Greeting to the final contestants of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games. The earlier revision has been revoked. Closer examination of the rule book has disclosed that only one winner may be allowed," he says. "Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor.

I start to crack at four hundred to one.

Oh, well. At least my blood is flowing.

You don't destroy what you want to acquire in the future.

The woods always look different at night...as if the daytime trees and flowers and stones had gone to bed and sent slightly more ominous versions of themselves to take their places.

I wish Peeta were here to hold me, until I remember I'm not supposed to wish that anymore. I have chosen Gale and the rebellion, and a future with Peeta is the Capitol's design, not mine.

What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by? What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to rill in and die for their entertainment?