The Girl in My Dumpster Was the City’s Missing Child

The Cry Behind the Building

The wind that night felt personal, like it was trying to carve my name into my bones. December 23rd, Lakeshore City. Windows were glowing red and green, the streets full of people hauling shopping bags and last-minute hope.

I wasn’t part of any of that. I was behind my tired apartment building, fighting with a busted trash bag that had exploded across the alley.

I should’ve been at my brother’s place in the suburbs, smiling like life was fine. Instead, I was a recently fired investigative reporter with a bruised reputation and a rent-controlled unit that smelled like old coffee and printer ink.

I dragged the broken bag toward the dumpster. It slipped from my hands and slapped against the metal instead of going in.

“Perfect,” I muttered, breath hanging in the air like cigarette smoke.

I bent down to shove it properly this time. That’s when I heard it.

A sound so small I almost blamed the wind. Not the skitter of rats, not the scratch of cardboard. A soft, broken whimper.

I froze with my hand on the lid. “Hello?”

Silence. Just the gusts weaving between the brick walls.