[justify]

"IF A STAR FALLS FROM A STARLESS SKY, WAS IT EVER REALLY A STAR AT ALL?"

"And then the soft moonlight swam it's way back into the darkness and was enveloped by the shine of the sun." The words move as though taunting you, flickering and dancing in a beautiful wake of memories. Memories that can you almost see but you cannot hold. Your fingers reach out but they grasp at nothing at all - the memories are hidden too far below the surface of your dreams.
"Morning had come at last and the willow cast it's dappled shade upon the ground." The voices they whisper to you, but you cannot hear the tears that they weep.
You know they are there, waiting behind a veil, for they must be, yet however hard you try they do do not listen to your pleas. The pain is jarring, tempting and overwhelming. It haunts you in your dreams and in your waking, plaguing your nightmares with whispers of a past never lived.
"Mummy, why can't I come with you?"
The voice haunts you constantly, but you do not know who it belongs to. The reply is always the same.
"You mustn't, darling. It's not safe. You can't come where I'm going."
No more words fill in the sequence. No faces match the haunted voices which dart about your consciousness like bitter morning's breeze. There are others, though. Frantic voices that cannot be placed anywhere in the past or the present or the future. And so the questioning came from within you -

Is it real or is it just a dream? Are the voices simply your imagination clinging to hopes of what might have been, what could be if you only look hard enough? Are the voices real? Do they have a name? Why is it that these voices can reach you even in the darkest of places? There is no escape. No escape but the faltering gap in your memory that you fear will never be whole again. What hope can you find to cling to when all that you can see is an empty abyss that could contain any number of horrors scratching at you from within. "If a star falls from a starless sky, was it ever really a star at all?"

Sometimes you wonder if your questions even possess answers. Other times you are certain they do not. Why is it, after all, that everyone must hold a past, a history? Can't we simply begin? Every time you try and put together the fractured pieces you know, even more of the things you were sure of break apart and tumble into shattered truths. It is for this reason that joining the Lightwood family was the best thing that ever happened to you. And also the worst.

"Go, my child, flee before it is too late!" Somewhere in your head there is a crash, a cry, and then nothing at all. "Mama?" The voice belongs to a child. What harm would it do, you ask yourself, to simply know what once happened? Why has my own life been stolen from my wake? But no voice comes in answer to your frantic questions - nobody is left to explain.

Why you? It could have been anyone, after all. Out of every child in the district, in Panem, why was it you who the misfortune stumbled upon and decided to take with it as it went? That was how you thought at first, anyway. And then you accepted it. Slowly. Almost daring the past to return in a flurry of forgotten answers. It didn't come, so you decided to learn anew. Discover the world again. The second time around.

"Through the forest of forgotten dreams you must find your darkest nightmare and bring it with you-" the voice is so faint that it is barely a whisper, however you hear the words as though you have heard them a hundred times before. "-for without this nightmare you are not you and you cannot reach your destination."

You stare in the mirror, but you do not remember the face that stares back at you. The eyes are not engraved in your mind, for you have seen them only a few times before. Dark and hazel and forgettable. No glimmering dashes of light, no piercing stare. Simply a fearful, curious look which haunts them day and night and has done ever since you can remember. Your hair falls around your face no matter how many times you try to push it away - but it holds no clues to your burning questions.

Tears roll from your cheeks and linger on your full cherry coloured lips. But no amount of pain makes the nightmares go away, so you look right out into the sky and tell yourself to make new memories. Learn everything over. And for a while, that was exactly what you did. "The community home is no place for a child, my dear." Is this the voice of your mother? Or simply a dream created to help give you some stability in the past? "Oh, please Mama, can't we adopt one?" The voices fade and you are left alone in your head once more. It does not help you to look down at the slim tanned body that you do not know and do not care for. Is it real? By now you could not care less.

People confuse you, for they do not match with your experiences. You have nothing to compare them with, for the world is a mystery you are curious to unfold. For now you are simply learning. Observing, noting, beholding. You do not yet know who you are, but first you try to discover who everyone else is. Do they feel as you do? Do they feel pain or are they simply obstacles in the way of your goals? What are your goals?

You do not know what you dream of for the future - your dreams are cluttered with fears of the past. Fears of what might have been, even though you are desperate to learn and grow again. It is something you cannot quite seem to replace. A hole in your heart you cannot fill. At least you can be happy when you train - for at least there there are no strange rules, no boundaries. You must simply do what it takes to survive.

Well, I must, anyway. Because I am Anastasia Lightwood. No history.

"Your parents where killed in the earthquakes... What is your name, dear?"

"I don't... I don't know..."

No personality.

Still I am trying to figure out who I am. Who I was. I am learning to be human. Slowly.

No nothing.





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