Lightning tore the darkness apart, thunder booming with a rage that felt ancient and unforgiving. Yet even that violent rain couldn’t cleanse the sorrow clinging to one place: the city landfill.
Among ripped trash bags, slick plastic, and shards of glass gleaming like fangs, a small girl moved with the practiced focus of someone who had learned survival before childhood.
Her name was Lily Moore. She was ten, though her hands looked far older.
An oversized gray coat clung to her thin frame, soaked and heavy, and her mismatched boots barely held together, one reinforced with duct tape. She was shaking from the cold, but she kept going. Hunger ruled her body, and hunger never waited.
She searched for cans, bits of copper, anything that could be sold. “Just one more,” she whispered to herself, clinging to the words as if they could keep her upright. She hadn’t eaten in more than a day, but her thoughts were fixed on morning.
Morning meant the market. The market meant coins. Coins might mean something hot to eat.