ONE: THE RAT

His stomach is starting to twist and clench unbearably. He groaned and grabbed at it fiercely trying to calm the worms. He has not eaten anything since yesterday. His last meal, which was yesterday morning, was the roasted fish head leftover from the night before's meal of fish, which he fished from the garbage and crusted dried bread he managed to get from the market at a cheap price. The money of course is what was left on him. He had hopelessly tried to get a pocket to pick, any pocket, yesterday and did not have any luck. He had scavenged all rubbish bins, gutter and alleys for leftover food and had found nothing it seems the country's worsening economy is finally affecting Jefferson's Avenue badly.

At first, the price of food had merely gone up, but people could still afford them. Though those in the neighbouring slums had suffered it gravely. The residents of Jefferson's Avenue have a more higher standard of living than those in the neighbourhood because the place is rich with opportunities - there are so many things available to be scavenged. Bricks, limestone, gravel, tiles; broken and intact, aluminium, and abandoned building tools to be scavenged off the abandoned buildings, the large piece of land at the outskirts of the estate has been shared among the early comers and has been used for farming. A river also flowed through the farmland, engineered artificially. Its source is a paw-shaped artificial lake in the middle of the land. Out of it flowed three branches of water, forming the river that crossed the land. Originally designed to be a plantation of trees suitable for making paper, a rectangular building has been built on the far side of the lake where a paper factory ought to be. But now those that farm on the land had converted the building to a store for keeping their farming tools.

The river, which runs through the farm land is rich with fishes of all kinds. All of which all came from the lake where an aquarium was being put in place. But with the abandoned project it began to dilapidated and when those from the slums came, they scavenged what was left of the uncompleted aquarium and sold them off, making the fishes swim into the rivers. As they began to multiply, they were discovered, and they began to fish them. Then the early comers claimed the lake as theirs and made fishing and farming an occupation. And to make sure the fish are not wiped out they made a law among themselves to only fish in the lake once every two months, and at the river banks once a week. Therefore, making the lake off limits to the others coming into the estate, the least they could do was swim in the river or fetch from it as most of the boreholes in the estate had stopped working.

But despite all these perks at Jefferson's, it's still a slum. One crowded with street thugs, prostitutes, gamblers and run-away boys who had left home because of one problem or the other and had taken to the streets for survival. Picking pockets and the more daring robbing people at dagger point, especially the farmers when coming back from a harvest or the fishermen on their way to the market. While the more mature and rugged street pimps, a group of youths who could not get a decent job to support their growing families and left home to become street thugs, petty thieves and burglars busied themselves with preying on anyone that come their way from the spare part seller to the scrab collectors and traders, and just for kicks they steal from the street rats, as the younger boys and girls who ran from home are called, whatever they had picked from someone's pocket. Akin belonged to the class of those who ran away from home and his favourite hunting ground was the market square, a place where he could easily see all the various classes of people at Jefferson's and pick out the best-looking ones to pick off any valuables they were carrying.

But as of late, picking things off people is becoming hard. The state of things has worsened, and nobody is willing to lose what little valuables they possess to a street rat. Even the smallest crumb of bread is saved up in all homes.

His stomach rumbled again, and he decided to go try his luck in the market square again. He desperately needed to quell his hunger.

Climbing out of his hole, one he had dug into the water channel that ran beneath the bridge on the highway when it became apparent living on the surface under the bridge became too dangerous. A starving street rat might scurry past and decide to kill you for whatever is on you, or worse get kidnapped by a Street falcon and become trafficked.

Street falcons are more advanced and experienced in street life than the pimps and are engaged in more nefarious activities like trafficking, assassinations, armed robbery and drug deals. They are controlled by the more dangerous and brutal Street Lords, who live in the best parts of the Avenue and take whatever they want without being challenged.

Going to the market square to hunt at a time like this would be dangerous as it would be crowded with more hunters than prey, and he could end up being hunted himself. But he cannot help it, and he would rather try something and get into trouble with a Street falcon than die of starvation in his little hole.

After making sure he would not be spotted climbing out of the water channel because keeping his hiding place a secret is paramount – he never guessed that he would not be returning to it - he lifted the concrete slab and climbed out. Dusting his shirt he headed down the alley that leads to the market square.