I had run with a street gang once, about four years ago. I had gotten tired of the orphanage, having no certain name: just being called "boy" or "son". So, I ran away, into the streets. The first few days were a living hell; no food, shelter, and autumn was starting to fall, its biting winds going straight through my pitiful excuse of a jacket. It was about then that I turned down the wrong street, the wrong ally, or wrong territory, I forget which. There an older gang cornered me, mistaking me for an enemy gang member. Thankfully, they were drunk, and I was light of my feet. The scuffle did draw the attention of another gang, one smaller and made up of younger members, closer to my age. Together we beat back the drunken men; leaving them unconscious on the ground, running as the sirens wailed, coming closer. Impressed with my agility, the leader of the gang "adopted" me, and the gang became my family for a short time. I had a shelter, an old, empty apartment building full of rats. I had food, though I had to make sure to keep a hold of it, as the rats would steal from an inattentive hand.
This "family" would not be together for long though. The city had just as many gang members as it had rats, and when you had an infestation, you sent in experts. That's just what the city officials did, sending in special task forces, wiping out the gang population. Adults, over eighteen went to prison for a determined amount of years, and the minors went to juvenile centers, or sent to orphanages, depending on their criminal record. I had no record then, being on the streets just a few months, so I was sent back to the orphanage I had run from.
They treated me as an outsider, whispering as I walked by, repeating and creating more rumors. I stayed there until the day I turned eighteen; my birthday being the day the orphanage took me in for the first time. Again I walked out, vowing to never return again.
I roamed over the city, wondering what to do now. I could not lower myself to beg, and no high-paying job would be given to a teenager with no social security number, driver's license, or even a birth certificate. That left two options, find a crappy job somewhere, or join anther gang. By then the city law enforcers had a new name for gang members, Rats.
It made it easier to take in the younger members. It was wrong to beat down a couple of children just trying to get by, but it was easy to exterminate an infestation of Rats.