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So maybe biking two hours into the desert with only a bottle of water, a granola bar, and a smartwatch at 12% battery wasn’t the best decision Gale ever made.
He’s done this before, underestimated District Two– how the desert's vast, flat smoothness can damage his ability to figure out where he is and how to get back home. (For a given value of home). But he’s never gone out this far before, and wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the trials. These damn trials will be his death, and the only thing that will quiet the voice saying he’s on the wrong side of them are these trips further and further into the flat expanses on his dirt bike.
Because even though he’s lost, even though the heat is beating down and making him lightheaded, he feels freer here than he does in his District Two penthouse by a mile.