Chapter 7: Mira Ashwood Names the Thing He Is Doing

The common room is empty at this hour except for him.

Hamlet had not gone looking for solitude — solitude in the tribute center is a fiction, the cameras see to that, there are forty-three of them in this room alone, he counted during the first evening because counting gave his hands something to do — but the other tributes have retreated to their respective floors by now, to whatever sleep or sleeplessness the night before the Games produces, and the room holds only the low synthetic hum of Capitol appliances and the too-blue glow of screens showing, in rotation, highlights from previous Games. Someone has decided this is appropriate viewing for the night before. Hamlet has positioned himself so that his back is to the largest screen. It does not entirely help. The sounds reach him anyway: the crowd noise, the clean percussion of weapons, the particular frequency of an audience's pleasure at something he does not wish to think about.

He has a glass of water. He has not drunk from it. It sits on the low table before him with the self-possession of an object that has never been expected to do anything but exist.