The moldy pie sat in his stomach like a tombstone.
It didn't make him sick. His body, desperate for any fuel, accepted the offering of rot and grime without protest. That, somehow, was the most terrifying part. He hadn't just eaten garbage; his body had thanked him for it.
Arthur leaned his head back against the damp, cold brick of the alley. The sharp, agonizing pain in his ribs from the guard's kick was a dull throb now, a constant reminder of his new place in the world. He was lower than a stray dog—at least a dog could bite back.
He closed his eyes, and the image that swam into his vision wasn't of a fantasy queen. It was of his old, beige-colored cubicle.
He could almost smell the burnt coffee from the breakroom and hear the mosquito-whine of his monitor. He thought of Brenda, his bossy, D-cup manager. He remembered the citrus scent of her perfume, the way her pencil skirt hugged her hips.
Back then, his life had felt like a prison. He'd been a "corporate punching bag," simmering in a stew of silent frustration and lewd fantasy. He'd been pathetic. Hopeless.
But he'd been warm.
He'd had a bed. He'd had a microwave for his cheap dinners. He'd had a locking door. He'd had a dumpster he walked past, not one he ate from.
"You idiot," he whispered, the words a dry rasp in his throat. "You absolute, fucking moron."
He had wished for this. He had stood in that park, arms outstretched like a lunatic, and begged the universe to throw him away. And the universe, with a cruel sense of humor, had listened.
"Screw honor, screw love," he'd said. "I just want to drown in milf pussy."
Tears welled in his eyes, hot and sudden, but they were too weak to even fall. They just made his vision blur. What a joke. What a childish, pathetic joke. He'd traded a life of boring, stable misery for one of active, agonizing, filthy torment.
His new "job" was scavenging. His new "bosses" were the other vagrants, who were stronger and knew the territory. His new "coworkers" were the rats.
His life, which had once been measured in spreadsheets and ticket queues, was now measured in a grim, repeating cycle.
He learned the routes. The back alley of the "Golden Boar" tavern was best, but only after midnight, when the cook dumped the slops. He had to be fast; three other vagrants, their faces gaunt and feral, claimed that spot. The first time he'd tried, the largest one—a man with a matted beard and one blind, milky eye—had slammed Arthur's head against the wall and kicked him in the stomach, stealing the fish bones Arthur had just found.
He never went back there during the "prime" hours.
He learned to move in the pre-dawn shadows, his bare feet as his shoes had been stolen while he slept. He made no sound on the cobblestones. He was a ghost. He was vermin.
The shopkeepers who had once just ignored him now actively hunted him. "Get the 'Empty' away from here!" a baker would roar, throwing a bucket of dirty water at him to "wash the curse off" the street. The street children, who had once thrown pebbles, now threw rocks. One had caught him above the eye, opening a cut that had bled for hours.
His body, already weak, began to truly fail. He was a skeleton now, draped in filth-caked rags. The cold was a constant, deep ache in his bones. The hunger was a living thing, a creature inside him that had devoured everything else.
It had even devoured his obsession.
One night, hiding in the shadows of an alcove, he watched a tavern wench come out to empty a bucket. In his old life, he would have dissected her in his mind. 'Nice hips. Thick thighs. Tired eyes. Probably single. A solid 7/10.'
Now, he didn't even see her.
He saw the bucket.
His eyes were locked on it, his entire being focused with a predator's intensity. He was praying she would drop it, that the contents would spill. His mind wasn't filled with fantasies of her body; it was filled with pile of a chicken bone, a half-eaten potato, a crust of bread.
She emptied the slops with a clatter and went back inside, her hips swaying.
Arthur didn't notice. He was already moving, a shadow detaching from the wall, scrambling toward the fresh pile of refuse. He was a rat, and she was just the person who brought the food.
The lust, the one thing that had kept him going on Earth, was dead. It had been starved out of him. The part of his brain that had been dedicated to fantasy had been shut down, its power re-routed to the only thing that mattered: calories.
He found a clump of congealed, greasy rice and stuffed it in his mouth, not even tasting it.
He looked up. Far, far above the slums, the towers of the palace glittered against the two moons. It was a place of magic, light, and power. It was the place that had summoned him and thrown him away. Looking at it made him felt insulted.
It wasn't a goal. It wasn't a place he dreamed of conquering. It was just a cold, beautiful reminder of the stupid wish that had put him in this gutter. The universe listened to his wish but it only listened to half of it and made his life hell.
"I... I just want to go home," he whimpered, the admission torn from him.
He curled up in the alcove, pulling his rags tight. He was cold, he was starving, and he was completely, utterly broken. This was his new world. This was the hell he had begged for. And he knew, with a chilling certainty, that he was going to die in it. While he could do nothing but curse himself about the wish he had made.
*****
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