"Every morning you wake up and wonder if there's still enough flour in your house to make a day's meal from. Because even if it was there yesterday, you know it could've gone rotten overnight or got eaten by bugs in the blink of an eye. Because this might be the only sack of flour you might afford in months! But you know who doesn't have these thoughts in the morning?"
The few hundred citizens that gathered on a square listened to Ramwill's every word with mandibles opened wide, as if his words were bread. There were people of all ages, from elders with chitin cracked and bleached by age, to youths who were still actively moulting.
The only thing all these had in common was their lack of money. These people were farmers, low-tier craftsmen, peddlers and beggars—people who always struggled some of the worst when a disaster struck. Some of them carried subtle signs of illnesses, too—but nobody on this dingy square could bother to quarantine these people.
