Aaliyah Paxton

# Early life

Born as a mistake, Aaliyah had two young parents, her mother being sixteen at the time of her brith and her father being seventeen. This, of course, meant that both were still in the running too be reaped for the Hunger Games. But in District 2, this wasn't likely. Tributes in 2 were raised to want to go into the games, possessing the arrogance to volunteer. So, if you decided you didn't want to go, you generally were safe. But, a disappointment to your family for never volunteering. Still, fate wasn't in Aaliyah's favour from the beginning. At just eighteen months old, her mother was reaped for the Hunger Games. The one year no one volunteered and it was her mothers last year.

Her mother was murdered in the games, a boy from District 1 delivering the final blow. At the time, Aaliyah still had her father for just under two years before he finally drove himself mad from the death and he ran. The now twenty-one year old was quickly caught by Peacekeepers an taken to the Capitol. The man was turned into an avox and never heard from again.

After this, Aaliyah was moved to a childrens home, with focus on schoolwork and on training from an extreemely young age, using the home only for breakfast and bed and spending every minute of every day training to be the best assasin she possibly could be. Not knowing until the age of twelve about her families unfortunate ending.

This is when her life completely flipped upside down. Normal day in the children’s home really, Aaliyah had returned home following an intense day of training as she saw the reruns being played on their projected screen. These were something Aaliyah tended to watch in order to understand other fighters. After all, she would either be in the games or something to do with the peacekeepers in the end. She had to be some perfect assassin. A stupid concept now when she looked back. But it was all she knew, it was everything she knew. She’d watch the different methods of winning, learning how to recognise fear and misplaced courage, learnt tell tale signs of lies as well as true looks of desperation. But this one was different. A district 2 female death, nothing out of the ordinary really, they had to happen. But this woman was different. She knew her face, it was the same face that was in a locket she had been in possession of for as long as she could remember. All she knew was that her parents abandoned her, but the truth was all about to spill out. She screamed out with a dry throat as another boy from district one grabbed her throat and threw her to the floor. It wasn’t a particularly long fight. But the boy looked murder-obsessed practically. He smiled as he drove a knife into her leg, dragging it down to inflict the worst pain possible. More screams. Awful screams that had the power to tear apart Aaliyahs soul forever. But it didn’t kill her, neither did the second stab in the stomach. Really, she should’ve looked away, but she didn’t, not for a second. This twelve year old girl watched as if her life depended on it, which it did in a sense. The kill came on the third blow, straight down the throat. There was no scream now, nothing left but a corpse.

Aaliyah was smart enough to realise the boy from one wasn’t truly to blame, these poisoned thoughts in their heads were. And who put them there? The Capitol. They were to blame. This was only confirmed further when a weapons distributor told her how her father ran, how the Capitol caught him, how the people they caught had their tongues severed out and they were forced into the life of an Avox for as long as they would live. The Capitol, again. It was them. They didn’t protect her, they’d destroyed any chance she had at some amazing life. Hatred boiled inside her for years after, nightmares of the screams in her head and the image of her mothers dead body. There was no training to win the games anymore, only training to destroy the people that had tried to morph her and all those around her into assassins. The only people she was prepared to kill now, were the ones who ruined her.

# District 2

### School

School in District 2 was extremely tough, but it was selective. If you had more brute strength, you would focus on fighting and training more, the opposite was the same. But Aaliyah was rather skilled in both fields and so the trainers focussed on her intensely. In school she spent years studying Biology, Chemistry, English and Physics with a focus on plant life, human biology and war materials. Everything until she was twelve was a focus on what would help her in the games. And, while this continued on her tutors part, it turned into far more for her. She was learning survival and warfare techniques for a much bigger game in a much bigger arena. One day she'd stand up to the Capitol and she wasn't going to back down.

Her tutors saw potential in her, not realising her true intentions for working so hard. They pushed her hard, if she didn't go into the game she had great potential to work in the Capitol or as a high ranking Peacekeeper. So, lots of work was put into her studies, giving her the abilities she would need to work for the Capitol when really, her abilities would be put to use in the rebellion.

### Training

The training facilities in District 2 were very good, well equipped with all the possible weapons she may need in the games, all of which would come in useful if she was to become a Peacekeeper. Aaliyah trained from the young age of six with different weapons as well as hand to hand combat and physique training to keep her as strong as she possibly could for survival. She had a particular talent with guns and a sword, as well as being strong in hand to hand combat. there was a lot of focus on training, school only lasting until 1pm and training following for at least six hours a day, training her to be an assasin capeable of killing anyone who got in her way. And she was, she was ready to kill if she needed to, though it wasn't children from other districts that she had in mind.

### Home life

Growing up in the childrens home wasn't a particularly influencial part of Aaliyahs life. It wasn't for most of the people that stayed there. All of her time went into training and school work to make her the strongest it could be. She was rarely found at home, tried to stay away from it most of the time as it reminded her of her unfortunate circumstance. While she was in school or training, she was just another child, just another assasin in training and that's how she liked it.

# District 13

Aaliyah got to District 13 during the quarter quell in order to assist the rebellion. It was incredibly dangerous for her as District 2 was not one of the Districts that supported the rebellion straight away. Not to mention, District 2 was where the Peacekeepers were trained, making it full of Capitol supporters and soldiers. Nevertheless, she made it out and got to the new district.

The idea of not knowing anyone didn't particularly alarm her. She had never been close to anyone, so things didn't change for her by moving to a different District, one she had thought to not exist for so long. Still, she continued her imense training regime, using every minute she could to either study or to train, now turning her eye more towards the Capitols propaganda and helping the soldiers by knowing many of the Peacekeepers training methods, having grown up experiencing them herself.

Everything went into her training, the fire inside her stomach pushing her to train day and night until she felt strong enough to join the soldiers in thirteen. But she had big aspirations, she wanted to be more than just a soldier, she wanted to feel she was making a real difference. She wanted to avenge her mothers legacy and stand up for every child that would follow in her path if they didn't stop it. She wasn't particularly afraid, she had nothing left to lose if she did end up dead for this. Most were fighting for a better life that they could spend with family and loved ones, she didn't have that, so everything came down to fighting for Panem, if she needed to give her life to do that, that was what it was going to take.