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PROLOGUE strawberries;
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── THE MEMORY WAS IMPRINTED into Gale's mind, as clear as the morning sky, of the first time the mayor's daughter had crossed his path.
It had been a hot and barmy day in late June, the shadows of summer only just beginning to creep over the dull streets of District Twelve. The location of Panem's poorest district meant that their summers were often long and humid, but for some unknown reason, that year had been a particularly scorching few months. It was late afternoon on a Tuesday, and above Gale the sky was dazzlingly blue yet still partly cloudy.
Though that wasn't particularly unusual for District Twelve, where it was almost always partly cloudy.
School had finished for the day less than an hour ago, and Gale had decided to spend the day foraging in the woods for stray berries and herbs. Usually when he wandered out to the woods, it would be to hunt, but he tended to save hunting until the weekends. No, foraging wasn't the most thrilling activity, and if he got caught the peacekeepers would have his head, but it was what he had to do to keep his family fed.
Though he was not yet even fourteen years old, Gale had been a provider for his family for several months now, after his father died in a mining accident in the spring. His mother, Hazelle, was heavily pregnant with her fourth child, and her inability to work had made the adolescent Gale the breadwinner of his family. Thankfully, despite his young age, Gale had always been resourceful, and he had quite the knack for designing traps. These days, the unruly woods that surrounded District Twelve were filled with snares and traps crafted by Gale's own frail hands, so much so that they would be deadly for anybody that walked through them.
And Gale Hawthorne had always been rather mature for his age, in attitude and in stature. Certainly, even in his youth, Gale already looked like a man. He was the tallest in his year with incredibly broad shoulders, and alongside his olive skin and dark, brooding features, he managed to appear handsomely damaged. For a boy from the Seam, one that was constantly battling with starvation, he was abnormally large.
