I nervously shivered as I tried to sleep but could not as I was scared of the next day's events, the reaping. Hi, I'm Rue and I'm twelve this year, which means I have to participate in the reapings. Not that I wanted to. I have one elder sister who died in the Hunger Games when she was reaped. Since I'm now the oldest in the family and am eligible to join the reapings, my parents have asked me to put in more slips to get Tesserae for the family as we are very poor and don't have that much money to get food for the entire family which consists of me, our parents and my five younger siblings. I agreed, only so that my siblings would not have to starve for a while. But at the same time, I was scared as I could be reaped even though I have lesser chances than an 18-year-old who put in multiple slips of paper. To try and sleep, I am not in the barn full of my favourite cuddly friends, the sheeps and Snow Black, my pet horse. She came up to me and nuzzled her nose against my hand and I giggled, thoughts about the Hunger Games partially disappearing. Soon, I somehow managed to sleep, lifting my wrinkle lines off my face, making me look peaceful.