I PICKED UP A CHILD IN A DUMPSTER

Chapter 211: Radio.

I finally pushed myself up off the rooftop concrete and looked around, scanning until I spotted a maintenance room set into the corner of the roof, small and boxy with a single door.

I looked at Jisoo. "So. We go check that?"

She nodded, already standing, and I walked over to the door first.

Locked, obviously... because nothing in this trial had ever once been easy... no actually it’s just lock.

I looked at my fist. I mean, it had done worse. And punched the door near the handle.

The frame cracked and gave, and I shoved it open.

A growl answered from inside.

I barely got my hand back before the thing lunged— teeth snapping at the space where my finger had been and I drove a punch straight into its skull before it could try again, the impact sending it staggering back into the cramped little room.

I followed through, hitting it again, and again, until it stopped moving.

I looked down at it once. It was skinny too skinny, ribs visible through the thin remains of a shirt, a bite wound on its leg that had probably been the start of all this.

He probably hid here.

Looking at the small space, the locked door, the supplies still stacked against the walls.

Hid here until they couldn’t anymore and died.

I didn’t dwell on it. Just got to work looting the room instead— a pair of binoculars, a coil of rope, a small case of emergency supplies, and tucked in the corner, an old radio, dusty but intact.

I gathered everything and carried it back outside.

Jisoo’s eyes landed on the radio the second I stepped out, and I held it up. "You want it?"

She nodded fast, eager in a way that did something soft to my chest despite everything going on around us.

Why the fuck is she so cute... though I handed it over.

She snatched it immediately, carried it to the concrete barrier, set it down, and started fiddling with the dials like she’d been handed the most important object in the world.

Well... it is I guess.

While she worked on that, I raised the binoculars and looked out across the city properly for the first time.

Smoke rose from multiple points scattered across the skyline, thin grey columns bending in the wind. Small flashes lit up here and there between buildings, distant and silent at this range. "Yeah. Those big fat zombie, probably."

I swept further and found a survivor camp tucked beneath the broken half of a collapsed bridge... and broken too, by the look of the scattered tents and the gaps torn through whatever barricade they’d built.

So people really are living out here.

Then I caught movement on a much larger scale, and I had to steady the binoculars to actually see it.

Something with the triceratops skull and human frame I already recognized was crossing an intersection blocks away.

Near it, something even taller picked its way between buildings— a long, twisted neck rising several stories up, vaguely giraffe shaped... except the neck bent at angles no spine should allow, head swaying loosely at the top like it was barely attached.

"You know... fuck, that’s okay. Cool. Love that. Love that a lot." I said, as I grit my teeth. "That’$... scary."

Past them, more bridges sat collapsed into the rivers below, and several buildings bore claw marks raked deep enough into concrete that I could see them clearly even from this distance— gouges the size of car doors, dragging down entire floors.

Then Jisoo called out behind me.

I lowered the binoculars and crossed the roof fast, crouching beside her at the radio just as a voice crackled through, thin and desperate.

"Hello— hello? Finally, there’s people out there." A burst of static, then an explosion somewhere on their end, loud enough to distort the signal. "I’ll make this quick— if you’re wandering around, there’s markers everywhere. Red marks. Follow them and you’ll find our shelter. Now—"

The signal cut.

Another voice came through a second later, panicked, overlapping with more explosions. "Run! Help us! There’s so many Bloomed, where did they all—"

Jisoo tapped the radio. "Bloom? What’s that?"

"It’s those fat ones that explode! What the hell?! is this some kind of joke—" Then a different voice, further from the mic. "Forget them! We need to move, there’s too many Overgrown and Husked coming through the gate—"

The radio cut to static and stayed there.

Jisoo sat back, gave a thumbs up with a small pout, completely unbothered. "That was weird. But hey, we got information."

Shit. Jisoo. Stop being cute right now, this is not the time....

Then, with no transition whatsoever, she tilted her head back to look at the sky. "Why are there two moons, by the way? Any theories?"

I followed her gaze up at both pale shapes hanging in the sky. "No idea."

"That’s so random."

"Yeah. Too random."

We laughed for a bit longer, the radio static still humming faintly between us, before I finally stood up and dusted off my knees. "Alright," I said. "We should probably get moving."

I turned toward the door— and Jisoo’s hand caught mine before I made it two steps.

I looked back. She was still sitting there, knees pulled up slightly, looking somewhere just past my shoulder instead of at my face, a little shy in a way that didn’t match anything she’d always done. "Can we... stay here? Just a bit longer?"

I sighed, but it wasn’t really annoyance— more like... the kind of sigh that comes out before you give in to something you’d already decided to give in to.

I nodded.

She lit up at that, scrambling up onto the concrete barrier with both hands raised like she’d won something, and settled herself there with her legs dangling over the edge.

She was swinging her legs over the edge like she’d forgotten something entirly.

I stared at her. Wait... isn’t she scared of heights?

Though. I climbed up beside her. A