I understood it properly, then, what they'd meant when they said that it was all spectacle, the way they turned the fury and hatred of the Districts into nothing more than a game, forced the people they killed to make friends with their killers, to beg for scraps in the vain hope of survival.

The Games were a delusion, dreamed up and enforced; even if I were to win, what could they possibly give me to make up for this?

I wanted to wake up.