Author's Note:This is my first story, so try not to judge too harshly. I always wondered what would have happened in the Hunger Games if Gale was chosen in the Reaping. I'm not sure where this story will go in later chapters, but it's going to start the same way as the books.
When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim's warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course she did. Today is the day of the Reaping.
I get up and see Prim snuggled up beside my mother, shivering underneath the thin cotton sheet, the only thing that protects them from the crisp dawn air blowing through the gap in the window. I walk to the door on the other side of our house, if you can call it that. It's more like a shack. All of the houses in the slums of District Twelve are.
I grab my father's worn leather hunting jacket from it's hook by the door. I have enough time to go hunting before the Reaping starts at two.
I jog through the slums until I get to the "electric" fence. The fence is supposed to be powered with 1000 volts of electricity 24/7, but the power is sporadic, and the fence is only occasionally electrified. Still, I check for the telltale buzz of power before I slide between the wires and out into the Glade.
The Glade is the meadow that separates the fence and the forest. At this time of year, the dandelions are almost all dead, and the grass is brown with drought. But it's not like that in the forest.
