returning { home } { one shot } { sasha }

{ p e a c e k e e p e r } { 2 4 } { f e m a l e } { s p e a c i a l c o r p s }

The forest no longer flourishes with life, as I wander through its deadly quiet shrubbery. If I had been stalking though the forest a few years ago I would have been able to hear the gentle rustles of animals as they poked and smelt the group and the vegetation that was their home. But today, I hear nothing. The forest was barren these days. It never used to be this way, my people use to eat freely, scavenging in the woods and growing crops that would bloom with colour, with life. But like all things, it much come to an end.

I was just the average Capitolite back then, one that lived on the outskirts of the city, in one of the farming towns. You might be thinking that it sounds like we were more like district people than the Capitol, but you are wrong. Children from my village weren't sent to the games, they were safe. We were just a smaller, more isolated people of the Capitol and we liked it that way. We liked being able to live without the Capitol breathing down our backs, we were safe. We were happy..

But then something changed.

It was like the Capitol were pissed off at us or something. They sent some of there mutts into our town destroying homes and wiping out the majority of my people. I had watched as houses burned, as animals scurried from the forest seeking a new place to live. I watched as crops died, as my people slowly became a smaller group.

I often wandered why the Capitol did it… Or if it was even the capitol, maybe it was just start mutts, like the mutts I fight now, taking away there lives like that once took away my home… but I can never be sure and because of that I can never really be certain that the Capitol was trust worthy- but I would never say that to anyone. After all shouldn't I be grateful? rate flu hat I was still alive? That I had friends now? A place to live and a purpose in life?

But despite all that… I could never forget, forget the way that famine crept through my village when we were at our weakest, people dying everyday. Grief and sorrow and death tainted the air… People often mistake my desire for food over me being overly keen over it with no true meaning behind it… But they were wrong. I wasn't keen on food because I wanted to be, I was keen on food because I knew what it was like to starve. I knew what it was like to sit on that fence between death and life because I was dying o starvation, and I never wanted to feel like that again.

So I didn't take food for granted, I ate when I had the opportunity because I knew that if I didn't it might happen again, I might find myself back in that place where life used to flourish only to have it stampeded by higher beings that wanted to see nothing but death and destruction.

I left my dying village after an argument with my father. I told him that I was going to join the Peacekeeping corps, that I wanted to protect people, unlike I had been able to protect the people of my village. He was against it of course, not wanting to lose the only family he had left… But I told him I ha to go. I told him that I had to learn, that I had to become a better person. He cried- but he didn't try to tsp me again. At first I though that he hated me, but that night before I left and when he sat with me just holding me tightly, I knew that he loved me, that he was proud of me. He didn't need to say the words, I could feel it, and that was all that I had needed.

The next morning i had left and I had no idea when I would be seeing again, or if I ever would… it hurt but I knew I had to levee so without much more thought I turned my back on my home and headed to the place where my life changed. I meet so many people in the Capitol, people who are now my closest friends. At first I had been scared, because everyone was so different from my home, and I stuck out like a sore thumb with my accent. And then, of course, people found out about my food obsession. As I said before they think it is because I am just a hungry person, but they will never really know the reason why I eat the way I do, and to be honest, I don't really have any intentions of sharing it with them. They didn't need to know my hardships in life.

I liked the Capitol, and I loved the people I worked with, even though I was slightly scared of some of them. But I missed my home…

So I guess that is why I am here now, my feet pushing though the dense scrub of the quiet forest, my ears alert and my body tense. It had been so long since I had ben back home and boy was my father happy to see me. When he saw that I was the one behind the insistent knocking at his door he had bursted into tears and feel into my arms. I am smiled at him and geld him just as tight. Ou of everything, he was the one I missed the most. By the time he pulled away small tears had begun to form in my eyes and that only made him cry harder. “Sasha… Sasha… Sasha…” he cried, repeating my name over and over again. I was almost positive that he had thought that I had forgotten about him.

“How are you, old man?” I greeted him in my old ways with half a grin. He smiled back and managed to choke out a few words, “better than ever, ratbag.” Those were our nicknames for each other and as soon as he said “ratbag” my smile broadens and I pushed past him into the house.

It had been a reunion that I would not forget. My fingers clutch my bow tighter as I hear a gentle rustle to my left. A wicked smile captures my lips as I turn and hold my bow at the ready. Boy had I missed home.