A Human Disease [Lucas]

[Evie Williams]

Evie wandered out of her apartment building and stretched her arms skyward. It was gray and overcast, and none too welcoming, but she hadn't seen the sky in a day or so. It was threatening to snow, which explained why it was so bloody cold. Evie had spent the day before hidden away under her blankets, in her warm, warm apartment, curled up next to Boris. She hadn't had the ambition to do otherwise, but upon rising she had found that her supplies were running low. That meant she was to head to the grocery store.

With a sigh, she buried her face into her scarf and shuffled along. It was far too bloody cold to be doing anything of the sort, but it was either that or starve — oh the irony! Nine AM, and she was up and about, trying not to freeze to death. She had become accustomed to the city's weather, making even fifty too cold to be out in without a light jacket. She cursed the snow and the cold and the headaches that accompanied them, and by the time she had reached the grocery store, Evie had vowed never to do this again until she learned to hot wire a car.

The automatic doors made a terrible noise as they slid open. Evie looked up long enough only to cast a quick glance to the censor, then slipped through the open doors. The man behind the cash register looked up and smiled what she imagined to be the customary smile. It didn't reach his eyes. Not long after, he went back to scowling at the cash register like it was a foul beast risen from the deepest bowels of Hell. Evie thought about smiling back, offering a little bit of kindness to the otherwise seemingly miserable stranger.

But then she got distracted when her stomach grumbled, reminding her why she had come to this God forsaken place to start with.

The carts made an equally offensive noise when she dragged one out of the line. One of the wheels wobbled, and squealed horribly when the cart was moved. She already had it figured that this particular adventure in grocery shopping was going to be entirely asinine. Grumbling, Evie went about the small food mart gathering up items for the following week. An hour later and a few twenties poorer, she was headed back to her apartment, hauling several bags of groceries. She had a rather grim composure to go with the rather grim outlook on life she had recently taken.

[Lucas]

Rolling over onto his left side, the scrawny, dirty-haired boy slowly opened his eyes to the world he had grown accustom to. He had no real idea of what time it was, but he gathered that it wasn't too far off from nine-ish as he looked at the gray sky. After gathering his thoughts and pulling them away from irrelevant things such as the time of day, Lucas realized that he had been shivering quite badly.

A haggard looking cat ran by making a hideous yet familiar sound, it had been spooked by a woman carrying a good deal of groceries. Lucas looked down at his stomach which made a noise similar to the cat's and pulled his over sized jacket closer to his exposed neck. Deciding that he could not move in his jacket, the boy had to make a tough decision; either he would curl up in his jacket, and wait two more days for the garbage truck, or he would leave his jacket there and make an attempt to steal some of the woman's food.

Lucas couldn't waste anymore time deciding, but he knew what he had to do. Without food he might not even last another two days, and the weather was turning more and more against him each night. Crawling out from an old cardboard box, Lucas rose slowly, his bare feet hurting him as they touched the cold ground. Tossing his coat behind him, into the box, Lucas ran a ways to catch up the the woman.

As he exited the alleyway, Lucas panicked when he didn't spot her straight away. Squinting, he finally spotted her as one of her bags fell, tumbling to the ground. Creeping up behind her, Lucas tried his best to be sneaky as he reached a bag she was not paying attention to. Leaning forward on his tip-toes, Lucas could see a loaf of bread peeking out at him. Reaching out with his small, scrawny hand, Lucas snatched the bread's packaging. He had made a great deal of noise in doing so. Panicking once more, he froze up for a moment.