A boy stumbled through an alley with sluggish pace, many drops of blood dotted the trail behind him.
A limp in his step forced him to keep adjusting his gait as he walked. He raised his knee high in the air lest his foot scraped across the damp soil.
Even though the road ahead was long and full of forks, the boy kept inching his way forward with eyes sealed shut.
The boy closed them, not only to give his bloodshot eyes a much-needed relief from the strain of the long night. But for the thick darkness that engulfed this narrow alley made him blind to his own hand if planted to his face.
Yesterday marked the third week's passing since his last meal, a measly rat he managed to trap with a moldy chunk of bread.
It was good eating that he cherished, but it did not last him long, and nothing has yet to pass through his digestive tract since.
The hunger started, no, it resurfaced after a few days. The feeling was always there, lingering by his side for as long as he could remember. Doused from time to time by what his right begged for and what his left stole. Not once was it absent, and never did he feel satiated.
It was manageable, at first. He did what he had always done: he tried to take his mind off of it and keep looking for something, anything to eat.
But his right hand failed him before he could even extend it. The gate to the upper districts was sealed shut. He found the entrance barred to all but a select few by men armed to the teeth. Word reached his ears that the lord of the city was hosting a send-off feast for his children.
When things started to worsen, he tied a rope around his stomach, trying to relieve the pangs of hunger. It helped, for a little while.
But the more his stomach caved in as his body started consuming itself, the deeper the rope sunk into his flesh.
It wasn't long before his insides irked with a gnawing pain that refused to subside no matter how tight he tied that rope.
All the while, the boy kept trying to scavenge for food in the slum district of Vagren, but to no avail. It was no wonder, Vagren was like a small bowl of fruit where only the lowliest of scum resided. Many left hands reached out to the bowl, but there was too little for them to pilfer.
So when the boy reached in with his small arms, he found it all but empty.
His time was fast running out, and the boy knew it. He was no fool, no, far from it. With a wisdom beyond his young age and a somber sense of reality he knew what was coming, he felt it in his bones.
Already skin and bones from years of malnourishment, the hunger did him no favor as it sapped what little strength he had left. The toll it took on his frail body became clear as the days passed. When walking, standing and even sitting would leave him dizzy and lightheaded.
He knew that something had to be done now —before it was too late.
The boy refused to sit still and watch his body wither with each passing day and instead chose to risk it all in one final sortie.
His goal was the upper districts located on the willow hills. Safe behind their high walls with their cobbled streets and their abundance of food.
Surely none would mind if a few loaves were to go missing?
And so he hatched a plan and put it into motion. A few whispers here and there would buy him the commotion he wanted, and he would slip past the guards like the wind.
The boy knew full well that this day may well prove to be his last. Yet he was adamant in his resolve to go through with it. He was determined to either satiate the hunger that has long plagued him, or to die trying.
He would rather meet his end with a full stomach than spend another day living like this. After all, even the rat was afforded a final meal.
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"Damn the guards and their hounds, ruthless bastards."
The boy muttered under his breath as he limped forward. His mind numbed for the hunger but he still had his wits about him.
His head wobbled with each step, fault of a neck too weak to balance it. He felt his brain pummeling his skull from the inside as though trying to crack it open and escape.
The throbbing pain he felt in his temple with every pulse was such that he wished his heart would stop beating.
A chilling gust of wind squeezed through the alley and slammed against his bare narrow chest.
The shirt that used to cover it was put to better use as the boy had the ragged thing wrapped around his neck.
Not to hang himself from, but to support an arm ravaged to the bone by the armaments of men and the canines of beasts.
The boy kept walking forward, his eyes closed, half awake and half asleep. He took a few more lethargic steps before dozing off mid-step.
His Achilles heel found its way to a hound's jaw earlier as he was being chased. And now that left foot got stuck underneath him, causing him to fall face-first into the dirt.
The boy's screams of agony drowned the sound of ripping cloth as he jolted awake from the impact.
His wounded arm absorbed much of the impact and was now lodged beneath him with all his weight crushing down on it.
The boy gritted his teeth hard to contain the pain he felt from all the ripped open flesh and broken bones.
He felt warm saliva filling his dry mouth and a swarm of vomit he didn't know his body could still produce followed. It seeped out through his clenched teeth into the ground, covering most of his face in his own gunk.
The boy had no time for disgust, instead, he scrambled to wiggle his left arm underneath him to try and relieve some of the pressure off of his right.
With it in place, the boy then laid his palm flat on the ground and tried to push himself off of the ground with one arm. Desperate to get off his wounded hand and flip to his back or side.
He pushed as hard as he could, but his strength was lacking, and he barely got a few inches above ground. The renewed strain on his already battered body caused his vision to turn foggy and his arm gave out from exhaustion.
He slammed back down onto the ground, again landing on the wounded arm that was locked in place in front of his chest by the makeshift cast.
The boy took a moment to regulate his panted breath and tried again, this time not with his hand, but with his elbow. He pushed through the pain and dizziness and dug with his knees against the ground.
When finally he managed to get enough space, he titled his boy to the left with all the strength he had left in him.
That was a mistake, for in the midst of the chaos the boy forgot how narrow the valley was. The sharpness of the turn caused the boy to slam against the wall, with his arm once again absorbing much of the impact.
The cumulative pain from his wounds coupled with the shock of the impact proved too much for the boy. And so his brain decided it would be best to shut itself off. Both to protect itself and perhaps as a protest against a host that wasting its potential.