Author's Note: Hi. Thanks for reading my story. Please leave a constructive comment. I don't care whether

or not it's rude---just review!

Disclaimer: I don't own Robin.

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Yeah, I was born into this kind of world. The world of crime and chaos, where everyone is a slimy sleazeball and you can't leave your house after 5p.m. without the fear of some nut gunning your back with a bullet.

That's right, buddy, I didn't grow up in no homey home in a cozy, cushy urban neighborhood. No siree bob, I lived in the very slums of town---the part of town that forever reeked with the combined odor of dirty bodies, drugs, and just plain filth; the part of town where crime gived around the clock. Literally, I'm not kidding---just walk into any of those alleys any time of the 24 hour day---you'll probably witness something that you'd never forget.

Speaking of alleys, there were about twenty on the block I lived on. And they weren't just your typical shadowy alley's either. They were pitch black---frighteningly pitch black---and the walls were, like, ridden with smoldy( if that's even a word) grime and obscene graffitti. Oh, and hiding back in the thick blankets of shadows were guys who were just waiting for a reason to murder you. I mean, give them one wrong look and you'd probably end up dead quicker then you could blink an eye.

Outside of the alleys, the streets were cracked and grubby from intentional abuse and there was no yellow lines marking where you can and can't drive in that part of town. So, if your thinking about driving down those roads, you better be watching in all directions, cause you never know when some looney crackpot might decide to hit the road.

And, let's just say, that looney crackpots weren't all that uncommon in this part of town.

Well, lined up along those roads were little shops and joints---most of them with boarded or barred windows---that looked about ready to topple over. I guess if you were having a good day they might have seemed funny---I mean, in a bizarre way they did---all crumpled, with peeling paint and graffitti decorating it like fancy Christmas wrapping. Ha! they did look kind of like little Christmas presents...in a very odd and obscure way. But most of the time they just seemed angry and hateful and bitter.

Well, anyways, like I mentioned, graffitti just crept it's way through just about every nick and cranny in town. You could find it just about anyplace. And I mean anyplace. Streets, alleys, buildings, streetlights, parked cars, what little plant life there was---it was a kind of depressing.

Even more depressing was that, with the exception of our one working streetlight, everything was broken. And, man, by the way that light hung there, you could tell it wasn't going to be that way for long.

As you might imagine, it didn't smell too hot there. In fact, it smelled pretty gross. But, considering the fact that the air was being polluted by about a million different things---like, for example, regular things like cars and bikes to things like drugs and other random gamy junk---that should be expected. If it wasn't supposed to ooze smoke it was broken to do so. That explains why smog was everywhere.

The weird homeless dudes that walked around murmuring to themselves, well, that's a different story.

Now, just so you know, I was not a homeless dude. Hey, I lived in a building and slept in the same room every night. Not that I'd call that dinky little room a home but it was regular living space and I used to be very proud of that.

That little room was located in some type of old, rundown factory beneath a creeky metal staircase. I guess the size wasn't all really that bad, I mean, there was enough room for two cots, a small broken down microwave, a crate of clothes, a worn out loveseat, an old T.V. set that had half its screen busted, and, well, what could have been stretching space. Yeah, it could have been, but instead somebody just loved to use that precious space for junk like empty beer cans and used tissue paper and hopeless articles of laundry---to name but a few of the totally grotesque items that randomly found its way into our little chamber.

I don't know if you can understand my frustration about the junk, but that wasn't the worst part about that little room. Man, just take a deep whiff and you might just faint, because it was frankly just nauseating. It was outside times twenty. Most of the time I could handle it, because, hey, I was born into that smell...but there were times when I just couldn't, and, well, let's just say I'd get sick.

Sick as in puking my insides out.

But, yeah, that room was decent enough for surviving. If that's about all you want out of life. It was my bedroom, kitchen, dining room, and laundry room.

The world was my bathroom.

Now, you may be wondering why I stayed in that little room when there was a whole factory out there waiting to be conquered. And, man, I wished I could've. I would have enjoyed being king of the factory, but we weren't the only ones living in that factory. No, there was loads of people living there---and they weren't just bums either. I'm talking criminals---you know, hitmen, pimps, dealers, prostitutes---just about the dirtiest, cold-hearted slackers around.It took a few unpleasant encounters til I finally learned that if I had to go past 10 o'clock I was better off finding a bucket than trying to get out of the factory alive.

Making it outside was hard enough, but staying alive out there brought it all up to a whole other level. You think you hear about a lot of crime in your guarded little cities, but most crime goes unreported. A lot of the more gruesome crimes, too. And where I'm from, you don't only hear about the crimes you actually get to hear the crimes. And it's not uncommon for a passerby to be invovled in a crime.

That is, at the recieving end.

So, there you have it, the warmest, heartiest welcome to my world. The world I spent most of my childhood playing dodge-the-guy-with-a-gun and hold-your-breath-so-you-can't-smell- that-stuff-those-people-are-smoking.

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