the lord and the alleycat [COMPLETED]

Chapter One

I’m not saying I’m invisible, but it’s as close as I could get. I constantly get bumped into on the street, but no one says “sorry” or “excuse me”—it’s like I’m just a pole, with no feelings, no worth. And sometimes I feel that way about myself.

Hunger consistently nags at my stomach, so much so my stomach doesn’t even rumble anymore. It’s just pain. Pain from the hunger, pain from the loneliness.

Sometimes a kind stranger will hand me a piece of bread. Nowadays I cannot eat it, for it just increases the hunger. But still I cannot resist letting little pieces touch my tongue. The heat from the piece warms my mouth and I close my eyes, trying to remember a time when hunger never lingered for more than an hour. I still have not found that memory.

It seems I was born a beggar, and I would die one as well. Death was sounding more and more comfortable with every passing day. I knew I couldn’t take my own life, but the malnutrition would be taking me soon.

The day I did collapse was the unluckiest and the luckiest of my life.

I fell in the street, as I was trying to cross to reach the Alleyway. I slipped in a puddle, landing hard on my chest, which knocked the wind out of my system. I couldn’t gather enough strength to lift myself up, so I lay in a puddle, wet and shivering, waiting for death to come. I turned my head to the side, my vision blurring as I felt myself beginning to fade away. Through my now blurry eyes, I saw a carriage headed towards me. I had now accepted death, and was waiting for the crash on the carriage. It never came.

The carriage was pulled to a halt and just before I closed my eyes a figure appeared above me, asking me something.

And I let what I thought was death come.