Jo went to bed hungry that night. In fact, he went to bed hungry almost every night, except for the rare occasion when the baker burnt some bread and threw it into the street. If Jo got even one loaf, he could make it last for days. Jo was a poor boy. He had no parents, no home, nothing. His only possessions were a cheap spiderman watch, some holey sneakers, and a gray overcoat with many pockets.
After several hours, Jo realized that he would not be falling asleep tonight. He rolled off the bench, pulled on his overcoat, and began his daily quest for sustenance. He looked down at his watch, noticing that there was still time before the restaurants opened for the day. He trudged over to the cheap seafood restaurant, the one right on the edge of the food district and the district where the poor people lived. The aroma of all the different delicacies from all the restaurants wafted to him and made his mouth water. He began walking in a way so that no one would notice him. He used this whenever he tried to pickpocket someone or when he was trying to blend in. Sometimes people would call patrolmen on him, because he was “slowing down business”. But Jo had perfected the art of blending in. Even at this early hour, there were already a couple employees in the store, getting ready for a normal day. He crept up to the dumpster behind the store, taking care not to make any noise or knock anything over to alert the workers to his presence. He lifted up the cover and peered over the top to see if there was any food.
An awful smell hit him like a truck. He stumbled and fell, but not before he had caught a glimpse of fleshy looking substance under a jumble of boxes. He checked to make sure that nobody inside had heard him, and braced himself to look again. He flung the lid up, holding his breath, and inspected the dumpster more closely. He realized he was looking at a human torso, minus the legs, arms, and head! Jo sat back down, not believing what he had just seen. Millions of questions were burning in his head. For the first time in several weeks, he was not hungry.
Suddenly, he heard the door of the seafood place open. Jo scrambled behind the dumpster, praying that the man had not seen him. The man approached the dumpster, whistling a tune that he was obviously making up on the spot, and opened up the tossed in a full trash bag. He turned and sauntered away. Jo sank down against the back of the dumpster, and contemplated what to do next. He couldn’t understand why the man walked away without investigating that terrible smell. He concluded that the man had to know about the body. That left two possible options: Either they had committed the murder or they had already called the police. Jo didn’t think that the police were on their way, because he had already been there for almost five minutes, and there probably would have been someone out keeping an eye on the body. Realizing that he was in the backlot of at least one murderer made Jo feel very scared. He started to creep back out to the street to make his escape, but as soon as he turned the corner, he saw two black Jeep Wranglers with tinted windows pull up. The doors opened and two men stepped out of each one. They were wearing sunglasses and colorful shirts with ties, but also had on hats with the logo of the restaurant of them!
Jo knew this meant trouble, so he quickly turned around and headed towards the other side of the building. He peeked around the corner and saw two more Jeeps arriving. Four more men stepped out, but this time, one of them looked directly at Jo! He shouted, and they all turned and looked at him. The second group started walking towards him, not slowly, but not quickly either. Jo ran back behind the building and considered his options. The fence that ran around the building was about fifteen feet high, and made out of wood, The only other option would be to climb on top of the roof. There was a ladder, except that there was a metal grille in front of it, so that was unusable. On the far side, there was a pipe leading up to a gutter. He dashed over to it, and scaled the pipe. He grabbed the gutter just as the men rounded both corners. He pulled himself up and threw himself over the edge and onto the roof. He grabbed a large branch with hopes of defending himself and snuck a look over the edge of the building. One of the men was attempting to climb the pipe, but to no avail. He eventually gave up and looked at Jo.
The man who had been trying to climb the pipe whispered something to the man right next to him. The second man nodded and turned towards the restaurant. He opened the door and proceeded into the building. Jo turned around and surveyed the roof. There were several large metal structures on the roof, but otherwise he was alone. Jo strode over to the front of the building and looked down at the Jeeps. The drivers were now leaning on the hoods of their cars, waiting. They were both staring at him. Jo turned and moved to the rear of the building. He shouted down to the men, “What do you guys want? I’m just a kid! I don’t have anything!” The men all turned silently and stared at him. “Leave me alone!” Jo screamed, almost sobbing.
He threw himself down on the ground and curled into a ball. He pressed his hands over his ears and shut his eyes as hard as he could. He stayed this way for several minutes before he was suddenly snatched up by someone. Jo writhed around, kicking and screaming at the top of his lungs. He was tossed down, and two men caught him. They put and handkerchief over his mouth and suddenly Jo couldn’t breathe. His vision slowly faded to black, and the last thing he saw was the man climbing down the now unlocked ladder and pulling out a pair of handcuffs.
When Jo awoke, he had no idea where he was. It was almost pitch black except for a small strip of light about twenty five yards away. His entire torso ached, and he had a massive  headache. Jo could only move his eyes, as his entire body was restrained. He was in an upright position, sitting in what seemed to be a large wooden chair. Jo had no clue how long he had been there.
After what felt like hours, a door opened, and the room Jo was in flooded with light. It was a barren room, save for the chair right in the center and a cabinet in one of the corners. Two men walked in and unbound Jo. He was too weak to move alone, and as he stood up from the chair, he collapsed onto the floor. The two men hoisted him up and carried him into a very long and very dim hallway. There were doors every thirty feet on both sides of the hallway. The two men carried him down the hallway and turned left into another hallway that looked exactly the same as the first. They turned down yet another identical hallway, and Jo saw a window at the end of it. Before Jo had a chance to identify anything outside of the window, the men turned into a room.
This room was much different than the room Jo had been in before. This room was about four times as large, and there was a long table with a brown paper bag on it. Jo could smell the fast food from the entryway. The men carried him over to the table and dropped him in a chair near the bag. Jo tore the bag open and started devouring the food. There were two greasy cheeseburgers and a soggy pouch of fries, but it was the best food Jo had had in a long time. Once he was done, he surveyed the people in the room more closely.
He recognized one of the men from his restaurant encounter, the restaurant owner, and another man. This new man was bald, but had a very neat beard. His eyes were very bright blue and it seemed as though he never blinked. The owner of the restaurant was babbling in another language, seeming to complain to the bald man, but the bald man’s eyes never left Jo’s face. Suddenly the bald man held up his hand. The restaurant owner immediately stopped talking. The bald man strode forward and said to Jo in a thick eastern european accent, “Tell me one reason that I should not kill you right now.”
Jo’s mind raced. He opened his mouth and he said in a rush, “I won’t tell anyone, I promise. Please please please don’t kill me! I’ll do anything!”
The bald man seemed to ponder this. He replied, “Do you have any loved ones?”
Jo balked. He was not expecting that question. “No, I have been living by myself for as long as I can remember.”
“Ok.” The man turned and said something to the man from the restaurant encounter. “You will go with Fran here to complete the training and become part of the CFL.”
Jo’s mind was racing with thousands of questions, but before he had time to ask, Fran marched towards him, grabbed his arm, and led him out the door. Fran was walking quickly, so Jo had to almost jog to keep up. Jo noticed a black device sticking out of the back of Fran’s back pocket. After a few seconds, he realized where he had seen it before. It was the same kind of taser that the police officers carried! Jo knew that if he could get that away from the man, then he would have a chance to escape. “What is the CFL?” Jo asked. “Why am I going there?”
Fran answered, also with a heavy accent, “Child Fighters League. Men like us place bets on kids like you. You must be trained first however.” At this moment, Jo tripped and knocked into Fran. “Hey watch it, suka!”
He pushed Jo, who then tumbled to the ground. But the damage was done. When Jo had knocked into the man, he had grabbed his weapon. This was a technique he had developed over the years with pickpocketing. Jo whirled around and aimed the taser at Fran. “I don’t think I’ll be going there.” Fran’s eyes widened and he started to lunge for Jo. ZZZZT! Fran fell to the ground with a long, drawn-out scream and started twitching uncontrollably..
Jo was not expecting him to yell so loudly. He turned back the way he had come and sprinted down the hallway. He came to an intersection. He looked to the left and recognized the window he had seen earlier. He raced over to it and examined the outside. He was two stories above the street level; looking out over a narrow alleyway.
Jo heard a noise behind him and turned around. Several men raced into view. One of them shouted something and pointed at Jo. Jo frantically turned around and pulled the window open. He looked straight down and saw there was a closed dumpster under it. Jo glanced backwards once and saw the men running towards him. They were about fifteen feet away, and they were in the motion of pulling out weapons. Jo was seeing everything in slow motion. Jo slowly tipped backwards out of the window. His last glimpse of the men before they fell out of his sight was the man leading the pack screaming and starting to aim his taser at Jo. Visions of his short life flashed in his eyes. He remembered the loving touch of his mother, whose face he couldn’t see. The next flash brought his mom getting up from bed while it was still dark, and going to work. She would never get home before dark. The following flash included himself and his mom trudging away from their house, knowing they couldn’t keep living there with all of the money problems. The last glimpse he caught was of his mom giving him her share of the meal they were sharing. Money had been haunting Jo around his whole life. While falling, Jo realized that these men were just after one thing: money. Not only these men though. Everybody’s quest in life is just to accumulate money. Jo thought to himself, what a messed up world.