Mr Dream. DNF

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5.45PM, Ludlow Street

The sky was grey with clouds and the air was thick full of humidity and pollution. The street was bustling with activity with cars and taxis speeding quickly along the crowded road while pedestrians on the sidewalk marched along briskly, trying not to look out of the ordinary.

George skipped happily towards his favorite sandwich shop with an almost finished blue lollipop in his mouth. He was attracting stares left and right, not only because of his joyful skip, but what he wore as well.

His outfit was anything but inconspicuous, he wore denim blue shorts with black stripes, a denim belt with red stars that held his shorts up tightly, a hot pink crop top and a clear jacket with gigantic sleeves covered in streamers and ripped up caution tape. His shoes were silver and his socks purple, he accompanied the outfit with a silver charm necklace.

George strolled past the entrance to Chinatown before taking a shortcut through an alleyway, passing an old guy smoking a cigarette. It had been raining the night before, so puddles littered the holes in the sidewalk and water leaked from broken gutters. A few droplets dripped onto George's head but he paid no mind to them. It wasn't until he almost slipped on a particularly wet bit of concrete that the brunette finally became aware of his surroundings.

He looked around and remembered that this was an alleyway next to Chinatown, so the backs of restaurants and houses were surrounding him. In L'manberg, there were many of these alleyways and secret tunnels everywhere, even in the rich side of the city. You could usually access them from the main roads then take a turn and be met with the backsides of buildings, apartments, houses or anything really. From these smaller branches you could find many other small gaps that would lead you to anywhere you needed.

It was like it's own mini subway system, but overground and a lot more complicated.

Only a few small groups of people knew about this secret way to travel around the city, most likely because they didn't to get lost with all the twists and turns or perhaps they didn't want to get killed and never found again.

George loved the adventure of the alleyway travel system, probably because it was so underground within the lowlifes of the city and it was so complex that you almost never saw anyone else travelling the same way. The only way George knew that other people would travel this way was because of the graffiti covering the walls of very hidden places. Behind fences or in incredibly tight spaces would you find the small images and names of people in bright colours and fonts.

Here, however, George couldn't see any graffiti. The gap between the houses was much bigger here as well, hinting that this must've been a commonly used passageway. George looked up and noticed the red lanterns from the previous mid-autumn festival still hanging onto golden string. They flowed down the line buildings and disappeared into the grey cloud of fog at the end of the alleyway.

George reached up and grabbed one of the paper lanterns so he could read what the golden characters said. He didn't understand what all the strokes meant, but he knew it meant something good.

He continued walking and noticed the plastic pipes releasing steam from the restaurant's hot kitchens. George looked back from where he came, but all he could see around him was fog. Hot, steamy fog.

George walked a little faster until he made it to a pathway that turned right and led him into another passageway, however a sound made him stop. It was a small gasp that George wouldn't have heard if it wasn't so silent, but it was and he did.

He whipped around to be met with a slightly open window and a little Chinese boy spying on him from inside. He couldn't be older than seven and wore a doraemon shirt with a few small stains. The boy looked sheepish, as if he didn't want to get noticed. George smiled and laughed a little.