Scores only matter if they’re very good, no one pays much attention to the bad or mediocre ones.

A faint light burned in the pit revealing a furry creature hunched over a stone slab, fiddling with something. At first Gregor raised a warning hand. He thought it was a rat. Then the creature lifted his head and Gregor recognized what was left of his dad.

I can almost hear Haymitch groaning as I team up with this wispy child. But I want her. Because she's a survivor, and I trust her, and why not admit it? She reminds me of Prim.

I'm running on hate. When the energy from that ebbs I'll be worthless.

Let them go, I tell myself. Say good-bye and forget them. I do my best, thinking of them one by one, releasing them like birds from the protective cages inside me, locking the doors against their return.

I drink in his wholeness, the soudness of his body and mind. It runs through me like the morphling they give me in the hospital, dulling the pain of the last weeks.

Dawn comes before sleep does.