There's a dull looking lady dressed in mediocre clothes sorting through papers at a desk made of artificial wood. Her weary eyes seemingly inattentive; one would assume she was asleep at a passing glance.
Next to her, a young man dressed in similar clothing, but rather than his listless counterpart, he seems to be full of energy, and with good reason too.
"I was supposed to leave early today. Yet here I am again, waiting. For those two incompetent buffoons to turn up."
Checking the closest clock, he grows more and more impatient as the seconds hand ticks. For some reason though, the clock was broken. The minute hand had gone backward a few minutes, and the second hand was moving in place, fighting its quiet struggle to push forward, it would knock short of halfway to the next second and swiftly return to its previous position.
"Great. The clocks acting up again. It's happening every day now."
The shadows of the room seemed twist and turn to point and laugh, mocking his continuous misfortunes.
"You really should go a bit easier on them, they're young, and without role models to boot. And we can't afford a new clock, just adjust it."
The tired lady finally showing sign of life, turns to Lewis, offering a smile that betrays her wistful aura. She seemed to be an entirely different person in that moment, like she was an endearing mother all along.
"Yeah, well we can be role models too! If they don't turn up soon, I'm gonna—"
Before he could even finish that thought, two living piles of rags come flying through the door.
One of them, its hair like a fine lump of coal, leaving a mess on the hardly complimenting rendered walls, streaks of ink, or dirt, or really whatever the hell was in the trash outside, in its wake.
Behind the inky bastard, a slightly shorter one with frizzy white hair sticking out like the feather of a lighthouse beacon, the hair acting like a makeshift cover for the alabaster, lilac tinted skin beneath.
"You're gonna do what?"
Leon looks up with a stupidly wide smile, revealing gums and missing teeth. Clearly daring Lewis to continue.
"I told you guys to leave those rags outside... It costs money to clean those walls. And why did you bring your bags with you?"
Letting out a sharp sigh, he lets his furrowed brows relax. Despite the lack of formalities they offered, Lewis still felt like he was partly responsible for these two little miscreants. After all they had no family, no one to guide them. He liked to tell himself that he was like a father to them.
Sable steps forward, raising her hand like a student in class. The pale skin on her hands almost reflecting the light coming from the cheap bulb lifelessly hanging from the ceiling.
"So would you rather we come in naked?"
"I'm not getting naked, that's all you."
Leon adds, having pivoted his whole torso to turn around, leaving his feet still planted and facing Lewis, like a damn cartoon character.
"No one is getting naked."
The now well awake lady at the desk stands up, leaning forward on the desk with her arms stretched out to support her.
Rolling her eyes with a smug look on her face, Sable throws her arms up and backs out of the room returning to the hallway and eventually disappearing around a corner.
"Did you two at least meet your quotas?"
Lewis asks, pointlessly massaging the wrinkles of stress out of his face.
"Sure did. Also, I came in to say that it's my brother's birthday today. You know how it goes. I'll be pretty much radio silent all of tomorrow."
Leons attention shifted to the lady, surprisingly she had not sat down yet, and to add to the weirdness, her gaze was still on him.
A shiver ran down him.
'What a weird girl'
Leon had always felt a strange aura from her. Like her usual listlessness was just a front to hide a more sinister side to her. He was probably just imagining it.
'Overactive imagination I think they called it.'
"Well, that's all. I'm clocking off now. See you later Lewis!"
In a hurry to get away from the drowsy character, he gathers his rags and chases after Sable.
---
"So why do you think they get us to collect trash from the streets? We've been doing this for a while now."
Leon had a pretty good idea, but didn't want to make himself look like a fool.
"We've had this conversation before, I literally don't know any more than you do. But if I had to guess... They're just using us as cheap work to clean up the streets. Not that I care, we get two copper every time we meet our quota."
Sable always kept her eyes where money went. He was sure she'd sell him off to a trader if given the chance, and somehow, that kind of proposition sounded marginally better than his current situation in his head.
One of the cities Junkrats. A tiny piece of a giant machine, a part of a group of homeless trash collectors, consisting of mostly kids and really young adults that were barely surviving on the governments help program.
It was the job of Junkrats to run around through the city, cleaning up the rubbish left around by the better living citizens. To them, people like Leon were no less than a flaw in their never changing still-shot painting. But in reality, the Junkrats were partially responsible for that painting being able to depict beautifully clean streets, often carrying a reflective polish by the rain to compliment the collection of iron woven in and around structures of stone and stained glass.
'They are getting all these people to clean the streets... And they are paying us?'
Leon wasn't really buying it. For all he knew, they were building a giant Frankenstein made of all the trash they were collecting. Or worse, they were looking for some 'super powerful secret item' that was hidden as an everyday piece of litter.
'Yeah right.'
"Hey, I gotta split off here. Brothers' birthday and all."
Leon was jogging in one spot, clearly expressing that he wanted to run off. But despite his banters with Sable, he would feel bad to just leave without saying his goodbyes.
"Try not to get yourself into too much trouble on your way back."
He snorted knowing she had just as much home to go back to as he did, which was quite literally none at all.
"Good one man, you're a whole comedian now."
Clearly, she wasn't having it.
"Don't worry, if anything happens, I'll swoop in, and princess carry your useless bum out of there."
He wouldn't.
In fact he probably couldn't even carry her. He was far too malnourished and lacking in the muscles department to even get her off the ground if he was to use all of his body weight with leverage to pick her up.
The children of the streets did not have the privilege of building fat let alone muscles. Every day the cost of living was rising, the state of the economy was a mess.
Suddenly he remembered the thought of being sold to a trader. Realistically he wouldn't have to collect trash for enough coins to get a single raw potato. In fact, he wouldn't have to spend his own hard-earned money to feed himself, after all a dead slave was a useless one, so feeding him would basically be non-negotiable, not that he would have much room for negotiation.
Exchanging one last goodbye wave with Sable, he takes himself down a fork in the path and makes way to a much gloomier part of town.
He was heading in the direction of the Memorial Center. To celebrate his brother's birthday.