Taking The Kids From Our Districts, Forcing

I Guess There Isn’t A Rule Book For What Might Be Unacceptable To Do To Another Human Being.

Today I Might Lose Both Of Them. I Try To Imagine A World Where Both Gale's And Peeta's Voices Have Ceased. Hands Stilled. Eyes Unblinking. I'm Standing Over Their Bodies, Having A Last Look, Leaving The Room Where They Lie. But When I Open The Door To Step Out Into The World, There's Only A Tremendous Void. A Pale Grey Nothingness That Is All My Future Holds.

In One Horrible Moment The Last Piece Of The Prophecy Became Clear. So Bid Him Take Care, Bid Him Look Where He Leaps, As Life May Be Death And Death Life Again Reaps. He Had To Leap, And By His Death, The Others Would Live. That Was It. That Was What Sandwich Had Been Trying To Say All Along, And By Now He Believed In Sandwich. He Put On A Final Burst Of Speed, Just Like The Coach Taught Him In Track. He Gave Everything He Had. In The Last Few Steps Before The Canyon He Felt A Sharp Pain In The Back Of His Leg, And Then The Ground Gave Way Under His Feet. Gregor The Overlander Leaped.

Hey, Look At This!" He Holds Up A Glistening, Perfect Pearl About The Size Of A Pea. "you Know, If You Put Enough Pressure On Coal It Turns To Pearls," He Says Earnestly To Finnick. "no, It Doesn't," Says Finnick Dismissively. But I Crack Up, Remembering That's How A Clueless Effie Trinket Presented Us To The People Of The Capitol Last Year, Before Anyone Knew Us. As Coal Pressured Into Pearls By Our Weighty Existence. Beauty That Arose Out Of Pain.

I Had To Do That. At Least Once.