Sian muttered under his breath, "Damn it…" as his hands dug through the cold, sticky layers of garbage inside the dented dumpster. The air around him was thick with the sour stench of rot and damp earth.
The ground was uneven, littered with shards of bottles and scraps of plastic, and the only path nearby was a narrow trail that wound deeper into the outskirts of the mountain dump — a place forgotten by the city, swallowed by silence and decay.
"I can't believe I'm still like a raccoon," he whispered, his voice trembling between frustration and shame. "Thrown into this… when I was five…"
His fingers brushed against a shard of broken glass, but he didn't flinch. The moonlight caught the edge, flashing dimly like a cruel reminder of what he'd become. His eyes stung, wet with tears that refused to fall, blurring the mountain of waste before him a mountain that had been his home longer than he could remember.
A faint wind passed through, carrying the sharp scent of metal and burnt plastic. No cars, no voices, no sign of life only the distant echo of crows and the slow creak of rusted metal shifting under the cold night air.
"I know this smells," he said again, quieter now, as if the silence might swallow his voice. "But… I already got used to it."
His words faded into the stillness, lost among the heaps of forgotten things — leaving only Sian, a boy shaped by the filth, standing beneath the pale moon in the city's forsaken shadow.
Sian's stomach growled — a deep, painful sound that echoed through the quiet dump like a cry for help. He pressed a hand against his abdomen, the ache twisting deeper, and muttered weakly, "Food… food… where's that food…" His voice cracked, barely more than a whisper carried by the cold wind. "Please… have mercy… just a little food…"
He kept digging, his trembling fingers pushing aside wet paper, crushed cans, and rotting scraps. The stench burned his nose, but hunger dulled every other sense. His movements slowed, his breath coming out ragged and shallow. Then he stopped — his eyes falling on a freshly dumped pile of trash a few meters away, still steaming faintly in the chill air.
Maybe… maybe there's something there.
He staggered toward it, coughing from the sour dust that rose with every step. When he reached it, he stood still for a moment, staring blankly at the heap. "I never had a warm family to stay with…" he murmured, his voice hoarse and hollow. "Is this what it's like for me? To feel nothing anymore? Just… numb from all of this… constant scavenging for survival…"
The moon hung low behind a veil of clouds, its dim light catching the outline of his thin frame — clothes torn, skin streaked with grime. He crouched again, digging through the pile, his mind drifting between hunger and despair.
"Maybe I should just go to the city," he muttered. "Even if I smell like this… maybe I could steal something. Just a bite."
But then he stopped, shaking his head, clutching his chest as if the thought itself hurt. "No… it's not right. The people there…" He swallowed hard. "They might crush me… hurt me to death."
He sat back on his heels, staring at the dark horizon where the city lights flickered faintly in the distance. "Although… the world itself's been falling apart anyway," he said bitterly, his tone fading into a whisper. "Monsters appearing out of nowhere… those gates they open… what were they called again?" He frowned, trying to remember. "Yeah… the monster's call Dark." he sigh.
A silence followed — long, heavy, and empty. Then he gave a small, broken laugh and shook his head. "What am I thinking? I should just focus on finding something warm to eat… even if it's from this usual dump."
He turned back to the trash pile, the sound of his hands rustling through the garbage the only sign of life left in that forgotten mountain of waste.
Sian's breathing grew heavier as he kept digging "haa… haaa…" his hands numb from the cold, fingers slick with grime. He pushed aside a cracked bottle, then an old tin can, and suddenly froze. His eyes widened, glinting under the dim moonlight.
"What… what's this?" he whispered, his voice trembling between disbelief and joy. Carefully, he lifted a small bundle wrapped in greasy paper. His heart raced. The smell — faint but unmistakable — hit him like a memory. "Bread… with meat… and vegetables?"
He unwrapped it slowly, reverently, revealing a half-eaten burger, the edges dried but the center still soft. For a moment, everything around him disappeared — the cold wind, the sour stench, the emptiness in his chest. Only that small, filthy miracle in his hands mattered.
A smile broke across his face, uneven and wet with tears he read the wrapper.
"A burger…" he breathed, almost laughing through his exhaustion. "I might look like a slum boy, a dumpster rat, but I still try hard… still study those broken books people throw away." His words came out shaky, proud and aching all at once.
Without hesitation, he bit into the burger, wrapper and all. The taste was a strange mix of ketchup, dirt, and something long forgotten — warmth. He didn't care about the filth on his lips or the sting in his throat. For the first time that night, he felt alive.
As he chewed, crumbs falling onto his torn clothes, he murmured softly to himself, "I guess… I can survive for tonight."
The wind brushed against him, colder now, but Sian didn't mind. In that moment, sitting among mountains of garbage under a pale moon, a half-eaten burger became the only proof that hope. However small
But still existed.
As Sian tore another bite from the half-eaten burger, a faint rustle echoed through the still night air. He froze mid-chew, his jaw stiff, eyes darting toward the dark stretch of junk and twisted metal in the distance. The sound came again — soft at first, like something brushing against a heap of cans.
"Huh…?" he whispered, swallowing hard. "A dog? Or… maybe another slum dweller like me?"
He waited, listening. The silence stretched thin — then came the scrape.
A harsh, metallic sound — claws dragging across rusted tin. His pulse spiked. That wasn't a dog. The noise was too sharp, too deliberate. The air itself seemed to hold its breath.
"...Hello?" Sian called out softly, his voice trembling. No answer.
Then, a wet, horrible slutter — followed by the unmistakable gush of blood splattering against metal. The sound was raw, heavy, alive. His burger slipped from his trembling fingers and hit the dirt with a soft thud.
Sian's eyes widened, his heart hammering painfully in his chest. Every instinct screamed at him that something was wrong, terribly wrong. The stench of iron began to mix with the rot of the dump, stronger with every passing second.
He took a step back, breath quickening. "No… that wasn't a dog…" he muttered under his breath. His voice broke as fear clawed its way up his throat. "Or… was it… a killer?"
The darkness ahead didn't answer only shifted, slow and deliberate, like it was listening.