1 Too poor

"Are we finished here?" Jake said.

"Well, did you do what I asked of you?" His boss said.

"Yes." Jake said.

"Then we are finished. Here you go." The large man, he called his boss, gave him three copper."

"You said I'd get 5 copper." Jake said.

"No I didn't." His boss said.

"Yes you did." Jake said.

"Are you calling me a lier?" His boss said.

Jake bit his tongue, he felt a taste of iron tickle out, blood. He loosened his jaw, but when he felt the warm feeling in his chest stir up again, he bit down. His tongue shrieked for him to stop, and when he had walked away he did.

He walked through the corridor. He passed women, men and children, none of which he looked in the eye. He exited the door, leading him to a bigger corridor, or rather an alleyway.

It was night, and shadows filled the alleyway. There were groups of teens to his left and right, he walked past them without them glancing at him. He was a regular, and regulars were poor.

Once he had exited the alleyway, he came into a street. The floor was completely shattered and made out of stone which had coloured into different shades of brown. On the other side of the street there was a shop.

The windows had been broken, multiple small trails of shattered glass ran across the entire window. The majority were old and had tape plastered above it, on others the stone still hung there and the shattered glass still remained.

Jake walked into the store. He put the three coppers on the counter, and Bob, the shop owner, brought him a hand sized cut of bread. The bread there was old, some trails of molds were on them. But eatable nonetheless.

He took the bread, his stomach screamed at him to eat it, but he wouldn't. He jogged, a worry in his heart, he jogged and entered another hallway. Gangs littered it, and once again nobody cared to bother him.

There was a small hole in the bottom of one of the halls, a rubber tire was bigger than that. He crawled under it, and continued crawling through the pitch black tunnel. Until he saw light, the tunnel began expanding into a room.

There was a hole with bars on it in the wall, light and shoes could be seen. In front of him there was a bed or rather an iron slate. On it laid a little girl, with feet that were bent the wrong way and a broken jaw.

"Hey sister." He said, sadness penetrated through his brave act.

"Hello big brother," She said, a small smile lit up across her face.

"Here I brought you bread, It's not much but…" He was lost for words. She took the bread out of his hands, and took a bite out of it, her face cringed. She fought to control it and a fake "Mmm" rang out. She continued eating, cringing, "mmning".

Jake walked to the other bed in the room. He sat down, pulled his knees to his face and began whimpering as quietly as he could. He didn't want to look bad in front of his sister.

His stomach made a loud noise. It was almost as if his stomach ate itself, and it hurt. He put his head against the bed, and forced his eyes shut, and forced himself into sleep.

His eyes glazed open and he saw his sister in front of him. He got out of bed, and crawled out of the abandoned prison cell. He began jogging towards his work, if he worked extra hard he could maybe earn more money.

He quickly tapped the iron door five times, with enough force to make noise but not enough for it to shake. He heard a click, then another click and the door opened outwards. A large dirty hand leaped out, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him in.

"You're lucky." Jake almost flinched when his boss said so.

"Yzer has a match today, but his opponent ran away. Luckily, it seems like you can fill it in."

"Wait, I don't want that." Jake said, and swallowed the lump in his throat. He looked his boss in the eyes, and received a slap.

"You think you have a choice. You know what. I'll give you twenty coppers for this." A small smile broke out on the face of the boss, and was quickly covered.

Jake was pushed and had to continue walking, "The match is in 5 minutes, warm up and make it interesting."

Jake's eyes ran to his boss and then to the training equipment and then to the floor. His ears deafened and the only thing he could hear was his heart. It beat enough to make his chest shake.

He felt sweat on his forehead and his hands dry. Then he felt his breath, and he looked around. His senses returned to himself. And he began his warm up routine. After five minutes, or what felt like 10 seconds. He was once again dragged.

There were multiple cameras staring at the cage. Inside of the cage stood Yzer, a bald boy the same size of Jake except his body was bigger and more muscles showed. Jake was thrown into the cage.

His heart beat too quick for him to follow, sweat had covered his entire body. His ability to breathe disappeared, and he almost fell down on his back. A ring, the clock had struck and all of that disappeared.

His focus had drowned him out, and he took his guard. His two hands in front of him, his two feet ready to move. Yzer stared into his eyes, and Jake stared at his chest.

Yzer screamed, and rushed towards Jake. Jake stood still, the threat came closer and closer, and Jake kicked at it. It struck him in the chest and was stuck there, Yzer smiled. He grabbed and pulled his leg. Threw Jake on the ground.

Yzer got on top of Jake and hit him, hand against nose, repeatedly. Iron flooded his mouth, his eyes stopped working. Yzer continued hitting him, over and over. Jake passed out.