A guard had been watching, staring at the boy from in between cracks in the crowd of milling people. He wasn’t dressed in his normal gleaming armor, and instead was cloaked in cheap-spun cotton, looking like any other common man. Guards didn’t have high pay, well not counting how much they lined their pockets with. Why was this man here? Was he off duty, was he undercover and searching for criminals? It doesn’t matter, he had found the boy and he would make sure that justice would too.

The guard started walking towards the boy, struggling to keep him in sight as the boy kept disappearing into the sea of people. His movements confident-but still rushed, the guard watched as the boy slipped into the dark alleyway. He hurried his movements then, all-but rushing to catch the boy before he escaped with his ill-gotten goods.

Soon the guard was in the alleyway too, only a couple feet from the criminal. The boy had his back turned towards the guard, and was practically deaf to the world. The boy was too absorbed into his staring at the food that would be his savor. He was just bringing one apple up to his mouth guard suddenly grabbed his shoulder and forcefully spun the boy around. The apple fell from the boys grasp and smashed onto the filth-ridden ground.