Bleak

Her eyes loomed across the horizon, looking for that elusive something. But her hands grabbed at nothing. Her unblinking eyes stung with tears, her heart stuttered, her life desolate.

She moved with stealth to the nearest trash can. Her groping hands looking for something to bite into. She found a half-eaten rotten sandwich. Her mouth salivated in anticipation of the food, her stomach growled, but her mind shrank from the stench the sandwich gave out.
Yet, her desperation was too great, her hunger even mightier. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she sank her teeth into the sandwich.
Bliss she thought as she blanked her mind momentarily from all the warnings it was sending her. She knew she wouldn't be able to find anything better than this. This was all she could get.
She was content for now.

Her feast over, she gazed up at the moonless night, the stars were also hiding. Bleak. Distant. Fading.

She got herself up on to the pavement and hugged herself tightly, the harsh winter in no way helping.
There she lay, frozen in the cold biting weather. The scurrying rats, her lullaby, she slept.

The goons came in no time.
They mauled her, groped her...she let them.
For she didn't have the strength to fight.
All was dead inside her.

The rag picker!