THE SECRET AMIDST THE SEA OF GARBAGE

At last, he had arrived at the location where the other kids were crowding around.

But way before Anton could even get near the area, he could already detect a new smell of offensive odor that was mingling in the originally unwholesome air.

Good thing that the older children had already thought about clearing away most of the garbage prior to Anton's arrival.

That at least saved the other party the trouble of finding the original cause of panic among the slum kids of District 12 for that day.

At first, Anton could not see the origin of the panic, but when one of the children pointed it out for him, he was stupefied by what he saw.

"There it was, Brother Anton. Look closely at the red plastic bag. Beside it was a---"

One of the braver children that had arrived earlier than they did step forward and pointed out on the heap of solid waste not too far away from where they were standing but she trailed off in the middle of her sentence because a child like her could not bring her own self to say the word.

The thing obviously frightened not just her, but also the other kids that were present around them at the moment.

But at the same time, their curious minds also took the better portion of themselves and it won over their fright so, in the end, they all remained to observe what was really buried under at what seemed to be an old compost pit.

"Son of a Dinosaur!"

Anton gasped and muttered under his breath before he covered his mouth with both hands.

Because when he followed the direction indicated by the forefinger of the child, there he saw a thin and graying hand protruding just beneath the heap of garbage.

After recovering from his initial shock, Anton immediately turned to the children and instructed them.

"Quick. Get me something I could use in digging..."

With just a span of few seconds, children came to him one after another with their own stick at hand. The same sticks that they had once used for poking the garbage.

Anton took one of the relatively longer sticks with him before he made his way towards the compost. He was sporting a grim expression on his face as though a soldier marching to his own death.

He was just about to begin when a sudden flash of concern stabbed him at the last minute. So he deliberately stopped what he was about to do and first turned his attention back to the children and told them to leave the premises for a while.

For he did not wish to traumatize any of them at such a young age.

"No Brother Anton, we also wanted to see."

"We are with you, Brother Anton."

"We will never leave you behind."

They said one after another.

Their voices were full of conviction and so as their facial expressions which showed how determined they were. It was as if no amount of words would be able to convince them to leave.

The children had this kind of seriousness in them that only a grown-up man was supposed to have and it startled the social worker for a while.

Perhaps the life of poverty and living in the slum of society had forced these children to mature early.

Anton no longer spoke a word and instead turned around again and looked back to the heap of garbage waiting for him.

Besides, deep inside him, he was also secretly delighted to have someone beside him as he performed the act.

His face was set into a tight frown as he prepared himself from starting the business that needed to be deal with.

Slowly, he began to excavate lumps and lumps of garbage one after another and after a couple of minutes of effort, the 'thing' had started to surface.

At first, he refused to look at his new discovery yet, although deep inside him, Anton already knew what it was.

When he was already done clearing away the wastes, there they saw the secret that laid hidden amidst the sea of garbage.

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