He was caught in reverie. It had been a night much like this, when he’d met her. She, a distant shining beauty. He, a street urchin with not much more than the rags on his back. He’d been living on the streets for as long as he could remember, scrounging what he could from the refuse of the city while everyone turned the other way, if he was lucky. So when he approached her, it had not been to ask for help, or to beg for food.

It had been to take what he believed to be his.

In a flash, it was over. He had been so desperate, so in need, that he had not seen the little girl standing just shy of three yards away. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen. A pretty thing, too.

Unfortunately, she looked just like the woman lying dead beneath his feet.

He said….