"No. I can't. I don't want to. I just can't." I can't except what I've just been told. King Gale, of our District 12 in Panem, wants, no, demands that I marry him. Me, a girl from the Seam, a pheasant who lives off of what she hunts herself and finds in a trash can. I am not considered as beauty, for I have black hair, olive skin, and gray eyes. My mother speaks. "Katniss, darling, he is the King and you can not refuse." She walks into our makeshift kitchen and I follow. "Why not? Everyone in this town knows how evil he is. There are many rumors that he rapes a new woman every night. I don't want to be married to a man like that!" I say, laying down tonights hunt on the counter. Mother scolds me. "You should know not to believe them." She goes back to the living room with her herbs and sits down. "But they are true!" And they are. I myself have seen women young and old come out of the castle, clothes torn, blood oozing from everywhere, and the image of their rape still in their eyes. "You have no choice in the matter. I have already accepted and one of the King's servants will be here tomorrow morning to pick you up." (No! No! No! This can't be happening!) I run to our one bedroom and plop down onto the mattress on the floor. I fall into a deep sleep thinking of what a nightmare my life has became.