Theophania Thandrek | pk | fin

The coat is itchy. The collar rubs against her neck, a constant reminder of its presence. As if she wouldn't notice a bright white uniform. The armor is stiff beneath the jacket, but there is something comforting about it. Protected, safe, disguised.

She wet her lips, eyes falling on the other graduates. She knows most of them. Theophania had entered the academy with a handful of them, had beaten up a few in classes. There had been an unprecedented amount of drop outs from her year. Stress, the instructors said. These young recruits couldn't handle it anymore.

Graduates surround a mirror, applying touches of make up before the ceremony. The tap red paint against their lips, the students from the Capitol smear sky blue across their cheekbones.

It'll be nice to see the Capitol with her own eyes and not through a television screen. A peer had already promised to show her around Style Street.

Theophania joins the group, ducking under the taller students to peer in the mirror.

"Do you want some?" a man originally from the Capitol asked offering her a bright pink lip gloss. "It's just natural enough they won't give you a strike, I promise."

"No thanks." Theophania smiles at him. She tucks a lock into her cap and leaves the huddle. She doesn't need to stand out, her entire plan depends on it.

She was so close to the end now, she couldn't screw up now.

"It's time!" someone called from the other end of the room. A wave of white swirled through the room as the recruits formed a line. Theophania settled into place and marched out into the commons where a bright light was pointed at the stage. More white uniforms stood smiling down at them form behind a podium.

Honestly, the laundry bills must be astronomical.

"Graduates," the woman began, thin lips wrapping around the word like a fork. "You have spent years proving you have the dedication, loyalty, and drive to keep this country safe."

Theophania's lip twitches.

"Now, more than ever, there is a threat to our a great peace- to our society as we know it. You are the ones who will stand between Panem and destruction, and you will win."

The recruits are given a signal and they all rise to their feet in applause.

"For Snow! For Panem!" the woman's words scream from the speakers.

"For Panem!" They all echo.

The applause and yells flicker into static into whimpered cries. Into the sizzle of an electric fence and a mother's hushed whispers.

"Leave them, honey, we have to go."

"Momma, he's hurt-"

"And we will be too- Now."

A rough hand takes hers and they shimmy through the dirt out into the forest, leaving the half cooked body hanging from the fencing.

"For Panem!" The shouts grow louder and Theophania's voice is a part of them. It has to be.

"You will now serve our great country, you will make Panem safe again!"

Theophania blinks and white uniforms closing in, sleek black guns pointed at a tear smeared face. Her mother had been crying but not anymore. There were no more tears to shed.

Her young arms hug tighter to the tree trunk, her legs wrapped around a branch she prays will not break.

"You are a traitor," a gruff voice spits.

"I am," Mother says.

A loud boom, like a clap of thunder but with no lightning to warn its arrival.

She holds that thunder now on her waist. As she walks through the crowd of excited newly crowned Peacekeepers to the front of the Academy. She heads straight to the office and stops in front of the assignments desk.

"Already?" the man asks over his glasses. "I thought I had an hour before you all swamped in here."

"Apologies."

"It's fine. Since you're first- any requests?" He asks, pulling up her file in the computer, fingers posed over the keys ready to ship her off to any district she wished.

"I want the frontlines. Send me to the district that needs cowing."

The man raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, but you're not going to like it."

Theophania didn't like running. She didn't want to spend her life cowering in trees waiting for patrols to pass, living her entire life in shadows. Instead she broke into society, inked a new name onto forged papers, and blended in. Everything to this point was to fill a cookie cutter life.

Now it was time to break that cycle. She'd wormed her way into the inside of the beasts' heart and she would rip its chest clean open.

"You'd be surprised."