Rat was hungry.

Rat, however, didn’t mind his stomach’s attempts at acrobatics within his belly – to Rat, hunger was a constant companion.

Such was life in the streets of the capital for another nameless urchin left to fend for themselves.

At 17 years old, Rat was considered a legal adult – responsible for his own actions, able to hold property in his own name, able to marry, and most importantly – pay his taxes to the king, just like everyone else.

However, like most of the other residents of the slums, Rat didn’t have convenient access to fancy luxuries like a well-paying, stable job, a solid and watertight roof above his head, or more than one set of filthy clothes worn from use and a size too small for his already scrawny frame.

Instead, rat had precisely ten copper bits to his name – enough to buy a stale loaf of tough black bread, a mug of cheap, spiced wine to slide it down, and a firm kick in the ass from the tavern owner for darkening their doorstep again.

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It wasn’t always as bad, of course.

Rat’s parents, alongside thousands more, died in the black plague that washed over the continent more than 15 years ago.

At the tender age of one, he was placed in an orphanage while the state official handling the assets of the recently departed helped himself to the already meager house where Rat’s parents lived.

Growing up in the orphanage was not easy, of course – the matrons ran the place with an iron fist and demanded discipline, and the children themselves were often damaged, either physically or mentally. It was, however, his home for the last 16 years, where he was fed and could safely sleep – until he turned 17, became an adult, and like all the other kids before him – got kicked out.

He soon found his way to the slums, after narrowly escaping a pair of guards who tried to press him into military service and rob him of what little he had along the way – and set up in one of the abandoned shacks abundant in the slums outside the walls.

And so, with his stomach churning out complaint after complaint, he stared out his open window and at the moon, in all its pale glory, as it hung there above Dead man’s Hill – contemplating his future.

He’d have to figure out food tomorrow though, or he would’t get the chance to plan anything beyond the most comfortable position to starve to death in.