He felt the cold stone wall behind his back as he woke up. His body hurt everywhere. The alley had become somewhat more unpleasant since the night before. Maybe it was because the darkness had hidden all the ugliness. Maybe it was because of his fatigue. He couldn’t tell.

Taking a moment to look at himself, he noticed his appearance was becoming slovenlier as the time passed. His only linen shirt had gone from white to light brown, with clues of dirt and blood here and there, and the shabby dark trousers had surely seen better days. He still missed his lost shoes, as his feet were covered in blisters and dried blood. It had been a tremendously long time since he had last been clean. The dust was everywhere. His ginger hair could be the only thing unchanged, as he tried really hard to take care of it. He considered it a unique thing because not many people were born with such a lively hair colour. Adding his kiwi-coloured eyes, he sure wasn’t an ordinary-looking man.

But life on the streets was growing harder.

At first, people still showed him some mercy and kindness, as he looked minimally hygienic and he was… a child. Sometimes they would even give him some food, specially the man from the little bakery around the corner. However, as he grew up and looked more like a vagrant, he was forced to learn how to steal. As much as it didn’t please him, it was what it took to survive.

As horrible as the alley was, it brought him tons of memories. It had served as his headquarters for most of his life, after all. It was formed by two rows of stone houses, adorned by weak pieces of wood, leaving a narrow space between them. At night, the many windows that had grown along the high walls emanated sparkling orange lights which, with some distance, almost looked like stars.

Every night, as he was trying to fall asleep, he would try to imagine what it would be like to be inside those houses, sitting next to the fire, breathing that warming light. Then the raindrops would fall heavily on his face, as cold as winter can be, waking him up to his own sad reality.

On that morning, he felt particularly lazy. As he opened his eyes, the sun attacked him like a wolf, the light striking his face as an escape from his nightmares. The stone driveway was slippery due to last night’s rain and made it harder for him to stand up in his drowsy state.

Reality was still blurry as he walked down the backstreet and waved at Farley, the white owl that passed her days standing on the signboard of a nasty barbershop at the end of the lane. The poor animal was just like him: homeless. She didn’t even leave to hunt. She just kept standing there, every day. The old man Desmond, the barber, would feed her so she wouldn’t die, but the life she was living wasn’t that lively, was it?

And with that gesture, another long day started. The air exploded in noise as soon as he left the alley: women selling fish, men haggling, children running and yelling at each other, playing their own games to distract themselves from their hunger. Even the bloody crows seemed to be all over the place, screaming and waving their wings violently to the humble street vendors.

There weren’t guardsmen in that part of town that early in the morning. It was the perfect time. He dragged himself down the larger street, ignoring the repulsed glances people were throwing at him.

No, that place wasn’t good enough. He wanted to reach the heart of the market, where the crowds pushed each other for a piece of floor. Turning right, he found himself in a slightly less congested street, going up the hill. This was the most cosmopolitan boulevard he knew.

On the right, three Asiatic shops lined up, decorated with various objects that were strange to him. Flags showing symbols he couldn’t read, sky lanterns of many different colours and patterns glowing all day and a great variety of food, disposed behind six distinct showcases. The people inside had their own features, too: long dark eyes, tip tilted noses, pouty lips forming dimples and broad round faces.

On the left, the style was more exotic and exuberant. They almost didn’t need stalls, as they disposed everything on the floor, on long patterned carpets. Refined and expensive pottery, mainly. However, they also sold colourful jewels and variously shaped lampshades. The people were much more tanned, wearing vivid cloths all over their bodies and on their heads. Like the people on the right, these also spoke a language he couldn’t understand.

When he reached the top of the hill, he had already seen more than twenty different cultures, heard more than twenty different languages and smelled more than twenty different aromas. It hadn’t passed a day he hadn’t visited that street.

He was getting there.

The streets became narrower and noisier as he advanced. Large gaudy sheets supported by a mesh of branches protected the paths from the sun and projected their colours down on the roads. It was here that he began spotting some guardsmen here and there, threatening people with their hoarse voices and spears.

Deviating slightly to the left, he approached a stall where a fat man seemed busy bargaining with a rough-looking customer. As shifty and light as a fox, he stretched out to a dark-brown linen cloak hanging on the stand and put it on, covering his identity with the brown hood and letting the slight wind waggle the cape. The chubby seller didn’t even notice.

WANTED. Marvin Notley, dead or alive. These words started battling in his head. He had seen the posters. His picture was everywhere. Ever since the King had discovered a miserable homeless and mediocre thief was smarter than his precious armed guardsmen, he hadn’t left him alone. Dozens of robust men dressed with shiny armours patrolled the kingdom more heavily than ever before, and they were all looking for him.

But he couldn’t give up. He had people depending on him. Taking out a linen bag he always kept in his pocket, he hurried to the heart of the market, dancing between the crowds as he spotted the many opportunities in the different stalls.

Here, the sellers earned so much money they had built their own houses: little ugly capsules of dirt with round holes which they preferred to call “windows”. Of course these houses belonged only to the long ago arrived sellers and their descendants, as there was no longer any space for more buildings.

A ripe apple, some frog legs, roasted peanuts, two rotting kiwis and a little sac of corn. All in the bag. It took him the entire morning. Stealing inside a multitude without anyone noticing wasn’t an easy task. But he had enough. As he was about to turn around, he spotted a particularly eye catching stall, covered in shining grey fish of all sizes. Although he already had enough food, it was a temptation he simply couldn’t resist. Before he even started moving, he had already started to imagine the reactions when he turned up with some of those fish.

He adjusted the hood as his face was starting to show. There were two guardsmen chatting in the middle of the road, and another one on the opposite side of the fish arcade, leaning against a wooden pole as he snoozed. It was a risky chance, but he was ready to take it.

He advanced, contouring the chatting royal guards and facing the fish. On the other side of the stall, an extremely skinny woman stood, wearing an oversized apron and her dark hair curled up in a pigtail. Though her face made her seem extremely exhausted, being her shiners something almost scary, she had enough energy to keep loudly advertising her product. Her high-pitched voice was rather annoying, actually.

Careless and spellbound, he approached quickly, never taking his eyes off the fish. Too quickly, though. He froze as he felt the woman’s eyes on him, studying his suspicious appearance. He was so close, yet so far. His heart began racing. He didn’t know what to do. He had never been so thoughtless to the point where he found himself in a situation like that. He just kept standing there, hoping the merchant would forget about him. However, when he realized having a caped stranger staring at her stall wasn’t properly a comforting situation, it was too late.

The alarmed saleswoman waved at the two golden-armoured guards who woke the third one up with a kick. Normally, the armed men would just ignore the needs of the mere population but, in those days, they were hungrier of some street fighting than anything else.

His body started working as if an energy bolt had struck him. His feet seemed to have started moving on their own, kicking the floor harder and harder as his speed increased. His body waved left and right as he quickly pierced the crowd.

Surprised screams and angry claims followed him as he ran down the street, trying not to slide. He could hear the armours tinkling louder and louder as the guardsmen began slowly approaching him, throwing ugly curses of betrayal and death.

He suddenly turned right to a little backstreet and, as he did this, he felt a cold breeze, quick as lightning, which threw his hood back, letting his identity show. His breath hastened and a fire grew in his lungs. The subtlest of grins was formed in his muddy face. Oh, he enjoyed that…

The footsteps of his three pursuers echoed behind him and the fear of not being able to tell how close they were took over him. He glimpsed back but all he got was a blurry vision of a shiny armour behind him. He couldn’t tell where the other two were.

As he reached the end of the alley, he faced an orange brick wall, as tall as the surrounding buildings. The horror of being caught overwhelmed him as he started falling in the deep dark hole of his fear. He almost froze, but he stopped himself this time. It wouldn’t get him anywhere. At least, anywhere good.

He turned around, facing the enemy. The first man drew his flashy sword in his direction in an attempt to cut his head off, but the metal made him slow and Marvin was able to get down, rolling on the floor. He stood up before the guardsman could even turn around and hit him on the back of his head, making the vigorous man bounce. With a kick on the back, the enemy fell down, the metal crashing on the floor and creating an enormous bang.

Not losing a second, he grabbed the fallen sword and swung it with both his hands in the second man’s direction but, though it left him a bit dizzy, it wasn’t enough to cut through his golden plackart. Meanwhile, the first guardsman was starting to heavily stand up.

He didn’t even have time to plan his next move when he suddenly saw Michaela, a nine-year-old homeless girl, jump on the man’s back and cover his head with an old dirty bag, tightening it well. When she jumped off, the military started bouncing blindly, trying to take the bag off, but it was just too tight, so he simply resigned himself to his bloody curses.

He turned around to check on the second guardsman, just to see that also he had been blinded. Not by Michaela but by Tim, a younger boy, also homeless. These two were part of a group of homeless children who lived and survived together in a dirty passage not far from Marvin’s, with the phrase “Never lose the opportunity of going on an adventure” as their motto. Since young that the thief had realized that if he was going to live on the streets, he could at least help these children so they wouldn’t be as alone as he had been as a kid.

Each one of them had a different story, but all their stories were disheartening. He was willing to change that. The kids had accepted him from the beginning, too. He didn’t know exactly why. For all they knew, he was a miserable-looking hobo who they had never seen before.

Michaela approached him and grabbed the tip of his linen shirt, looking at him with her typical hungry big brown eyes. He took out the apple and she accepted it like it was a precious jewel. He had never heard her talk, but he didn’t know if she had been dumb her whole life. The group had decided they would call her Michaela, and she didn’t seem to dislike it. Above everything else, the girl undeniably beautiful: she wore a simple linen dress, dirty and tattered, that reached her knees; her straight hair stretched out to her shoulders, brown like an oak’s trunk; her big eyes complemented her sharp nose and thin lips. The only thing contrasting were her feet, made ugly by the circumstances.

On one side, they were pretty similar. Tim could pass off as her brother as his face was an almost perfect copy of Michaela’s. On the other side, they couldn’t be more different. He was the most talkative person in the group and by far the most extrovert. He would sometimes be maddening.

“Did you see that? Did you?!” The boy came running in his direction, in his normal livewire state. Marvin passed him the bag of corn with a smile. Tim’s eyes shined.

“Yup. I saw it. Great job, you guys.” They both grinned at him. The two guardsmen had long ago given up moving and were sitting on the dusty ground.

Abruptly, he realized something that made him freeze in thought. There had been three guardsmen chasing him. The kids had caught two of them. He looked around. Nobody. Even the civilians. Everyone was gone. His heart began beating faster again. Something was terribly wrong.

His first thought was the rest of the group. He held Michaela’s hand and Tim climbed to his back as he gave them a this-isn’t-over glance. His running wasn’t as fast as possible with two children depending on him but, given the circumstances, he was advancing pretty quickly.

As he ran down the streets, the only thing he could think of was the strange lack of people. The kingdom almost looked like it had been abandoned. Some of the doors and windows had been left open and the stalls were unsupervised. It was an outstanding opportunity but he didn’t have time for that now. By this time, the fear had taken over him again. He couldn’t explain it. It was just this strong feeling that was keeping him running.

He was almost there. He got to the end of a large street and turned left to a long passage that writhed as they ran forward. He slowed down, exhausted and sweating, as he reached the end of the backstreet. The corners formed by the houses’ walls and a third wall that delimited the alley were hidden in the shadows, making the ambience unnerving.

They were sitting on the floor next to each other: Blaine, the oldest, with his filthy blonde hair; Prima, the responsible brunette that took care of Tim; Ula, the restless dark-haired cootie and Morris, the smart but lazy guy.

He sighed as he held true they were all fine. However, they looked scared. Their skinny faces were, for once, looking at him like they were desperately asking for help. Ula curled up behind Blaine, who bravely but doubtfully covered her. Marvin felt Michaela holding his hand tighter and Tim, thought wanting to look courageous, began slightly trembling.

Alaina. Where is Alaina? They had found the young girl sleeping next to a dead dog a couple of days before and when she woke up in their alley, she started crying inconsolably for her lost doggy. Since then, the only thing they had been able to hear from her was her name. Even though she had stopped crying, she spent her days sobbing in the corner and didn’t want to eat. Everyone was worried she would try to escape, so they kept watch in turns until she would start feeling better.

He could still hear her sobbing, but this time it was louder. When she came out of the corner with a knife pointed at her neck and two still-plated arms holding her waist, he almost went out of breath. The third guardsman was so fat, gross and big that the poor little girl’s feet couldn’t even reach the floor, being left bouncing in the air as she tried to calm herself down.

Her strong eyes turned to him as if they were cutting him in pieces. He had to do something. Tim and Michaela ran to the rest of the group as they saw what was coming. He had no weapons and there was nothing he could do with a bunch of terrified kids in a corner and a knife pointed at a girl’s neck.

“I know you…” The guardsman stated, almost in a whisper. Even from that distance, Marvin could feel the strong smell of alcohol in the man’s breath. “You’re a bloody thief, aren’t ya? Your pictures are all over the kingdom… The King’s pissed. You were a fool. Should have run, but no… Mister I-can-escape-everything wanted to stay and taste a bit of the Royal Guard’s swords, huh? Well, look at what happened…” He squeezed the girl against his golden plackart and she did her best not to start crying.

Marvin couldn’t take it anymore. He fell on his knees and put his hands in the hair. “Fine.” He sighed. “I surrender. Do whatever you want to me, but let her go.”

“Look at this.” The ogre looked satisfied. “The sneaky bastard is giving up.” His knife made more pressure against Alaina’s pale skin.

“This doesn’t concern her, so pleas-“

“Oh, shut up!” The savage drunk threw him a couple of rusty handcuffs which he immediately put on, blind in his own hope. He looked up to the man with a desperate expression, as if he was begging.

“Tsk…” The fatty let out, deviating his eyes. The girl’s feet finally landed and, on impulse, ran to the rest of the group as she shook desolately. The guardsman walked in his direction and grabbed his arm violently. “Stand up, you miserable pilferer…”

The arm covered in hauberk balanced back in the air and forward, hitting his lips and giving him an astonishing pain. A thin thread of blood drained down his chin, making the younger children squeal in fear. With a ferocious shove, the guardsman put him walking ahead of him, chained and wretched-looking.

He unhappily felt the looks of the scared children behind him. He hadn’t even had the opportunity to give them the food. Plus, he had yet to discover why the civilians were all gone... The worst scenarios all came through his head at once. He feared for those kids. He feared more for them than he had ever expected to fear for anyone.

I have failed them.