He got up from his straw bed with a sigh and looked around in the dark room while staying cautious to refrain from making excessive noise. Stretching as he got up, he prepared for the day once again. There wasn't much in terms of preparation, and he just put on a piece of cloth to prevent the cold as much as possible. Walking out of the room into the alley, he saw that it was still snowing. Walking around, he looked for whatever he could eat - leftovers, bread crumbs, dead animals - anything would satisfy him at this point.

He had been living in these crude alleys since he was born and came to adapt to his rough environment over the years. The young boy remembers very little about his parents, just that he had been abandoned a few years after being born. Now nearing 8 years old, he worked for an old man in a factory, but it had been shut down for some time because of the current condition of the environment. This was unfortunate for him because this had been his one source of income. As he continued to walk, looking for anything to satiate his growling stomach, he came across some mice killing each other over a loaf of bread at the end of the alley. He started running as fast as he could to compete for the food and eventually stole the food away in turn for some cuts and bruises. But he thought it was well worth his effort, and he began to eat away at the measly amount of food that was left after the scuffle at the end of the alleyway.

As he watched people walk by him in the snow, he wondered once again if he would also one day be able to eat as much food as they did. He had not realized that even those who lived on the street were not much better off than himself, but he was still just a child, only looking for his next meal to survive each passing day. Seeing a group of guards, he slipped back into the alley. He had learned his lesson the first time a few months earlier when the guards had treated him like he was trash, however, he felt indifferent towards this action because this was how he had always been treated by those he worked for and with. He headed back to a shelter that could barely pass as one, but he knew no better and had lived in these conditions for all of his life. Around him were many buildings that were falling apart, and there lived a person in the slum every few blocks. They rarely interacted with each other and chose to live independently of each other, only being in contact when they got in fights. He didn’t know anyone else and had to survive with the little amount of strength he had for his age. It was a miracle he hadn’t died in the winter seasons that were harsh and unforgiving. There were seasons where he lived, but when winter came around, everyone’s lives got much harder and mortality was high.

Walking back into his room, he laid on the ground without much to do but stare up at the degraded ceiling. He kept the little cloth he had put on to keep himself warm from the freezing temperatures that leaked into the room. The room was freezing, but there wasn’t anything he could do to prevent it, so he decided to go back to sleep and hoped that he would wake up tomorrow and find more food. As he slept that night, he dreamt of a cozy home with a loving family. They were eating around a round table with a tremendous amount of food, enough to make someone sick, but to him, it was a dream he didn’t want to wake up from. He woke up, disappointed at both the fact that he had woken up and that nothing would change from yesterday.