Chapter 1 - The Boy in the Alleyway

Five unconscious adults lay scattered all around a dim neon-lit alleyway and in the center of them was a single boy standing with a bruised lip, a cut across his cheek, and a black eye. And in his hand, was a steel pipe.

Under the gentle rain, a vicious brawl between the boy and the men had just taken place. In the end, the fight was for nothing. The paper bag full of sliced bread was ripped apart and its contents were all over the dirty puddle under his feet. The boy's stomach grumbled, roaring for food. That ruined paper bag was going to be his first dinner in the last three days, but now the white slices of bread were soaked with the gross grayness of rainwater and mud.

He was all too familiar with fighting men twice his own height but five all at once had proven to be a challenge, especially when one hand had been occupied with holding on to a bag of food. But to protect his own life, he had to sacrifice his dinner.

He couldn't possibly go back to the market to steal more food with a bruised and bloody face like that. And after creating quite a commotion tonight, it would be impossible to be even near a single stall. Over the past few weeks, his reputation as a thief grew immensely as nearly all of the market stall owners forged an alliance to hunt him down.

Going back and stealing again was just not an option. It was too risky. The security has grown to a point where the other kids around the area have even resorted to just fighting each other for food. Maybe he couldn't go back to the market tomorrow either. Or at all anymore.

After a wave of desperation washed over his body, he bent over and picked up a single piece of bread from the puddle and took a good look at it. Maybe it would be fine. Maybe he could stomach it for tonight.

"Don't eat that."

A voice spoke from behind him. He turned to see who it was and instinctively took an offensive stance.

It was another boy around his age holding an umbrella. He had less of an intimidating build than him though a bit taller. With such clean clothes, the beaten boy wondered why someone like him was in this part of town at this hour. Surely, the boy with an umbrella over his head wasn't a threat. The bruised boy relaxed his posture at the sight of someone who didn't seem to know how to fight.

"You could get a disease from eating that. Here, eat this," he said as he handed him some bread. It wasn't just a simple tasteless slice of white bread. It had a round plump shape and a rather intricate spiral design on top.

The boy hesitated. He looked at the other boy with suspicion. How did he even sneak up behind him without him hearing? Maybe the light rain had dampened his steps?

"There's cheese inside it. I think it'd be a lot tastier than putting that in your mouth."

Hesitant at first, but like a wild animal, he took the bread from the boy's hand and munched it down. It was the best thing he had ever eaten in the past few weeks.

"Tastes good doesn't it?" He said with a slight grin on his face.

The boy nodded. Still suspiciously glaring back at the other.

"My name's Alexander," the taller boy said. "What's yours?"

"August."

"Nice to meet you, August," Alexander said as he extended his hand toward him.

August could only stare at the hand with confusion. What was the stranger planning?

"It's a handshake. You take my hand and shake it."

August looked at his own bloody palm. "It's dirty."

"I don't care," Alexander took his hand and shook it, getting his own hand wet with blood.

August pulled his hand away and took a few steps backwards. "What do you want?"

"What do I want?" Alexander's eyes looked up as he thought for a moment.

"I guess you could say, I want a little companionship. Here," he continued as he took out another piece of the delicious bread from his plastic bag. "You're hungry, aren't you? Cold? Tired? You probably don't even have a home to speak of aside from a box next to a garbage dump."

Alexander tossed the bread to August.

"I have plenty more where that came from," Alexander continued.

August stared at the bread. Everything the boy with the umbrella said was true - he did not have a home to go to. At least not anymore. And the sweet aroma of warm bread was not something he has had in weeks. There was nothing but desperation left in him. Where else could he be, what else could he do, if not following the mysterious boy in front of him? 

His thoughts almost spiraled, but he didn't have enough time to think.

"Where on this bloody moon did those guys go?" A man had shouted on the opposite far end of the alleyway. "They should've been around here. Don't tell me that kid got away."

"He's a tough one - that kid." Another male voice from the same direction had echoed throughout the alleyway. "We've been tryna get a hold of him for weeks but he manages to slip away and leave a beaten up man behind every time."

"Come quick!" Alexander whispered to August, already outside of the alleyway. "Unless you want to be caught!"

There was only one choice as the rain slowly started to pour heavier. August, still with the warm piece of bread in his hand, followed Alexander out of the hopeless alley still with the unconscious men he had beaten thoroughly.

"Put these on," Alexander said as he handed August a face mask and a raincoat. The face mask would hide his bloody nose and bruised lip and the hood of the raincoat would hide his unkempt hair and make him look less conspicuous. The vibrant lights of the city's billboards and signs reflected on him and made him a part of the rainy neon scenery of Crescentia.

Wearing the raincoat, August felt a bit uneasy. Aside from the eerie fact that Alexander prepared for him a cloak, it felt that the boy he was following had planned this for quite a while already. The way Alexander walked briskly through the shadows in the streets was very methodical. He would suddenly stand in between the busy sidewalk stalls pretending to look at the street food whenever a group of burly men walked by. He would seamlessly blend in and snake through the crowd when a patrol-bot was present. He walked so determinedly. But where was he taking August?

August, on the other hand, battered, exhausted and unfamiliar with these techniques of urban camouflage, had slowly fallen behind. During a crosswalk, he had lost sight of Alexander. Panic seeping into his tired body, he frantically crossed the street bumping into people, even dropping the piece of bread that was in his hand. His eyes darted at the strangers' faces as he dashed through the bodies. His search for his newly acquainted friend had become desperate when he reached the other side of the street and still hadn't found him.

August's gaze jumped from person to person, looking for Alexander. But it was fruitless. Crescentia was a big place with too many people. It didn't help that it was nighttime. The only light sources were the unreliable billboards fitted on to the side of every heavenly tall building in town. The only nice things to look at in this city were the beautiful women in the billboards, seemingly made of light, elegantly dancing or posing to the colors of the luxurious product brands they were advertising.

Crescentia was only beautiful when you were looking up.

But down where the people were, it was ugly. Parent-less children running through the streets with ragged clothes. And unlike the goddesses of product placement, the women on the ground had sour faces that were screaming with discontentment, though they tried to hide it with their makeup. Men came in two colors, the brooding black of expensive suits or the disgruntled collective grayness of poverty. The only things that seemed happy to be here were the lifeless patrol-bots, towering over the crowds of people.

Unlike the service-bots, in restaurants or hotels, which were meticulously designed to resemble humans, patrol-bots were literal watchtowers on heavy wheels. They spot offenders with cameras on top of their heads, and then accurately fire a taser-gun to subdue them.

And a patrol-bot was dangerously approaching closer and closer to August.

"Here in Crescentia, the paradise of the moon, we value your safety. Please cooperate in the event of an arrest. Please do not block the patrol-bot. And most importantly, have a nice day!" It said with a cheerful voice as it moved through the sea of people.

"Shit!" August kicked an empty can of soda in frustration before running behind a corner.

'Why did that bastard lead me all the way into Crescentia Square and then leave me here?' he thought to himself as he spied on the patrol-bot from behind the wall.

He had a bad feeling from the start, but now it felt like Alexander was merely luring him into the heart of the city so that he'd get caught. Patrol-bots were only situated in the hearts of the city, not in the market area or slum areas. To August, it felt like Alexander was merely working with the police and luring kids like August out.

Seeing as he had no more reason to be sticking around, it was time to go back. Back to fighting for scraps in the alleyways.

Thud.

He bumped into a tall man as he turned around.

"Hey kid, I'm walkin' here. Watch where ya' goin'!" The man said.

When August fell, his raincoat hood came undone revealing his wild long hair. He looked at the man's black eye and bandaged nose and realized it was one of the men he knocked out earlier. And it was one the same man who chased after him in the market a few days ago too. He was a persistent man as August regularly stole the artificial fruits from his stall.

"Wait a second, it's you!" Anger wiped across the man's face as he realized the same thing. He grabbed August by his collar and pulled him towards his face. "You lil' shit! You're not gettin' away this time! You're gonna pay for what you keep doin' to my stalls!"

The man reared up his fist and was about to put it right through August's teeth but August nimbly slipped out of his shirt and dropped to the ground.

"Huh?" The man was bewildered as he stared at the August-less dirty gray shirt. But he soon found his own head on the sidewalk as August sweep kicked him.

August reached for his shirt still loosely gripped in the man's hand but he flinched….

"KYAAAAAAAA!"

….as a woman who had been watching them suddenly screamed.

"He's one of them!" The woman shouted to the people passing by. "It's a… a moon rat!!! He's… It's got the things on his back! The whiskers!" She pointed at the three small sharp extrusions on August's back, below his neck. With a horrified look as if she was staring at a serial killer.

All at once the people stopped to look and point at the shirtless August. He tried his best to hide the spinal extrusions with his hand but it was no use. Everyone had seen it. And worse yet, the numerous scars on his hardened body had made him look like a dangerous punk.

"A moon rat? No way, how did it get so far into the city?"

"I thought they were already exterminated?"

"Be careful, it's dangerous!"

"Somebody get a patrol-bot here!"

Their murmurs pierced his ears and their eyes penetrated his body. All around him were faces of fear and shock. It was like they were looking at a wild animal - a feral dog. August had always hated that kind of look in their eyes. The kind of dreadful eyes that screamed "Get away from me!" And he never understood why they would look at him with such great fright. What could have these spikes on his back possibly meant to them?

But now was not the time to simply ask an audience member this burning question. He needed to get away. This was the first time in quite a long while that he had attracted such an attention. And this attention never meant well for him. He searched for an opening in the crowd surrounding him but all around him were too many bodies of people.

And so he ran at the crowd and jumped.

The mob of people was so indecisive and so taken aback by the height of August's jump that he was able to land cleanly on a man's face. And from there, he hopped to the next.

He had escaped from the mob of people. He ran as fast as he could with all the energy he had left. Even pushing people aside as he sprinted.

Just a little further, and he could finally get some rest for the day. Just a little further.

As he turned a corner, he ran head-first into yet another dead end.

A patrol-bot.

August and the steel obelisk stood still in silence. He wasn't so sure if he should keep running as that would seem suspicious of criminal activity. Thankfully, it seemed the face mask that Alexander had given him earlier was giving the bot a hard time. Or maybe it was because August didn't exist on any database. If he committed crimes, what name would they be attached to?

August could only stand still nervously.

"Citizen, please dress yourself or you will be fined for indecent exposure. Have a nice day."

August breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed he had slipped past yet again for the fourth or fifth time today.

"Officer! Stop that kid!" A man shouted from behind.

August turned to see who it was.

But that was a mistake. The patrol-bot now had a full view of his "whiskers."

"Warning. Hostile entity detected. Please do not resist extermination," the mechanical monolith said in a monotonous malevolent voice as the lights on top of its head shined a bright red.

August's eyes widened as he realized the blunder. And something was different this time. Usually patrol-bots only said "do not resist arrest" and they wouldn't wail a siren or glow bright red. An arrest would usually produce yellow lights.

A feeling deep within August was stirring. He had never seen these lights or heard these sounds but it reeked with an awfully familiar feeling, like a distant memory. One that he had never actually had but somehow personally shared.

He knew in that instance that the robot was going to kill him.

From its body, a small hatch, one of several, opened and launched a taser with an almost bullet-like speed. And it was aimed straight at his head.

And yet August could see it coming. He wasn't sure why but at that moment he could see everything around him. The steps of the people passing by, the gentle rain-drops falling on his head, the cars rushing by. Even though he was exhausted, even though he was starving, everything at that moment was clear.

He dodged the speeding taser.

And the next one fired at him.

And the next one.

Every movement was precise and exact. His swiftness was almost superhuman.

But he couldn't keep dancing for any longer. He had to take it down. He couldn't just turn his back and run. If he let his eyes off the target for even a second, he would be dead.

Still dodging, still keeping his opponent in his sight, he grabbed the metal lid of a nearby trash can. He didn't dare risk using it as a shield though as it was possible the voltage would still travel through the metal. And it would be useless to use it on anywhere but the patrol-bot's head where it was most vulnerable. But he would have to get high and near. It seemed impossible as the robot, nearly thrice his height, was relentless but after every seventh launched taser there were a few seconds of pause, possibly reloading and recalibrating. Something was possible.

He continued to effortlessly dodge the endless barrage of deadly tasers. But this time he was dancing around to purposefully position the bot and himself near a sidewalk bench next to a wall. He had noticed that the wall's concrete surface was quite rough making it easy for his rubber slippers to cling to.

When the seventh taser was launched, he immediately ran up the wall using the bench as a ramp. Holding the wide metal lid with both hands, he smashed down on the patrol-bot's head.

And in that instant, the metal monolith was but a hunk of metal as it fell over with a big metallic thud.

August managed to land on his feet.

Before immediately collapsing to the ground.

He had won a brawl with five men. He walked across the city. He had escaped a crowd of hateful people. He had defeated a seemingly invincible killing machine.

But now what?

Now he was on the wet ground, in the middle of a busy city filled with people who hate what he was.

The hunger, the fatigue, and the mental weariness had finally caught up to him. Consciousness was slowly slipping through his grip like sand. He much preferred sleeping in the dark alley than on the sidewalk. But with how tired he was, he could sleep on a bed of nails.

His life was no longer in his hands. Maybe in the afterlife, there would finally be a warm bed, some milk, and a delicious piece of bread.

Maybe someday.