Finding the Past
My hands are shaking as I write this.
Tonight is a bad night.
The memories, long-suppressed under the soft cushion of morphling, are flooding my brain with such a sudden sharp attack of horror that all I want to do is throw my head against the wall over and over.
They've taken away my shield, my barrier, the one thing that is keeping me sane.
"You've a Reaping to attend. A job to do. Get up."
Eyes closed, I had barely acknowledged the voice.
"We're taking it away. No more."
A sharp pain in my the crook of my arm as the needle was ripped out, then nothing.
I was carried by the soft wings of morphling for but a few blissful hours.
Then came Hell.
The faces of my past, all marching in front of me.
They're all here right now, as I move my pen across this page in an effort to tell my story before I slink back into the wonderful shell of my addiction.
Before I return to being the coward, hiding behind the drug I swore I would never take, I must face these memories, to give them justice.
Maybe then they'll let me be at peace.
I must be brave, do this one act of courage before I return to the Arena, or else return to sending two people to their death, to expose them to the horror that I myself had to go through.
This diary was a gift.
It is also an instrument of torture.
My friends, my enemies, the faces of the children that I don't know but who died all the same, are surrounding me, giving me both strength and a sense of horror that I had been trying to avoid for a year.
All twenty-three of them, looking at me with various expressions on their faces.
Some are angry, some are sad, some are smiling, happy to see me once more.
I can't avoid them.
These memories are as tangible as this book, as visible as these words on the page.
My now-yellowed skin is stretched to the breaking point as my hands grip the table.
The chills running up and down my spine aren't just from withdrawal.
My name is Cassia Yarrow
I am 28 years old.
I am the District 6 victor of the 64th Hunger Games.
Tomorrow, I will return to the world of the Games. A world I have been escaping from for the past ten years.
This is my story.
The story of twenty-four children who were thrust into an Arena together ten years ago.
The story of how I was the sole survivor.
Let it be known.