Living After Death

Suffocating.

                       -Prim Rose Mellark-

    I lie in bed in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling. I couldn't sleep. I can never sleep. Not since it started. We would awaken in the small hours of the morning to muffled screams, coming from our parent's room. Finnick and I would rush in to see our father, on top of our mother, shoving a pillow into her face. We used to try and stop him by screaming, but he would never listen. Eventually, mother would calm him down, but it got harder for her each time. A few months after  I turned sixteen, she decided not to try anymore. I didn't hear a sound. I didn't hear anything all night and decided to try and sleep. I thought maybe he stopped. That everything was going to get better and I would stop seeing bruises on my mothers face and neck. The morning she died I woke up to my fathers screams. This was new territory for us. Even so, we ran to him. To our mothers dead body. She was covered in angry black, green, and purple splotches. 

  The funeral was short and cruel. Which is to say, our father piled the dirt in our back yard over her body that night when we were sleeping. Finnick and I woke up to nothing in the morning. Not a peep. I never thought anything was wrong, dad was probably sleeping. He had drank so much- more than uncle Haymitch could ever handle. I was wrong. Our father was gone, and all he left us was a letter.

  Prim Rose and Finnick,

   I am so sorry. I never imagined it this way. The war... It changed me. It changed everyone. I know we have kept you sheltered for this long, but now it's time for you to know. 

 100 years ago, Panem was engulfed in a great rebellion. They called it The Dark Days. This war was lead by District 13. They convinced all the other districts to attack the Capitol and to hopefully destroy their cruel rule. I know this might confuse you, as this has never been shared with you before. But this is the time. I cannot hold back the real world any longer. The Capitol eventually defeated the weak rebels, and in the course completely destroyed District 13, or so everyone thought. They went underground, growing their own food. Taking care of the hurt and the weak; and they grew. They grew and they grew and they grew. Waiting. Biding their time, until it was time to strike. Your mother and I made this possible.

 Once the Districts lost, the Capitol began a plot to keep the population in check. To make sure another rebellion would never happen. It was used to show their power- we couldn't even keep our families and friends safe.This was called The Hunger Games. It was a genocide. Children aged 12 - 18 were forced to enter a drawing. One boy and one girl were chosen every year from each District. 24 entered the arena, and only one ever exited. There would be one Victor. Until your mother and I. We were entered in the 74th Hunger Games. In the end we were told that only one could survive, but we fought. We fought the Capitol. In each of our hands we held Nightlock. An extremely poisonous berry, it would kill you as soon as it touched your lips. While raising them to our mouths, Claudius Templesmith called out to us. The 74th Hunger Games had two Victors.

 The next year was spent parading around the Districts, igniting the fire within them. It took them so long to gain the courage, to fight again. Every 25 years The Hunger Games issued a Quarter Quell. 25th- Citizens of the Districts had to vote who would join the Hunger Games.                                                 50th- Four Tributes were chosen from each District instead of 2.                                                                     75th- Past Victors from the earlier Hunger Games would re-enter the arena. This is what your mother and I were drawn into. This is what started the Rebellion. 

 The Rebel's plan was to rescue us and a select group of others from within the arena, but it did not go as planned. Six were alive when the rescuing commenced; Finnick Odair - District 4,  Beetee Laiter - District 3, and Katniss Everdeen - District 12 made it out. Enobaria - District 2, Johanna Mason - District 7, and Peeta Mellark - District 12 did not. The other 18 of the Victors died. We were all saved, though after immense torture. (I was injected with the venom of a Tracker-Jacker. This venom makes the person it is injected in to hallucinate and see things as shown to them. I believed that you mother was evil and needed to be eliminated.) Once in District 13 we staged the rest of the Rebellion, and President Snow was killed. Since then we have lived here, once known as District 12. And until now you've had your mother and I to take care of you. This is not the case anymore. 

I would love to say that Panem is safe now, but I can't. You need to get to District 2. Look for Gale Hawthorne, and say "She chose who she couldn't survive without, not what she couldn't live without." He will know what to do. People will not know you by your faces, but by your names. Change them. Change them, but never forget who you are.

  I love you,

    Peeta Mellark, your father.

We left that night, and we never returned.