I PICKED UP A CHILD IN A DUMPSTER

Chapter 201: Did we just...

Si Hon ran.

A few feet.

Then a roar.

The roar hit them like a physical thing.

Not just loud— it was so fucking loud, the kind of sound that skipped hearing entirely and went straight to the chest, rattling through bone and teeth and the soft parts behind the eyes.

Si Hon’s hands flew to his ears on instinct and he saw Jisoo do the same clutching to him, both of them staggering slightly from the sheer weight of it. When he pulled his hand away and looked at her, there was a thin line of red running from her ear down the side of her neck, quiet and dark against her skin.

He looked back at the monster.

It was already moving. The massive body had dropped lower, those toolong limbs pulling it into a charging posture, the triceratops skull dipping forward so the horns led, and the ground shook with its first stride, the second, the speed buildup faster than something that size had any right to. The road cracked under each foot it stepped.

The distance between them collapsed in seconds.

Si Hon hugged Jisoo and moved— but there was nowhere to go.

The broken road edge was right behind them, the gap yawning open, and the monster was already there and the impact came like a wall and the world tilted and they were falling, both of them, the cliff dropping away beneath them and the grey sky spinning overhead and Si Hon had exactly one coherent thought in the air which was (this is going to h—)

***

Click.

The ruined city. The tall grass. The same morning sky, the same distant howling rolling between the same broken buildings, the same smell of wet earth and old stone.

They were again standing in the middle of the ruined city.

Regressed.

Si Hon stood completely still for a second.

His hands were at his sides. His ears weren’t ringing anymore. His bones weren’t crushed. Everything was fine and intact and that somehow made it worse, the way the body kept no record of what had just happened to it.

(We died,) he thought, slowly. (We actually died. It was slow and then it was very fast and we— okay. Okay. Reset. Rule four, back to the beginning.)

He exhaled through his nose and turned to look at Jisoo.

She was standing exactly where she’d appeared, not moving. The emergency blanket was gone— reset with everything else— and she had her arms loose at her sides and her eyes fixed on the distance, not focused on anything in particular.

Then her legs gave and she went down, slowly, crumpling to sit on the cracked road.

Si Hon watched her for a second. Then he walked over, crouched down in front of her, got both arms under her, and stood back up.

She didn’t say anything.

Her arms found his neck and her legs found his waist and she pressed her face against his shoulder and stayed there, breathing, while the howling came again from somewhere in the city around them— familiar now, the exact same pitch as the first loop.

(She feels,) he thought, adjusting his hold, (really small right now. Like carrying a—) He stopped that thought. (She’s fine. We’re fine. We just need to move.)

"Let’s go?" he said.

Against his shoulder, she nodded.

He went the same direction as before. The city passed around them the same way it had the first time, the same overgrowth and the same dark windows and the same sense of being watched by things that hadn’t decided to move yet.

He didn’t rush. Just walked, steady and even, until the CU sign came into view between two vine covered buildings and he stopped in front of the glass doors.

He set Jisoo down gently. She stood, arms wrapped around herself, and looked at the store with the expression of someone who already knew what was inside and wasn’t happy about it.

"Wait here," Si Hon said quietly. "It’ll be thirty seconds."

She opened her mouth. Something moved across her face— the protest forming, the fear behind it. Then she closed her mouth and nodded, and gripped her own arms tighter, and didn’t look through the glass.

He went in alone.

The store was the same. Same dust, same dead lights, same dry leaves across the floor. He moved without hesitation this time, no careful tiptoeing, just direct and quiet toward the counter, following the wet sound of feeding.

The grey head was there, same as before, shoulders moving with the same rhythm, completely absorbed.

Si Hon put both hands on the counter edge, vaulted over it in one motion, and snapped the thing’s neck before it even felt that he was there. The sound it made was brief. Then it wasn’t making any sounds.

He was back at the door in under a minute.

Jisoo looked at him.

He reached out and took her hand and pulled her inside without explaining, and she came without asking.

What followed took hours. Actual hours, by the feeling of it— Si Hon working methodically through the store, taking the shelving units apart piece by piece and carrying them to the front doors, quietly, building the barricade out properly this time, stacking and angling and wedging until the front entrance had real weight behind it.

He left a narrow gap between two units near the corner of the door, just enough to see the street through, just enough to track what was moving out there without opening anything.

Then he went outside briefly and stacked what he could against the exterior too, working quietly, checking the street each time before he moved.

When he came back in, he locked it behind them as well as it was possible to lock a convenience store in an apocalypse, and started going through the shelves properly.

The haul was decent. Sealed chip bags, enough of them. Several packs of chocolate bread, the individually wrapped kind, the ones engineered to survive longer than they had any right to. Two emergency blankets, same as before, folded in their packaging. Three lighters. He arranged it all on the counter, took stock of it, and handed one grey blanket across to Jisoo without comment.

She took it. Wrapped it around herself immediately, the blanket crinklng as she pulled it tight. Then she found the corner behind the counter where the floor was cleanest and sat down, and curled up against the wall, knees to her chest, the blanket pooled around her like a small nest.

Quiet settled over the store.

Then, from the corner, very softly— "I’m sorry."