Disclaimer: I claim no rights to the characters or the places mentioned in the story. All that is Disney's is Disney's, and all that is mine is mine. This disclaimer holds true for all chapters posted, or to be posted of this story. I am not making money with this story; I am dirt poor, so don't sue me.

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A/N: Yes it is short, but it is the prologue. I promise the rest of the chapters are much longer.

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Warning: This chapter is PG - 13 for swearing, angst, and suicidal themes.

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Prologue

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They say sometimes they only place you can go is up, well I have news for them, you can always go down further. There is always something out there just waiting to make your life just a little bit worse, to remind you that you are a nothing, that you are unwanted, unloved. There is always that one person out there who lives to make you miserable. Everyone knows who that person is, everyone has one, some have more. We newsies, we have the whole world.

No one cares about us, not even our fellow newsies. Sure, we will fight for each other, but we all like to fight. It is just an excuse to hit someone as hard as we can for as long as we like. We pretend that they are our parents, our friends long gone, who ever we wished that we could hit for every long, pathetic day of our lives. Those someone's are in everyone's lives. The ones that betray us and couldn't give a damn about it. We was beat when we was born.

I've been thinking a lot about it a lot. I've had more time to think lately. The nightmares have been back again, when those happen I lay awake till dawn in my bed, hoping that they won't come back. Sometimes I go for a walk to clear my head, and have a smoke. Lately my dreams have been about being in the refuge.

Sitting in that little cell where the only light was from the hall and the only sound was the rats clawing at the ground. Even those filthy creatures wanted out of that hellhole. I don't blame them. I named them, the rats. Nothing else to do in those cells. After awhile, I would give anything just to hear a human voice. It was like they had completely forgotten that I had existed. They forgot all about me and just left me to decay, slowly waste away in that tiny cell.

Never once did I ask if I was going to live or die, either one would be hell. Not that it would matter if I died, I'm only one person in the world. For all that I matter, I am less than that. The day that I was let out into the sun again was terrible. In the darkness I could ignore the way my body had wasted away, the way my hair was matted and dirty, the open wounds from malnutrition on my arms. Six months I had been in that cage.

I can still feel the stares of the children as their mother shielded away their young eyes. They were right to do it too. No child with their parents should have to see the face of pain with the scabs and scars that covered my face. I knew that I had to have some scars, I had picked off every scab that I had created in my countless hours of solitude.

It's strange what you think of when you lay awake at night. I think about my life before I was a newsie, but what boy doesn't? I think about the times where I could go to bed and not have an empty stomach or worry where my next meal was coming from. I remember the warmth that I haven't felt since then, was that what it was like to be loved? Maybe it was, but I don't know.

You can't love a nothing, and that's what we are, nothings. Not just the newsies, but the factory workers too, the shoe-shiners, the stable-hands, we are all nothings. We were before the strike, and we are now. When you are nothing, you can't change anything.

I guess you can't beat fate, maybe we were all destined to be nothing, but sometimes you can get ahead of it. Maybe you can't even do that, but I think that is what I am doing, isn't it? Beating fate to the punch, taking my life before it can. Is that why I am on this bridge? Or is it because I can't stand it anymore? What is it that I can't stand? I don't even remember anymore, it is all the same shit again and again. Damned if I do, damned if I don't, either way it is hell.

I know what this hell is like, but do I want to know what the other hell is like? All it would take was a little jump and it would all be over. No one would miss me, no one would probably even notice that I was gone for a few days. Am I going to taste that other hell tonight? Taking a long final drag off of my cigarette, I toss it over the side. Downward it spiraled, finally it disappeared into the swirling blackness. Is that what would happen to me?

"Hey Spot!" I hear someone yell and I turn. "Whot ah ya doin' out heah?" It is one of the newsies, maybe he was coming here to do the same thing I was going to do.

"Smokin'," I answer, disappointed and strangely relieved that I didn't have to go through with it. We walk back together, neither one of us talk. Both of us know what the other is thinking, we are thinking about how we were going to jump. Tonight I didn't get to taste the other hell, but there is always tomorrow.