A boy was looking through the trash cans, trying to go through as many of them as fast as possible.
He didn't make much sound, excluding humming to himself a mantra now years old.
The sun was on it's way down. Late afternoon.
Not much time left.
Run for cover
Little Rat
No peace for you,
Remember that.
Surrounding were the abandoned remains of what used to be a wealthy suburb.
Now wrecked and dusty, the houses lay empty. Owners long-gone. Probably dead. Who knows?
Picket fences that used to shelter green yards are now broken and beat, gray and decaying. Grass no longer green but a shell of now almost foreign to its own earth.
Time passes quickly.
Shadows are starting to cover more and more of the scenery. The boy goes silent.
Time to scatter.
An old building, one slightly less crumbled and broken. There he found temporary shelter. Under a near collapsed girder supported by one of the few walls still standing.
Throw dirty cloth and old blankets around the corners of some broken planks of wood to keep hidden from what might inevitably come searching, and Voila. Five stars lodging!
Chewing on some barely-edibles he found in the trash, he was humming once more. Almost inaudibly. Four lines before trying to find something reminiscent of sleep.
Quiet now
Don't make a sound
For noisy rats
Don't stick around.