Sofia could tell the time by the pain in her chest. Early in the morning, when the sun only touched the tops of the trash piles, the dump was kinder. Sometimes she found a clean plastic bottle. Sometimes a piece of copper wire. Sometimes a bag of cans no one had crushed yet.
But when the tight ache in her ribs grew stronger, she knew the hard part of the day had begun. Dust filled her mouth. Flies landed on her arms. Hunger twisted inside her stomach. And the bad smell of rotting trash never really left her skin.
She was only eight years old, but she moved through the landfill at the edge of town like she had lived there forever. She knew which piles were new by the heat still rising from them. She knew that when the stray dogs went quiet, something was wrong. And she had learned to study people’s eyes. Some adults looked at things. Others looked at children. Sofia always knew the difference.
That morning, she worked fast, bending down and standing up again and again, picking through scraps the way she had taught herself. Then she heard something strange.
A sound that did not belong there.
It was soft. Weak. Like someone trying to breathe through metal.
She froze.