Disclaimer: If I owned Duo, he would never have been treated like this...
Warning: Implied prostitution.
AN This has got to be for you Xtine, hope you like it Hun, just pure angst, the best genre.
Sacrifice
Dou's POV
I walk the cold streets wind cuts through me like a steel knife. My clothes, or the closest thing I have to, do nothing to keep me warm, I may as well be walking the streets naked, many children are. Many others stand wearing less than me, their reasons not being they couldn't get hold of the materials though. They are selling themselves, selling their bodies. To anyone, anyone here who has the money to buy them. If someone has money, you can always guarantee that's what they are here for, no –one would want to spend their time here if they had a choice. Anyone with money is too good for L2 anyway, too upmarket, they don't want to live amongst us, we're just scum; it puts them down with a bad name.
I scuff my dirty feet across the unclean ground, hitting a piece of shattered glass. Barely registering as blood slowly starts to smudge on the souls of my feet. It'll probably get infected like many other scars across my body. I've never had anything infected too bad though, lots here don't have two feet to walk with, or maybe just one arm or hand, I'm lucky in that field.
Turning down the closest alley I head for some unknown destination, there's no where I belong, that I have to go back too. Footsteps rapidly approach, heavy, older and by the weight in their steps probably male. Ducking away into the shadows, I warily conceal myself from the intruders. Catching a glimpse of one of the three faces I see a teenage boy. They don't see me, I can easily hide my small body, you need to be able too, living here. I stay flat against the coolness of the wall until they pass and exit the alley, I don't trust older boys, they'll sell you on street corners, and take the money for themselves, you go through what they don't want to themselves just so they can get a decent meal of scraps that night.
Nearing the end of the alley something icy brushes against my leg. It's unmoving, cold and boney. I have a good idea without looking what this is, I glance down anyway. She's young, maybe five or six. Brown nearly black eyes, although now glazed shown emotions form her life, a life time of pain, hurt and sorrow. The tinge of blue in her cheeks tells me she's been here a while other signs say the same. Congealed blood is gathered across her almost naked form, mixing with it a whitish substance that could only be semen. I didn't want to think about what her last moments must have been like, her last desperate thoughts and prays. Death is the easy way out, some don't get the choice, others if they get anything to help the process along do anything to take the tainted gift of they have been shunned with. Many people here, given the option on a clean death or trying to battle out the thing we call life here, would take the option of death, I don't blame them. Others believe everything will turn out OK, they hold their faith in whichever God they believe in, faith in the Gods in something I lost a long ago. Before I move away from the solitary figure of the young girl, I reach out and gently close her frightened eyes, she looks more at peace now, more what one should look like after they've paid their dues in life and now want freedom from strife in the after life.
Exiting the dark passageway I find myself walking down the same depressing streets I do everyday, they're not getting any happier. Neither am I. It a while since I've had food, but there isn't many ways to get it. A girl on no older than eleven is demonstrating on of these ways at this moment. I see her tightly clasp the cash in hand as she's lead off down the closest alleyway by a middle-aged man holding a possessive arm around her. It's disgusting, disgusting what a child has to do just to eat, and not even well at that.
I mustn't think of food, it makes me feel faint as I realise how long it's been since I've eaten. I need food; I'll grow weaker than I already am if I don't get some soon. I can't think of how to get any, it doesn't just grow on trees. I look for the closest trash can. Not finding anything for a while leaves me walking unfamiliar paths in search of the prize. Checking a corner I turn round it to find a nearly deserted square. I've hit the jackpot, a skip sits on the edge of the square, two children younger than me are already raking through to find as much as they can. I head over and begin my own search. The smell of old rubbish fills the air, but the hopeful chance of food is what fills my mind. I get little out of it, but to me, it's enough, it'll keep me going for now at least.
I would love a peaceful sleep now, terrorised nightmares is the closest offer. I have to accept this, just I as must accept the horrifying conditions under which I live. I've gathered old paper from the skip, scrunched up, they don't make a bad pillow and the extra ones keep me slightly warmer. Finding an empty corner I let myself go half to sleep, it's all I trust myself to do, falling into a deep sleep would mean probably waking up somewhere I don't want to be or in some position I don't want to be in.
Dreams reflect the dreadful happenings here; I can't even get away from it all in my sleep. There's no escape, I'm trapped here, probably until I give up and let go of life altogether. I try to tell myself it could get better, but I don't lie, it won't get better and I know this, it's just something I've never been able to accept, I don't want to accept it, I want to believe that this place may one day change. But at the moment this is as good as it's going to get, people who built this place to be like this should be ashamed, we can't live on like this. That's why we choose to die. I'll make that choice soon enough.
Owari
AN Please review.