486 P.C. Landen Town (Outskirts of the Mourn Kingdom)
In a back alley, two underfed street urchins were huddled next to each other. One was keeping watch for any unfavorables or guards while the other rested.
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“Charles... Charles wake up! CHARLES!” The young boy’s pale blue eyes snapped open at the panicked shout of his companion.
They were huddled next to each other in a dirtied corner of a back alley behind Mrs. Thompsons house. Charles eyes gleamed with alertness as he quickly assessed what had made Billy wake him with such urgency. There were only two scenarios for a fast wake. Either Mrs. Thompsons husband was out back disposing of the unsold bakery goods, or someone was in the back alley they needed to be wary of. There were many dangers to their small duo such as other small urchin groups, gangs, or in the worst case it could be the guards looking to punch away some stress to distract themselves from ongoing attacks by the Corrupted. After all, who would care if one or two street urchins turned up dead out of sight and out of mind.
“I just saw one of Tommy’s scouts staking out the alley. We need to leave before the rest come!” Billy responded in a hushed whisper looking quite exhausted and gaunt. His pale blond hair looked dirty and frazzled but the panic brewing behind his green eyes got Charles moving quick enough. Tommy had no sympathy for the street urchins and his gang was ruthless to those that didn’t want to fall under his leadership. There was word that he had ties to a much larger criminal organization and ran his gang in Landen town following their doctrine. Urchins that didn’t heed Tommy’s orders or weren’t crafty enough to avoid his group were quickly beaten into submission or quietly disappeared.
Charles knew there wasn’t any time to waste. They needed to get moving and fast. There were a couple of different shelters that they could find reprieve in. Small hidey-holes they’d staked out in case they needed to avoid their typical hangouts for a while and lay low.
“Which scout was it?” Charles questioned in a quiet whisper.
“It was Riley!”
“Corruption damns us all! Of course it's Riley again!” Charles cursed and his eyes widened in panic.
“That demon girl has been chasing us for weeks! We’re going to have to hide in the sewers again.” Billy grumbled and frowned.
Charles matched the same frown his companion made at the thought of the sewers. He hated the sewers. It was easy to catch a disease staying down there too long, and if they were very unlucky, they could run into a Corrupted Beast. However, it didn’t seem like they had much of a choice if the alternative was getting caught by Riley. Damn her eyes, she seemed to take great pleasure in hunting them down every couple of days and upturning their already difficult lives. Soon they might have to leave Landen, since she'd been getting better at tracking them down.
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Charles quickly bundled up the spare rag he’d been using for a blanket and wrapped up their store of stale bread they’d been gathering from the bakery. By the time he was finished, Billy was already ready to leave. After doing a brief once over to make sure nothing was forgotten, they rapidly made their way to the manhole located in the center of the alley. The boys squatted down on either side and shifted the heavy metal plate, leaving enough of a gap for them to climb down. After catching their breath for a moment, Billy was first to start his decent into the sewer.
“Over here! It’s the same prey I've been chasing for a couple weeks! Hurry up before they escape!”
At the sound of multiple footsteps and the unmistakably feminine voice coming from further up the alley Charles started panicking.
“HURRY UP!” Charles hissed towards Billy who still had some of his head sticking out of the manhole.
Billy didn’t say anything, but his speed noticeably increased.
Once Charles saw that Billy was far enough down, he quickly clambered onto the ladder and lowered himself with as much haste as possible. Being the rested one, he was in charge of moving the covering back over the top.
At the sound of boots hitting stone got closer and closer, Charles gripped the cold metal and pulled as hard has he could to try to shift the plate back into place without making too much noise. Charles felt lucky that the covering was only partly shifted out of place, and it slid back with much less effort than lifting it took. With one last big tug, the plate was almost completely back into place when Charles made a big mistake. He paused to take one last glance towards where he heard the voice coming from. However, instead of catching a glimpse of his beautiful tormentor, he was met with a pair of muddy boots blocking his vision.
Two pairs of hands quickly grasped either side of the manhole cover and removed it, exposing Charles head to the sunlight again. As he felt an icy sensation of fear in his chest his eyes met with a young yet enchanting looking girl with greyish-black hair and hazel eyes who looked at him with a large toothy grin.
“Got You!” She smiled sweetly as the other two boys with her quickly reached down and grabbed Charles shoulders lifting him off the ladder and back into the alley.
Charles took one last glance towards Billy who looked up towards him frozen in fear. He signaled him to keep going with a slight head nod and a resigned grimace and dropped the rag bag that held the bread down, hoping that Billy would be able to retrieve it.
An action that didn’t go unnoticed.
“There is another one further down, but I aint going down there to get em’.” The larger of the two boys said.
“Also, this one dropped sometin’ down the hole.” The other one whispered.
The girl looked at the manhole thoughtfully for a moment before returning her gaze towards Charles who was now struggling to free himself from the grasp of the boys.
“That’s fine. We got one, I’m sure Tommy will be pleased. Give him a knock. Don’t want him too tired from wrigglin’ before initiation.”
The larger boy quickly spun Charles around and punched him hard across the jaw knocking him out cold.
“May I help your soul find Silence.” Riley took one last look at the unconscious boy and placed her hands together and whispered a prayer. The larger boys lifted Charles by his arms and the group slowly started making their way back up the alley.