Upper Meets Lower

Chapter 1

Written circa early 2016: published again for Lexy and Layla

Walter Hayward hated life. He felt that there just wasn't a point to it. He could go into the workhouses so he could get food and a bed, but the jobs looked to be tedious and painful. They were meant to punish you for being poor, afterall. Walter had no parents, they were long gone into the looming structure of the workhouse. Not him. Oh, Walter would grasp the last string of Arachne's thread before he went into the poorhouse. Walter made a 'living', albeit very little money was ever earned. When an upperclassmen would roam his streets after dark alone, you could bet that they'd have little to nothing left on themselves when they got home. Sure, it wasn't necessarily equitable, but it was life. Those upper class snobs had it coming to them anyway, ignoring crying, starving children just because they weren't in the same class level as each other. Now, Walter was no better with his cursing out the children, but at least he noticed them.

Louis Cagny felt that anyone lower than him in the social structure wasn't important, and didn't care for them at all. To him, 'all live's are of equal value' was a complete load of the horse feces that sometimes lined the poorer streets. After all, if they were so equal, then everyone would be just as dirt poor as the next person, which obviously wasn't the case. After all, he himself was filthy rich, and the people currently on the streets or in workhouses were so obviously dirt-stinking-poor. He lived in a manor, and they lived in dirty, filthy, and disgusting alleys. To him, the less contact with those.... vermin the better.

   It was a particularly boring night, or so Louis Cagny thought it was as he walked in a lackadaisical fashion while talking to his friends, he wasn't entirely sure which street they were on, or even remotely where they were, just that it was a street, and it didn't seem to be the 'good' side of town. He couldn't be to sure as he was currently too engrossed in the conversation with his friends to care. However, the conversation took a boring turn, and he tuned out.

   He, of course didn't know of the boy who was standing in an alleyway formed between two buildings, intrigued by their nice upper class clothing. After all, in the dark alleyways, he was far less visible.

"Yes, she's beautiful, a bit snobbish if you ask me. Mom chose her. We're supposed to be wedded in a month," a small snippet snapped Louis back to the conversation, which had taken a sudden change of course. However, upon hearing this, he decided it was more boring than the last subject they were talking about and quickly went back to staring at the open space in front of him, tuning out the boring conversation from his ears entirely.

"I have to go," one of his friends said as bells chimed in the distance. Whatever hour it was, Louis didn't know for he hadn't cared to pay attention to it. Seconds after this comment was made, voices of agreement broke out among the friends. Louis, realizing they were leaving, bid them goodbye and continued to walk, checking his pocket watch. It was currently 5 o'clock, he needn't get home till 6, so he looked around and came to the realization that it was only around a half hour trip to the Cagny manor, otherwise known as his home.

    The boy from the alleyway, still there, followed quietly, trying to judge just how much money was on the rich looking man. Louis, feeling as if he were being watched stopped, but he didn't see anything in front of him. He couldn't be sure because it was very dark, but he couldn't see anyone in the light of the lamp post. However as Walter, the boy, continued on, he shifted position slightly, causing snow to crunch beneath his rather holey boot, which alerted Louis that someone was, in fact, behind him. Turning around in slight dread, he could faintly make out the outline of a person, but not much more then that, as it was nighttime. Walter stood there, not making a sound, Louis took a few cautious steps forward, he could now see Walter a bit better now.

"How much money d'you got on you?" Walter asked, breaking whatever silence there was, which to Louis, had been nonexistent because of the loud thump of his heart. Taking a better look at the boy Louis felt both taken aback and disgusted by his unruly appearance that clearly screamed, "POOR!" Louis couldn't understand why the boy wasn't in a workhouse! Louis couldn't quite understand that many of the poor would rather die than work in the harsh, atrocious workhouses. He had only heard of them, but had never seen one.