"Papa! Where you going?"

"I'll be back soon, Mags." My father looked down at me with welcoming, sea foam green eyes. That was my favourite thing about him. Besides his cuddles, they were the best.

"Please, be safe, Animus," my mother pleaded, clutching his arm and kissing his cheek before he left. I stood by her side, holding her other hand. Father bent down to kiss my forehead and bade us farewell for the night. He'd be back by morning, he was one of our District's night-fisherman.

I was two years-old, so I only had a slight understanding of the world around me, but I had a feeling that my father would always protect me.

BANG BANG BANG.

My eyes flew open, but my body was frozen on my bed. Mother told me about this. I couldn't move when I woke up sometimes. She called it sleep paro... para... paral... something.

I could hear her muttering as she went to check on whatever the noise was. I figured it must have been the front door since nothing else echoed so loudly in this house when it was hit. Except probably those pots and pans mother lets me play with occasionally.

Listening intently as my mother's hastened steps made the stairs creak, I lay still, waiting for the sleep thing to subside.

Then there was shouting, probably whoever was at the door. Mother must have pulled it open really fast, because there was another reverberating bang as it hit the wall behind.

"They're coming, Patrona," my father sounded utterly terrified, as I heard him closing and locking the front door with such speed it could beat a very determined salmon journeying upstream.

"Who, An, who's coming?" Mother was scared or more likely confused, just as I was.

"The Capitol." That's a word I knew. Father had told me about the Capitol. It was filled with horrible, selfish people who I never wanted to have the displeasure of meeting.

Then I heard him running, not away from the house, but up the stairs, and my door was flung open as I saw him bound into the room. As if by instinct, my body sat bolt upright before my brain could even tell it to. I knew what was happening now. He grabbed my hand and wrenched me out of my bedroom door, still in my pyjamas.

"We have to go, darling," my father informed me, though I was already aware.

"I know, Daddy. The bad people are coming."

As we reached the bottom step, he reached out and snatched my mother's hand in his and led us to the back door. I could hear people shouting in the distance, and more banging. People were getting hurt, but I didn't know why, yet.

That was when the front door shattered to little wooden pieces and everything blurred together.

Mother screamed while tears erupted from her eyes. I shook incessantly, unable to control my fear. Father yelled at us to get out, run, get as far away as we could. So we did.

But not fast enough.

We'd just gotten out of the back door but my eyes lingered still on my father: why was he still there?

I could just make out him trying to reason with the Peacekeepers, trying to make them understand what he was doing. Then there was a crackled bang, and he dropped to his knees.

He turned to face me, and his last word came just before they shot again.

"Fight."