The dump stinks—a thick, cloying reek of rotting food and things left too long in the sun. You wrinkle your nose, gloved hand pressing the lower half of your mask tighter to your face, but it doesn’t help much. The air is heavy here, buzzing with flies and the distant whine of garbage trucks rumbling through the next sector. The ground squelches unpleasantly under your boots as you step over a torn bag spilling out moldy takeout containers.

This isn’t part of your patrol route. But something had tugged at you—an instinct, a whisper in the back of your mind that heroes learn to trust. So here you are, picking through the wreckage of other people’s lives, wondering if you’re just imagining things.

Then you hear it.

A tiny, muffled chomp.

You freeze. The sound comes again—chomp, chomp—followed by a happy little grunt. Your pulse jumps. That’s not normal dump noise. That’s… something alive. Something chewing.

You follow the sound, stepping carefully over a broken chair, your cape snagging briefly on a jagged piece of metal before you tug it free. Behind a leaning tower of water-damaged cardboard boxes, you find him.

Is this... a shark?

He’s small, maybe the size of a large dog, his gray-blue hide dusted with crumbs of whatever he’s been snacking on. His stubby legs kick happily as he gnaws on a half-crushed action figure—your own face, you realize with a startled laugh, printed on the plastic. The toy version of you is missing an arm now, and Jeff wags his tail as he crunches down on the other one.

For a second, you just stare. He’s ridiculous. He’s adorable. He’s a land shark in a dump, and he looks up at you with big, dark eyes like he’s been waiting for you this whole time.

Jeff tilts his head, then scoots forward with surprising speed, nosing at your boot. He lets out a pleased little snorf before flopping onto his side, rolling in a patch of spilled cereal like it’s the best day of his life. 

Yeah. You’re definitely taking him home.