It’d been 3 hours since Alec left the town. It was past dusk, and thus pitch black, with nothing but the moons as a source of light. The terrain began to turn from mostly flat to a much bumpier grassland, with the occasional hill. The only reason Alec knew this was because he could feel it under his feet, as he couldn’t see very well.
Normally at night he would settle down and wait until morning to come because his vision was naturally worse at night. However, the moons were very bright on this night, so Alec continued to move forward.
Alec was exhausted, hungry and sore. His breath was ragged. His body screamed at him to stop, it hit him with waves of pain, but Alec simply ignored it and kept moving.
Alec tripped quite a lot. This was mostly due to his poor vision and the rough terrain. His limp certainly didn’t help either.
Alec could hear the clicking and chirping of small animals and bugs. The noises were intermittent. Most would probably be annoyed by the noises, but Alec paid them no mind.
It was a windy night. Alec’s body shivered and his teeth clattered. Though the winters were relatively warm down south, they still brought chilly nights especially with wind.
Alec went on for hours. Eventually, the sun began to rise again. Alec had no trouble ignoring all the pain and exhaustion that his body felt. It was almost like he was numb to it.
Not long after dawn, Alec tripped once more, but this time his body wouldn’t allow him to get up. He’d pushed his body to its limit, and it simply wasn’t going to listen to him anymore. His vision faded into black, and his consciousness faded right there on the cold ground.
As always, he dreamed of him floating in a black abyss.
He woke up about 12 hours later, which he could tell by the sun's position. Meaning it was already the evening of the next day.
His body still ached extremely, but his shivering ceased, and his exhaustion was slightly diminished. His stomach rumbled and his throat was parched, but he was in a much better state than the day prior. Though, most would likely say that his body was still in a dire state, and he should rest some time longer.
His body ached not only because he was whipped, but also because of all the bumps and bruises that had appeared after tripping many times.
After waking up, Alec simply got up and continued moving forward like he has many times already.
And so, a few days passed. Alec collapsed a couple more times. The terrain flattened again, this time with the occasional tree, though. There was also an occasional pond, which Alec would drink from. There were no rivers, though.
Paths diverged at times, but Alec always headed toward the one that went north.
Alec was in a constant state of exhaustion as he continued to move north. He hadn’t eaten in days, after all, and he kept on pushing his body without a care in the world. The only reason he collapsed only twice in the few days since his first collapse was because he would often stop at night because it was too dark for him to see.
It was midday of the fourth day since Alec left the town. A much larger settlement came into view. Alec knew that it was a city, which were much larger and denser than towns. It appeared to be much larger than Schlezel.
Alec entered the city and found it bustling, with many people out and about, less than the town during the market, though. There were also carriages going past. There were many buildings that were different shapes and sizes made of many different materials. Most of the buildings didn’t even look like houses and they were much taller than the buildings of the town. The roads, just like the town, were made of cobblestone. However, they were much wider.
The chatter that was happening was loud, almost enough to hurt Alec’s ears. Unlike the town, Alec was not being stared at like a fish out of water. Alec deduced that this was likely because there were many more people, and many more orphans as well, therefore people wouldn’t be guaranteed to notice him if they walked by each other. However, when people walked past him, they still circled around, almost like there was a bubble around him. Alec was still clueless as to why that was.
Alec’s stomach rumbled, reminding him that he needed to steal food if he wanted to survive. Alec began looking for food but found that there were no outdoor stalls selling goods. Eventually, he figured out that, instead of outdoor stalls, there were buildings that people owned that you must go inside and purchase goods. Alec realized that it was going to be much more difficult to steal.
Alec was undeterred, though, and began walking into random buildings hoping that it was a food store. There were signs outside of each building, likely indicating what each building was, but Alec was unable to read.
Alec began by walking into this large, two-story building. It was definitely larger than a house, at least a house in the town, and wasn’t shaped like one. As Alec got closer, he could tell that it was made of wood. As for the color, well, Alec was also colorblind and didn’t know; he could tell that it was a lighter color, though.
Alec walked only to find it empty, save for one woman behind a counter in front of him. His nose was hit by a strong scent coming from the woman. None of the townspeople had any sort of scent to them. Now that Alec thought about it, many of the women he passed by did seem to have some sort of special scent on them.
The place was dead silent. To Alec’s left there was a hallway with several doors, obviously leading into different rooms. At the end of the hall, there seemed to be something, but Alec couldn’t make it out with his poor eyesight. To his right there were many tables, and a counter all the way in the back that seemed to lead into another room.
Alec wasn’t sure what this building was, but, realizing that this clearly wasn’t the place he was looking for, left before the lady behind the counter, who had a suspicious look on her face, could say anything.
Alec then went into another building. This one was clearly a shop, but it sold clothes and again, Alec left before anyone could say anything to him because he quickly realized that it was not what he was looking for.
He went into more buildings and did the exact same thing when he didn’t find what he was looking for.
After walking in and out of several buildings, he finally found one that appeared to be a food store. Or perhaps a fruit store would be a better name to call it.
Alec, driven by his stomach and drooling at the mouth, walked further into the store and right toward the food.
“GET OUT OF MY STORE YOU DISGUSTING RAT!” boomed a voice no more than a second after Alec stepped forward.
He was chased out of the store. Alec realized that he may be being a bit too obvious about stealing with him being an orphan and all. He figured that if every store was just going to put everything on display like that, then his best bet was to quickly run into the store, quickly grab some food, and quickly run out.
Alec considered the possibility of getting caught, like how he was back at the town, but he came to the conclusion that it was a risk he had to take. Though, he felt a little more confident that he could get away this time, as this time he’d be in and out really quick and there were alleys in this city unlike the town.
He walked into a few other buildings, but again walked right out because they weren’t what he was looking for.
He was about to walk into the 6th building since he was chased out of the fruit store before something caught his eye in an alley. He walked closer to get a closer look and saw another orphan digging into a dumpster. He saw the boy dig up some food scraps. Alec realized that he could do the same thing as well.
The boy paid Alec no mind as he approached him. It was almost like Alec didn’t exist in the boy’s world. Alec noticed that the boy was very skinny, and his clothes were rags, that’s why Alec figured out that he was an orphan. Alec looked down at his stomach and clothes.
I’m not too much different.
Alec then walked off and began to think about whether he should start searching for scraps in dumpsters as well. He figured he should, but most of his efforts should go toward attempting to steal food. The food from dumpsters were likely to only be very small pieces, and it was all dirty and some of it was likely unsafe to eat. He also imagined fights breaking out over food at the dumpsters. Alec knew he wasn’t going to win any fight against anyone except for maybe a kid who was smaller and younger than him.
Alec walked on and continued to walk in stores, memorizing the ones that sold food. He also naturally memorized the streets and their layout as he walked past.
He eventually came to a place that appeared to be this city’s marketplace. It looked very similar to the town’s with it being a large open space, but this one was much larger. There were no stalls, though, so the market day must’ve been another day.
Alec continued walking through this marketplace. It was quite large, taking him a couple hours to completely walk through it. Eventually, he came to a point where there was a very clear divide in the city, the end of the shopping district. There were of course the shops on one end, but on the other, there were different types of buildings, which clearly weren’t shops but didn’t look quite like houses either. These buildings were much larger and of varying different shapes. There were no signs on these buildings as if it was so obvious what these buildings were that signs weren’t needed. It didn’t matter anyway as Alec couldn’t read.
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Alec actually recognized one of the buildings. It was a cathedral right near the divide. It looked very similar to the one in the town except this one was much taller and was decorated in many more fancy ornaments. It still had that Φ symbol, which Alec still didn’t know the meaning of.
There were many fewer people walking around in this part of the city. Many of the people in it were knights presumably keeping watch. Alec spotted a particularly large amount guarding the cathedral. This made sense to Alec, as the ornaments could’ve easily been stolen by people like himself otherwise.
Alec wondered if people were really religious in this country. He figured that perhaps they heavily worshiped God or gods because of all the fancy ornaments, but he’d also never seen anyone at one of those things, so he wondered if that wasn’t the case.
Alec’s stomach rumbled again, so he stopped contemplating that, and turned back into the empty marketplace and continued back to the place with all the shops, which he called the shopping district in his mind.
He really needed to steal some food. His starvation was reaching its limit, and his energy was really low. Though, his mind seemed to be numb to the pain his body felt, so he was really urged by his primal instinct.
He began to attempt to steal food from the food stores, but there was no luck. His inexperience and the store owner’s experience showed. Alec’s body also wasn’t doing exactly what he told it too because, again, he was overwhelmingly exhausted. There was also the fact that he was blind, so his awareness was poor, which wasn’t good when you were trying to steal from a store.
The sun eventually began to set, and he finally sat down in what appeared to be a narrow backstreet, finally allowing his body to rest.
Alec looked around and saw a few homeless people (or at least people he assumed were homeless) and saw that everything looked much trashier and poorer than the shopping district he just walked out of. He determined that he must have sat down at the entrance of the slums.
No one said a word to him. Alec closed his eyes and was out like a light as soon as his eyelids shut.
His dreams were the same: the infinite black void of nothingness.
…
Alec awoke very late, around midday. He felt better than the day before, but he still woke up aching and exhausted.
There were a few people walking around in this street he was in. They looked very homeless, poor, and crook-like, which was to be expected in the slums.
He left the slums and began attempting to steal food from shops again. He figured that it would be a good idea to learn the layout in the slums, as that would probably be the place that he would be “living” and spending the most time in, but his hunger was simply too great.
Like the day prior, Alec was unsuccessful in his attempts to steal food. Every time he walked into a store, he was almost immediately shooed out by the store owner or a store clerk. He simply didn’t have enough experience in this line of work. He also seemed to have some sort of presence that attracted attention to himself.
He had this idea that if he ran into a store, took some food, and ran out back out as fast as possible he’d see some success in this endeavor, but he was too slow and there was someone always standing at the entrance as if expecting someone to try something.
After trying this method on his 7th attempt of stealing food, the store owner of the store he was trying to steal from said “Get out, you rodent!” and literally tossed him outside of the store harshly.
Alec got up and walked off with a newfound pain in his ass and began to tread toward the next food store.
As he approached the next store, he witnessed another orphan sneak attempt to sneak into the store as well. Alec realized that what he should be doing is observing other orphans steal and learn from them.
He was probably the least experienced orphan at stealing and scrounging for food, so it’d be a lot quicker and easier for him to watch and learn rather than charge headfirst into the art of stealing and figuring it out himself.
And so, Alec stood on the other side of the street and watched this other orphan try to steal from the store.
Alec had tunnel vision and utter colorblindness, but he could still see someone from across a street.
He witnessed the boy, who couldn’t have been older than 12, enter the bread store while sneakily following closely behind someone else, a man who was tall and stocky. Only a beat later, the boy came sprinting out of the store with bread in hand and an angry store owner behind him. The boy dashed into another narrow backstreet that was nearby and disappeared in sight. The store owner chose not to follow him, and angrily returned to his store.
Alec realized that what he had done was put himself out of view by hiding behind a much bigger man, quickly stole some bread, and ran into the slums where he knew he wouldn’t be chased.
Alec decided that he would try that out. Instead of trying this method on this bread store, though, he decided to try it out on a different store because he figured the owner of this bread store was likely to be overly cautious, considering that he had just been stolen from.
He walked down the street to another food store. He remembered this one as a produce store that sells fruits and vegetables. Alec remembered walking into the store and seeing a surprising variety of produce that he had never seen before in his life. He had of course only gotten a quick glance with his poor eyes, but he also remembers that the produce didn’t seem especially fresh. Though, he could have been wrong. In any case, he was at the point where he didn’t care.
When he arrived at the very small store, he waited just outside of it, waiting for a man larger than himself to walk in the store so he could sneak inside right behind him. This didn’t take very long, as Alec is a very small child, so there aren’t too many people that are smaller than him.
He got behind this older man who was about to enter the store. He quietly followed behind him. However, right before the man entered the store, he seemed to sense Alec following behind him, as he turned around, catching Alec in the act.
The man winced in surprise, but quickly shooed Alec away. He also put his hands in his pockets as if checking to make sure that everything was still there.
“Get away from me,” the old man said a little forcefully, but not loudly.
Alec did as told and walked away. Luckily for him, it didn’t create much of a commotion, so he could try again with the same store after a few minutes.
That man probably thought I was gonna pickpocket him… Wait a second, that’s something else I can try.
Alec figured that another thing he could do was try pickpocketing people and then purchasing things from stores.
I don’t think it would work. All the store owners kicked me out almost immediately after seeing that I was an orphan. Also, even if I could convince them that I had the money to pay, they’d probably still assume, albeit correctly, that the money was stolen and not sell me anything.
Even so, Alec still thought it was worth a shot. He thought that perhaps there were some store owners out there that didn’t care where the money came from.
Alec directed that thought out of his mind and approached the produce store again. Again, he followed behind a larger man who intended on going in the store, trying to be as quiet as possible and trying to hide his presence as best as possible. Just like before, though, the man sensed Alec before he even entered the store and shooed him away. This time, though, the man made a bit of a commotion, so Alec decided to move on to a different store.
I think being able to hide your presence is very important for this trick.
Alec was right, of course, but he was clearly not the best at hiding his presence and he knew it. He didn’t give up though and tried again.
He attempted this trick many times and failed just as many times. He tried and tried until the sun began to set. He simply wasn’t experienced enough when it came to hiding his presence. However, he was getting better at it though, as he was starting to get inside of stores, before getting yelled at to get lost by the store owners.
He was persistent, and eventually at sunset he did succeed.
As he had done several times that day, he followed behind a larger man. He was able to get into the store, which was another store that sold bread, and was able to keep his presence hidden long enough for him to grab some bread rolls before the clerk noticed him. Right after he grabbed the rolls he was noticed and chased, but Alec did manage to run out of the store and into the slums without being caught.
Alec kept running deeper into the slums for a bit, turning a few street corners, until he knew for sure that no one was chasing him.
He stopped and took a look around. It wasn’t really a special place he ended up in; it was just a part of the slums. It was a street with run down homes and human feces all over the place. The streets were dirty, and it stunk of garbage. There were some dirty, homeless/poor people walking and sitting around.
Alec, still standing in the middle of the street, took one of the bread rolls out of his pocket and began munching on them like an animal that hadn’t eaten anything in months.
He barely swallowed his first big bite of his first roll, he suddenly felt something strike him in the side of the head. He flew a few feet and landed on the ground. The bread roll flew out of his hand. He felt blood already dripping down his head. Alec picked his head up in a daze, his already blurry vision blurring even more.
He thought for a brief moment that perhaps the store clerk had chased him down after all, and he didn’t realize it, or maybe a guard had already been called and it was one of them. However, what he saw was a hairy old man (homeless man) with a long metal pole who was picking up the bread roll that flew out of his pocket.
The man pocketed the bread roll and approached Alec.
Alec tried to get to his feet, but he couldn’t. His head was too dizzy, and he was beginning to see spots in his vision. He could feel himself about to pass out.
When the homeless man reached Alec, he began beating the absolute shit out of him, whacking Alec in the head with the metal pole in his hand.
Alec’s face went numb after the second swing, but he knew that his nose was bent in a direction that it shouldn’t be, and right eye was already swollen shut.
The man swung the pole a few more times at his face, and Alec knew that his face was probably unrecognizable at this point, and he may have suffered permanent damage at this point.
Life really is brutal and unfair, especially in the slums.
With that last thought of realizing how terrible being an orphan, and how terrible the slums really are, Alec passed out.