Within cities are the wretches. Those without work, those without purpose, and those without talent. They rifle through the garbage for their food, devouring mold and rot hungrily. They hide in the deepest recesses, the areas with crumbled buildings and infested with rats.

  Their clothes are rags and grime covers their skin. Little remains of their hair, a few strands at best. Their bodies are gaunt with pale yellow skin hanging loose from their bones. Their lips have long since been bitten off due to hunger, leaving their rotting teeth exposed in a horrifying smile.

  Their nails are frighteningly long, almost like claws in appearance. Their eyes are a milky white like a corpse. Some are without fingers, toes, legs, or arms, having gnawed them off.

  They were once ordinary people; soldiers, artisans, merchants, shopkeeps, bartenders, farmers, even fallen nobility are among them. Any who fell behind the others. Any who were just barely too slow. Any without connections. Any who were just unlucky.

  They each have their stories. Some were betrayed. Some gambled their lives away. Some were born into this, left in the trash and muck by their guardians. Regardless, they're all the same now.

  Worthless things none care for. They're the mud on society's boot, a reminder of what really happens behind all those festivals and celebrations.

  They have none to rely on, not even each other. Their hunger drives their every action, the urge to feed overriding all reason. The mere sight of food drives them into a frenzy, clawing past anything in their way of survival. They would descend upon each other like animals for a crumb of bread.

  It's a method some use to entertain themselves, throwing an apple into a crowd of wretches and watching them tear each other apart. They stake bets and laugh at the bloodbath before them, large gatherings circling around in eager anticipation.

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  They jeer and throw stones and more scraps of food. It's a game to them, a spectacle. Like a fight between dogs.

  The losers are spat on and tossed in piles to rot while the winner shares a similar fate, slashed across the belly and left to bleed.

  Then, when all goes quiet, more wretches surface from sewers and ruined homes. They devour the bodies, their only chance at survival heightening their madness.

  It warps their body and mind, turning them to beasts who can only eat human flesh. They'll attack any they come across and feast until they are either slain or burst.

  Then more wretches will come for that too. Repeating an endless cycle of death and consumption.

  Wretches will often vanish. They'll either be found dead, beaten and bloody, or will never appear again. They cower in fear of the dark, for that is what takes them. Those gloved hands that reach from the shadows. Those needles that burrow into their skin. Those figures that drag them down flights of stairs and chain them to stone walls.

  In the night hundreds dissapear, their panicked breaths suddenly silenced. They're snatched from the streets in a heartbeat, dragged away to never be seen again. All that remains are drops of blood and a memory, a memory that is quickly forgotten.

  Some have this happen before their eyes. But they don't care, who would care for a wretch? For a parasite? For a disgusting thing that'd be better off dead? They care not for the life of a wretch.

  But even as dozens of their fates are severed each second more emerge. They crawl from the sewers, the grime, the trash, from under bridges and from ramshackle dwellings.

  Thousands more join them each day, ordinary people thrown the slums without a care. They're given nothing, not even the clothes on their backs. Many die within the first week. Whether that be from the wounds inflicted on them before arriving or from the wretches themselves.

  They learn quickly how to survive past that first week. There's no water, so they attempt to drink blood to compensate. That doesn't stop their thirst, it worsens it. They drink more and more, body changing to adapt. Their limbs grow longer as their mind deteriorates, madness shaping their forms. From then on they will never be satiated.

  They'll eat and drink and bite and slurp and devour and suck without any change. Nothing will add meat onto their bones or rebuild muscle. But they won't die from the lack of water or food. They can't.

  So they'll hunger and thirst. They'll cry and scream. They'll fight and die. They'll scrounge and pick. They'll run and hide. But none will help them. None will lend a hand.

  So they'll die alone. Not in a grave, not surrounded by loved ones, they'll die without a funeral and without something to remember them by. They'll collapse in alleys and streets where they'll be gone minutes later.

  For a wretch isn't a person, not anymore.