It's weird, how much he's noticed me... And apparently, I have not been as oblivious to him as I imagined, either.

She's really gone, then. The little girl with the back of her shirt sticking out like a duck tail.

We each get fifteen minutes before the Gamemakers to amaze them with our skills, but I don't know what any of us might have to show them. There's a lot of kidding about it at lunch. What we might do. Sing, dance, strip, tell jokes. Mags, who i can understand a little better now, decides she's just going to take a nap.

I feel like I owe him something, and I hate owing people. Maybe if I had thanked him at some point, I'd be feeling less conflicted now. I thought about it a couple of times, but the opportunity never seemed to present itself. And now it never will. Because we're going to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death. Exactly how am I supposed to work in a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won't seem sincere if I'm trying to slit his throat.

My guess is that fearful events are the hardest to root out. They're the ones we naturally remember the best, after all.

Finally, the intercom crackles and Hatmitch's acerbic laugh fills the studio. He contains himself just long enough to say, 'And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies.

The only thing worse than fighting a giant scorpion was fighting a giant scorpion who was trying to protect her young.