"Memories never die no matter how hard you try to kill them. I hope to God you aren't alive to ever see this." The words- my words- curled into my ears sending shivers racing up and down my spine like crackling electricity. I pressed my clammy hands to my face shielding myself from the flickering screen that played the tape that held all the answers to my past; the past I was terrified of discovering.

The door was locked and there were no windows in the tiny cement room; there was no chance of escaping from finding out who I was. I was trapped with my pre-flame self and judging by my opening line my past was everything I feared.

They had mocked me for it; the peacekeepers that is. The four men overseen by my trainer had escorted me from the hovercraft that had whisked me away from the arena as soon as the gamemakers had decided the festival was over. Som Treculous, the man that I'd nearly driven mad with my incessant escapades to hack the computer database and discover who I had been previously, found the fact I begged him just to let me live in ignorance amusing. "When you can't know, you feel like you have to know- but as soon as you must know, you will do everything in your power not to. I must say, Saragateus, you are turning out to be just as interesting as I'd hoped. Thinking you were losing your mind was a nice touch, too." His harsh words still rang loudly in my ears making me sick.

And what had I said to him? The only shaky words I could think of; "Everything.... It's all changed."

I was right though, I realized as I pulled my hands from my face and forced myself to look at the screen that had trapped myself as I was before I was brainwashed, before the dehumanizing training and before I'd been forced to kill to survive. His eyes were soft and kind; his skin pale and unscarred. Behind him was a faint reflection of myself as I was now, my eyes were hard as a rock and my tanned skin was pulled tightly over my bones. We were two entirely different people from two entirely different worlds.

The boy on the screen blinked and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, "This... This is hard. I've never been the type of guy who could just weave my words at the drop of my hat. What do I say? Where do I start?" He let out a long sigh and brushed his long blue hair from his eyes. "I guess I'll start at the only place I can start; the beginning. Your name is North Ariat, you are son to Maybelline and Sestoris Ariat. You have a sweet little sister by the name of Rivana." He smiled for a second as if remembering some long off memory of the girl, after a second his face darkened again and he spoke. "Your mother left your father for another man, you don't really know her. Your father is an important man.... he is a member of the president's cabinet. I guess you could say thats where your trouble began. If you were born to a socialite or a performer perhaps you'd still be sitting home free of worry. But you aren't."

There was a long strenuous silence in which I, Saragateus, and him, North, locked eyes for a drawn-out, speechless second. And then I felt my mind begin to come undone, I felt all the memories locked away in my head cascade free like water breaking free of a collapsing dam. Strange images and vibrant emotions flooded my head, I wasn't given an opportunity to explore them though because North began speaking again. "I made a mistake and as I'd come to learn one stupid little mistake is all it takes to change everything. It happened while I was sitting alone in one of the capital parks. I like to be alone, it gives me time to hear myself think. However it is also when you are at your most vulnerable. This guy, he walked over to me and sat down. His face was mostly covered by the hood of his shirt, to this day I have no idea what he looked like. 'Hey, you're an Ariat, right?' He had asked, his deep voice barely above a whisper. I'd nodded not feeling nearly as uncomfortable as I should have. He changed in a heartbeat. He- he grabbed the front of my tightly in his fist pulling me toward his face. 'Listen very closely. You are going to get me information from regarding something called Tabula Rasa. Your father knows about it. If you don't comply.... who was that small girl that you were walking home from The Academy? Your sister? If you don't comply I swear I will kill her, and don't bother telling the authorities because even if they catch me my organization is too huge to be caught and they will carry through my threat. Be here next Thursday, the same time with the information.'" My younger self stopped, his eyes wide quite clearly reliving the whole incident.

I could too all of a sudden. I remembered the terror that had surged through my body, I remembered the helplessness as I had sprinted home after the encounter, foolishly thinking that if I could just get home everything would be alright. It wasn't. I remember refusing to let Rivana out of my eyesight for the next several days, paranoia nearly driving me mad. Every shadow held a masked man and every flicker of movement was knife barreling toward my back. "What could I do?" North continued, the futility in his voice mirroring the futility that I remembered. "So, when my father wasn't looking I snuck into his office and grabbed his files. I-I gave them to the man. I betrayed my own father. He'd already had mom do it, and now his only son had done it too. My dad was waiting for me when I got home. Rivana ran up to me screaming bloody murder, I barely had time to process what was going on before my father crashed into the room. I-I'd never seen him so angry." North's voice had fallen to a whisper and he looked down toward the ground.

Flashes of my father's face, flushed red as he yelled danced freshly in my memory. Even now isolated in a room years in the future of the incident the fear and pain still felt fresh. "He didn't let me explain why I did it. The only thing that mattered to him was the fact I had done it. He signed me up for this.... He signed me up to die." I watched my younger self's eyes pinch shut as a tear streamed down his face. He wiped it free and his glassy eyes stared at the camera one final time. "Your past does not define you.' I disagree. Your past creates you....or in my case it leads to your demise."

The screen went dark and I let out a breath a long drawn out breath. When I had lived this everything had been so real, looking back it was different. I had been shallow and lacked perspective. I had thought I had it hard, but in reality I had no clue what hard was. I'd worshiped a man who had been vacant most of my childhood working and probably helped come up with the idea for Tabula Rasa. I had been so blind and I hated myself for it.

On another hand I had been brave enough to defy him to protect my sister. I smiled when I thought of her; I had been there for her when her life had been threatened and now she was here for me to give me something to fight for.