I PICKED UP A CHILD IN A DUMPSTER

Who?

I walked toward it and sat at the far end, the same end I always sat at, and looked at the rest of the bench the way I always looked at the rest of the bench... haha, it’s hard to explain... so I just looked... stared.

I couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t hear or smell or feel anything different. But something was there— not visually, not with any sense I had a name for.

A shape.

Two of them.

The texture of a hand on my head, not that guard’s hand, a different one that I recognized without being able to say where from.

The sound of a laugh that I couldn’t actually hear. A warmth that didn’t come from the sunlight.

I could remember them, somehow... but I couldn’t see their faces or remember.... Every time I reached toward them they stepped back.

But I knew they had smiled at me. I knew they had thought I was worth smiling at. I knew I had been safe somewhere, with someone, and that the someone was connected to this bench and to the south wall and to the wall at the north horizon and to the stitched bunny in my room.

I didn’t know their names.

But I sat there, and I didn’t leave.

***

Night came and I went in and slept and came back in the morning.

I came back to the bench every day.

Rain came and I sat there in it, the water coming down cold on my shoulders and my hair and the wooden slats, and I sat at one end of the bench and looked at the other end and got completely soaked.

People passing looked at me the way people looked at something they weren’t sure what to do. I didn’t care though.

I didn’t go inside.

I sat there until the rain stopped and then I sat there a little longer and then I went home and changed and ate dinner and went to sleep and came back the next morning.

Hot days came and I sat in the full sun with sweat on my face and my clothes sticking to me, and I sat there... people find shed to run from the heat but I sat, waited... and didn’t move an inch even though I’m burning hot.

Cold mornings before the sun had properly arrived, I sat there in my jacket with the bunny under my arm, both hands in my pockets.

I sat on the bench everyday... for hours doing nothing and only getting up if I needed to pee or eat.

I don’t know how to explain why. It felt like— if I got up, if I stopped coming, something that was already almost gone would finish going, and then there would be nothing left at all.

So I sat. And I know that the bench was where I needed to be, and that whatever I was waiting for would come, and that I had to be there when it did.

Days became weeks. Weeks became months. I grew an inch, and my hair got longer too. And I verified this carefully and was satisfied (⁠｡⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠). Boyeee.

I turned 10 too!!! Though, the bench stayed the same.

Then one morning while I was sitting on the bench looking at the early stars and weird Two moons Above... the ground shook.

Something enormous happened somewhere to the south, felt before it was heard, and then the hearing arrived and the camp came awake all at once.

Though... I already knew it since I’m just here chilling... sigh...

People checked it, people looked and hunters looked, I heard that it was because of some massive explosion that the ground shook, and where the massive explosion occurred there was dozens of zombies and one giant mutated one.

They said it’s like those hordes were preparing for something... but it was suddenly stopped by someone, or just the nature... people said it’s god, people said it’s a miracle... I wouldn’t care lol.

***

I woke up late... I sigh, then hear dozens of people cheering outside of the apartment building.

I looked at the window and saw them, bunch of camp people surrounding someone.

I went out immediately curious, then, as I stood dozens of meters away from the crowd... I saw two familiar faces.

And for no reason, I started running toward them.

I squeezed between people without apologizing. A guard tried to stop me and I went around him. Another one said something and I was already past him.

And then I saw them.

Through the crowd, past the people cheering for something I didn’t have context for yet— two figures. One tall with dark hair, the kind of face that landed on handsome before anything else.

One shorter with a bob cut, sharp in the specific way some people were sharp, a way that made you stand up straighter.

My feet stopped making decisions and just moved.

I ran.

Past the last of the crowd, through the gap that opened in front of me like the space had been waiting, and I didn’t know what I was going to say or why I was running toward strangers and why my chest was opening up like something sealed for a long time had just found air.

I saw their faces turn toward me. I saw them see me. And I saw— I saw their faces do something.

Light up, both of them, their faces look like the way faces only went when they saw something they had been looking for.

I hit them at full speed.

Both arms, one around each of them. Tight.

I cried.

I don’t know why I cried... I just did, it’s like I know them, but at the same time I don’t.

I held them longer than I thought, pressing my face at both of their chests.

Then. "Hon," I said, into whoever’s jacket I was pressing my face against. "Ji... Jisoo...?"

I looked up.

Both their faces were shocked.

Hon mouth was opened all the way down (•᷄⌓•᷅), jisoo face meanwhile was straight emotionless (⁠•⁠‿⁠•⁠).

And they were looking at me the way people looked at something impossible that was happening anyway, right in front of them, too real to argue with.

I looked back at them with my wet face and smiled.

"I knew..."

"What?"

"I knew Someone was coming." I said.

I nodded to myself. Once.