They say the end of the world started in a military lab.
Some poor bastard who'd agreed to take part in one of those experiments-for-cash programs, signing his body and blood away, all the in the name of science, just so he could afford to buy food...
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She bit into the fleshiest part, tearing at the skin with tiny white teeth and I watched, almost salivating, as a small rivulet of juice burst free and ran down her chin, before she quickly wiped it away, glancing around to see if anyone had seen.
'For goodness sake, Kris, stop bloody torturing yourself,' Alice said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me away from the window of the fried chicken restaurant, where I'd been staring at the girl through the window as she tucked into her late-night dinner. My stomach grumbled angrily in protest, but Alice was right. It was torture.
Pulling me into a nearby alley entrance, Alice leant against the wall, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the half a cigarette she'd been keeping, rationing her nicotine fix because she didn't know when she'd get any more. Lighting it, she took a drag and blew smoke out the side of her perfect mouth, the one I loved kissing so much, the one I thought about whenever the weather was so cold that I couldn't feel my toes and fingers, just because thinking about that brought a small flicker of much-needed heat.
She offered the cigarette to me, which I took, knowing I wouldn't take more than one drag myself, as she raised her delicate fingers to her mouth and chewed anxiously on her dirty nails, the skin around them an alarming shade of raw-pink. Even like this I loved her. Maybe more than I ever had. Because even with her dirt-clogged nails, crumpled clothes and unkempt hair, Alice was like a butterfly in the dirty heart of the city, a shining light in the dark underbelly of shop doorways and graffiti-caked subways. She stood out. Always had. And her beauty had been my hope through all the shitty times and our nemesis when that light attracted others who saw what I did and wanted to claim it for their own.
I rubbed gingerly at the bruise that still haunted my jaw, where I'd taken a crack from someone who'd tried to capture what I'd always sworn to protect. I'd made a promise, you see. A promise from the day I'd stopped her shitty excuse for a dad from raising his fist to her again, and from the day we'd packed our bags and run from them all, to the day we'd ended up here, huddled together under a bridge, sharing a sleeping bag and our last packet of biscuits. I'd promised I'd always look after her. No matter what. No. Matter. What.
I handed back the cigarette, watching as she smoked it right down to the butt before throwing it to the ground and stubbing it out under her scuffed boot, the one that had a hole worn through just under her big toe. She sniffed, rubbing at her runny nose with the cuff of her coat. Her skin was pale, too pale, accentuating the dark rings under her eyes and the hollows of her cheeks that seemed to be deepening by the day.
It had been five days since she'd eaten anything remotely substantial and even that had been barely much at all. We'd had our carefully-gathered stash stolen, by the same bloke whose fist had connected with my face when I'd made it quite clear Alice was off-limits to his perverted leer and filthy fucking hands. He might have been twice my age, but I'd managed to get in enough punches to make him realise it wasn't worth the trouble on his own. We'd heard through Seamus, who we sometimes shared the doorway with, that he'd come back later, with his mates, and, finding us not there, nicked our food stash instead and pissed all over our stuff, not that we'd had much to begin with.
