Don't Play with Fire (Turks FF7)

Prologue

IN CASE YOU'RE INTERESTED, THE REWRITE OF THIS STORY IS UP NOW! IF NOT, FAIR WARNING, I WROTE THIS WHEN I WAS 14 LOL

~8 years ago ~

I duck under a punch thrown my way, scrambling away from the band of homeless kids that rejected me long ago. This is a regular occurrence, it has been since they were taken from me, since I escaped that dreadful locker of depressed and crazy people... Almost everywhere I scavenge for food and clothes, they turn up and either don't notice my escape or try to fight me. This time, though, I had sneaked into their camp and stolen a thin blue jacket, the material dirty and rough, and a can of peaches. Such a risk is unheard of in these parts.

"Get back here, thief!" One of them sprints after me, me gasping and pushing my thin legs to go faster. Having been eating and sleeping more than me, they quickly close in, two on either side and the chubbier one a few feet behind me. I take a sharp turn and cut the girl on my left off, only to see two large dumpsters blocking my path to the other side of the alley. Sucking in a deep breath, I leap up in to the air, nearly clearing the jump. I'm sure do would have done so perfectly if the guy on my right hadn't have grabbed my ankle and jerked me back so that my chin knocked hard into the metal, chipping one of my teeth.

"I got her!" I instantly try to get to my feet, but he stomps a foot down on my chest, crushing me and keeping me from breathing.

"Let me go!" I rasp, pushing on his foot. Too weak...

"We fianally caught you then, you little snake," the girl I cut off sneers, black hair gleaming in the dim light of the slums. Her cold blue eyes glimmer just like the knife she draws from her pocket.

"What're you doing?" I demand, still trying to pull free.

"You stole," she smirks. "And you'll have to pay. We only have this knife, so I guess we're gonna have to do this the old fashioned way."

"What's that?" My eyes widen. Something another kid told me before I left comes to mind, scaring me even more. No one ever comes back from raiding them... Be careful, please. He was only eleven, five years younger than me, and all alone. I don't have enough supplies to survive on my own, otherwise I might have asked him to live with me in my little tent in the very back edge of the Sector Seven slums. He reminded me of L... No, don't think about that now. You need to escape.

"What do you think, Carlos?" She roughly clenches my wrist in her hand, jerking my shoulder up. I wince, hissing in pain. "Take the thumbs first? Then we go one finger at a time until you have none. Next we take off your toes, and then we carve your heart out. Sound good, princess?"

"Get off me @-%+^," I growl. She narrows her eyes, wiping her blade on her pant leg.

"Alrighty then. Looks like we're going slow." I pull my arm as hard as I can, nearly getting out until the boy pushes his boot against my throat. My other hand flies up to try and push him off, but to no avail. I can feel the knife cutting into my skin, deeper and deeper, so slow. A loud cry of pain forces past the crushing weight on my esophagus. I deserve this for what happened to them.

A yell breaks my torture, someone throwing the boy off me and the girl ripping her knife out of my flesh only to get a boot to the face. I see a flurry of red as the person coming to my rescue elbows another oncoming slum rat and kicks them to the ground before snatching their knife and slitting the throat of the next.