Bathed in moonlight, she lay on her side amidst the broken glass and garbage carpeting the alley, more like a macabre doll than the vibrant woman-child she’d been. Lusterless in death, her eyes stared into the eyes of an equally dead child decorating the back of a milk container. Serenity shaped the expression on her face, as if in dying she’d found the answer to a particularly difficult question.

A rat, far larger than any rat had a right to be, gnawed arrogantly on the delicate forefinger of the girl’s outstretched hand. A smaller, less confident rodent crouched at the edge of the blood-puddle, torn between instinctive blood-smell skittishness and it’s desire to feed. Hunger conquered caution, as hunger tends to do, and the furry little beast crossed the thickening puddle on tiny pink feet, dragging it’s tail behind. It perched almost daintily on a finely sculpted cheekbone and began tearing at the edges of the obscenely gaping throat.

In her transition from living being to dead meat, the girl became no different than the refuse in which she’d been tossed: a container of no significance beyond the sustenance contained within, casually discarded after serving it’s purpose. Fast food.