I hauled myself up by a frayed rope snagged on a mound of trash. After drinking that strange liquid, it felt as if a thread of life had been stitched back into my limbs. It was not real strength, but enough to stop my knees from shaking and force me forward.
The junkyard spread out like a broken city. Everything had been compacted into square bales, metal and plastic pressed into blocks. Machinery bits jutted at odd angles. Sheets of aluminum and rusted iron filled the air with the metallic tang of decay. I began to move, or at least to shuffle with legs that still trembled. The goal was the same as every scavenger here: get away from the exposed edge and find a hollow to hide in.
A bent old man stood by one of the stacks, squinting at me. He spat and muttered to no one in particular, there is a rat here. He meant me. His voice scratched like the wheels of a cart. He asked loudly whether I had found anything worth selling lately, as if I were an annoyance instead of a person.
I kept my mouth shut. I did not want trouble. He watched me for a moment, then shuffled away. He was only another scavenger, old and worn. If he had stayed, I might have lied or tried to trade a scrap. Instead he left, probably to argue over a piece of metal with someone else.
I pushed deeper into the piles. The further I went, the more my chest tightened. A stripped tire, a rusted pedal, a bent frame. The skeleton of a bicycle, picked clean and left to rot. I stared at it for a long time. A bicycle here felt like a relic from a different life, absurdly luxurious. For a moment I let myself imagine pushing a bike down a street, the wind in my hair and distance opening like a door.
Tools were rare. My fingers fumbled over the chain and pedals, which hung like dry ropes. My hands remembered the work. They knew how to test a bearing, how to tighten a bolt, how teeth on a gear should mesh. Memory without muscle was useless. I could not lift the frame. Even picking up a loose nut made my hands tremble.
Still, I could plan. I gathered the salvageable bits and tucked them into a battered crate in a corner. If I gathered enough strength, I would come back and try to mend the wheel. For now I needed shelter and food.
My shelter was a narrow crevice between two compressed bales. It was cramped, filthy, and smelled of old oil, but it kept the wind out and hid me from prying eyes. I dragged my small pile of found items into the nook and covered them with a rag. I sat for a moment and counted the bottles I had taken while slipping through the heaps. About a hundred, maybe more.
A hundred bottles sounded like a fortune to a hungry child. If three bottles a day could keep me alive, the stash might last over a month. Not just a month of surviving, but a month to grow a little stronger. A month to return deeper into the yard. A month that, if luck favored me, might change everything.
I moved like a shadow among ropes and metal, watching the other scavengers with a face that gave nothing away. They were rough hands and low voices. They clutched bottles like currency and kept to their own piles. When someone dropped a bottle or left a pile, I took it without ceremony. I learned that these bottles were everywhere. They were the castoffs of a richer life, poured out and abandoned here. Someone emptied them. Someone else decided to leave them. Fate, or whatever placed me here, had not left me completely empty handed.
By dusk the junkyard became a thunder of activity. Carts creaked, arguments flared, and the dying sun painted everything red. I crawled to the entrance of my nook and watched the scavengers move like ants. The old man who had called me a rat sat by a small fire, warming a spoon over a blackened can. He glanced toward my corner as if testing me, then turned away. He would not bother with a quiet child.
I wrapped the empty bottle in a strip of cloth and tucked it under my pile. The bottle was not just a container. It still smelled faintly sweet. It had given me the first warmth after a long cold. I did not know why, but I knew this much. I would not throw it away. I would not give it away.
Night fell fast. The junkyard lights blinked like scattered stars. I lay down on a bed of flattened cardboard and stared up at the clouded sky. My body ached in places I could not name. My mind, however, buzzed with a dozen small calculations that felt more familiar than anything else. Where to scavenge tomorrow. Which stacks were usually ignored. How to avoid the hands that moved faster and bit harder.
If I could fix that bicycle wheel, I thought, I might leave the yard and see the world beyond. If a repaired wheel could be traded for food, and a mended pedal for a coat, then small gains could add up. Movement meant choices.
I felt the old life stirring beneath the new body. The assassin's patience remained. It measured risk and made quiet plans. It taught me to watch for the smallest twitch in a shoulder, to notice how a hand held a scrap as if it might be taken. Survival was a string of tiny victories, one after another.
I drew my knees up and pressed my forehead against them. If a name could be a compass, then the name I chose had reason. Aurora. Light after night. Saying it warmed me more than the bottle had. For now survival came first. Tomorrow there would be plans.
I closed my eyes and listened to the yard breathe. Somewhere a child cried. Somewhere metal sang. I would wake before dawn and go through the piles again. I would collect, hide, hoard. I would mend what could be mended. When the time came, I would piece the bicycle together and push myself out of this place.
I will survive.