Pickup [new] — Waste

The Collector stood in the hallway, a silhouette against the pre-dawn grey. It was humanoid but wrong—too tall, limbs slightly too long, wearing a patchwork coat made of what looked like tarps and mirrors. Its face was a smooth, featureless oval, but Leo had learned to read its mood by the way light slid across its surface. Right now, the light was flat. Impatient.

He sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the closet door. Tomorrow night, the regret would begin to seep back in. A new argument. A new silence. The same guitar. waste pickup

Leo held out his left hand. The Collector produced a small, silver blade from its coat—not a weapon, a tool. It made a tiny, precise cut on Leo’s index finger. A single drop of blood welled up, pearlescent and strangely heavy. The Collector caught it in a vial, then licked the blade clean. Leo felt a flash of vertigo, as if he’d just forgotten something important. That was the payment: not blood, but the memory of the cut. He’d never remember the pain. He’d never learn from it. The Collector stood in the hallway, a silhouette

The Collector stepped past him without permission, its long fingers twitching. It went straight to the closet, pressed a palm against the door, and whispered something that sounded like a lullaby in reverse. The green glow intensified, then solidified into a translucent, squirming bag—like a jellyfish made of memory. Inside, Leo could see fragments: a frozen frame of himself yelling at his mother, a blurry image of a blank sheet of music paper, a small, ugly knot of something dark that he knew was the time he laughed at a friend’s grief. Right now, the light was flat