like it, but he won’t let you. It’s his scars. He tries his hardest to ensure that attention is never drawn to his arms. He wears long-sleeved shirts, keeps his hands in his pockets as much as possible, anything to make sure no one has time to catch sight of his scarred fingers. You’ll get no hugs, handshakes, or pats on the back from him. Nothing.

There are the small things as well, little facets of his personality and habits that can set my teeth on edge. He’s a rule-breaker. As I said, he has a little problem with authority, and does things I don’t like just to be a rebel. He never follows curfew, sometimes going as far as to actually leave the house in the middle of the night, going off to God knows where. He never does his chores, snoops around in places that he shouldn’t, is about as blunt as a hammer, he’s sneaky, irritable, always leaves the damn toilet seat up.

He may just be the death of me, that boy.

I’m not sure how my home became a sanctuary for these outcasts of society. I suppose it began when I’d taken in a young girl I’d found wandering the streets one night. She was an orphan, and for some reason the community home had not taken her in. So I let her stay, fed her and clothed her and gave her a home. People talked of course, as the everyday District 11 citizen more or less ignored beggar children. A month later, two little twin boys began camping out underneath the hedges in my front yard, so I took them in as well. More and more children started to appear, and I welcomed them without a word. I don’t know why. My wife has long since passed and I have no children of my own; perhaps I was just lonely.

So when little Kohl Roguez and his brothers and sisters turned up on my doorstep, damaged and scarred in more ways than one, I wasted no time and giving them a place to call home.

Everyone knows the story.

There were six Roguez children. Kohl is the eldest now, seventeen years old and close to becoming a man. West is close behind at sixteen, Perri is fourteen, Maia thirteen, Katia eleven, and Nash four. For thirteen years Mr. and Mrs. Roguez had six hungry mouths to feed. Six rambunctious, happy, everyday children.

Now there are four.

It was the talk of the district when it happened. Did you hear about the Roguez family? People are used to public whippings, thieves getting their hands hacked off after stealing from the orchards, hangings outside the Justice Building, children starving in the streets. But a tragedy that had nothing to do with the Capitol and the cruelty that everyone is so used to? It was different. There were no Peacekeepers involved, no Hunger Games or District Champions, or President Snow pulling the strings. Their house burnt down with some of them still inside! No, the culprit was little, four year-old Nash.

He’d found matches, and the Roguez family went up in flames. Simple as that.

Poor little Nash had died in the blaze along with his mother. Mr. Roguez and sweet, young Maia died later from their injuries, as District 11 doesn’t have the luxury of hospitals and their wounds were just far too great. West and Perri were relatively unscathed, having run from the house as soon as they realized the danger, but poor Kohl and Katia suffered severe burns. With no grandparents, aunts, or uncles to speak of, and a community home full to the brim with unwanted and orphaned children, they ended up on my doorstep like so many before them.

But there’s a catch for most of the children that live under my roof. I am not a rich man, but I am still far better off than most of the people of District 11. Nevertheless, I have bills to pay and a house full of strong boys and girls fully capable of work. That is all I ask of the children that I care for. When they are thirteen years old, they quit school to work in the fields or the orchards at the expense of a normal education. I don’t force them to work or quit school, but most have realized that it’s the only way they’ll have food on the table and a place to sleep at night, so they do. I want the best for the children, but there’s only so much I can give.

The boy works now, at one of many orchards in our district. He and West and Perri are gone most of the day while Katia stays at home, awaiting their return. Little Katia is an odd one, unlike any other child I’ve ever had under my roof. In all the time she’s lived here, I’ve never heard her utter a single word to me or anybody else,not even her own siblings. One side of her face is burned nearly as badly as her brother’s forearms, but unlike him she doesn’t try to hide it. Such a strange creature, yet the boy loves her more than anything. I often see them sitting together in his room, never uttering a word, him reading while she plays with his hair. She’s the only person on the planet that he allows to touch him.

He doesn’t speak of the fire, and you’ll never hear him mention anything about his dead parents and dead siblings. The boy doesn’t speak of a lot of things. He’s a nice enough kid, yes, but he’s guarded and reluctant to trust people. It was two years before he really fully warmed up to me, two years full of furtive glances and dark eyes narrowed in suspicion. Now that I have it, though, I’d have to raze the entire district to the ground before ever I lost it.

And even though he’s defiant and sneaky and he leaves the toilet seat up and doesn’t do his chores and sometimes downright infuriates me with his tendencies…

…he’s like a son to me, that boy.