The Trash Collector Of The End World

What should I even do?

The Heloxians were trying to find him right now.

Their heavy, multi-jointed footsteps clattered against the stone floor, echoing through the damp cave as they spoke in alien clicks and chirps.

The echoes made it hard to tell how close they were, but he knew they were circling—methodically sweeping through the tunnels, closing in like predators tracking a wounded animal.

He crouched low behind a jagged rock, breathing through his nose to muffle the sound.

His brain raced with desperate thoughts and half-formed plans, but every idea collapsed under its own weight.

The cave was a dead end, he couldn't run, and if he stayed still too long, they'd find him anyway.

Calm down. I need to calm down.

He closed his eyes for a moment, forcing his mind to focus. The worst thing he could do right now was panic. Panicking meant death.

Then, he heard it—footsteps.

He opened his eyes just as one of the taller Heloxians stepped into view.

It towered over the cave floor like a humanoid insect, thick green chitin plates glowing faintly under bioluminescent ridges along its shoulders.

Its eyes were like smooth black marbles, and they locked on him instantly.

Ash knew he'd been spotted.

I'm cooked. There's no way I can take that thing. It'll slice me in half before I even blink.

He swallowed his fear and stood up slowly from behind the rock, raising his hands.

His back was stiff, and his heart pounded so hard he thought the Heloxian might hear it.

"I'm not trying to cause harm!"

He didn't run. He didn't flinch. He just stood there and kept his posture neutral.

His voice trembled slightly at the end, but it was better than screaming. The Heloxian didn't charge. That was something.

He smiled weakly, trying to act like someone completely harmless.

Just act weak.

The Heloxian clicked once, a sharp sound that echoed through the cave.

Then the second one appeared behind it, even taller and carrying a bone-like spear.

The final figure—a smaller one, hunched and thin—crept between their legs like a child peeking from behind its parent's coat.

Ash didn't move.

This could work. If they don't kill me first… this could actually work.

But just when it seemed like the situation might calm down, the taller Heloxian—the one with the spear—moved with impossible speed.

The weapon came flying toward Ash's chest in a blur of motion.

He dropped low and twisted, narrowly avoiding the strike as it cracked into the cave wall behind him, spraying stone fragments across the ground.

"Wait!" he shouted, stumbling back. "I swear, I'm not trying to cause harm!"

He raised his hands again, backed further away, and made every effort to look non-threatening.

He bowed his head slightly, hands open, fingers splayed to show he held no weapon. It was all theater, a play meant to buy time.

The spear came again.

Another lunge, just as fast, just as lethal. Ash threw himself sideways, scraping his elbow against the rough stone floor.

They're not listening. No—they don't understand me?

Then he saw it.

The smaller Heloxian—the one that looked like a child—stepped forward from behind the others.

It didn't speak, but it raised its thin arms and mimed bringing something to its mouth.

A gesture.

Food. They're not reacting because they think I'm dangerous... they're reacting because they're starving. These Heloxians are hostile by nature, or maybe just desperate. And I'm the first warm body they've seen in who knows how long.

That was it. There was no diplomacy here.

Ash moved.

Without hesitation, he reached into his vacuum and pulled out the ridiculous weapon— an enormous Trombone, bent in places, patched with scrap, and amplified with a rusted speaker coil bolted along its length.

It wasn't elegant. It wasn't even meant to be a weapon. But it was loud.

He raised the trombone, took a deep breath, and blew.

The note that exploded from its twisted brass gut wasn't music.

It was a wall of sound, a raw blast of low-frequency vibration that shook the cave like thunder and sent pebbles skittering from the ceiling.

The Heloxians collapsed instantly. The taller one staggered, clutching its head, before crumpling.

The smaller one dropped as well, limbs twitching before going still.

Only one remained standing—the second tall Heloxian, likely the father.

He was staggering, blood leaking from its insectile ears, but he wasn't down yet.

Ash didn't give it time.

From his vacuum, he pulled strings of synth-wire—thin, flexible threads he'd used to bundle scrap, now reinforced with leftover alloy fibers.

He danced backward, dodging another wild swing from the Heloxian's spear, though this time the tip sliced into his side.

The pain flared sharp, burning through cloth and flesh alike, but he gritted his teeth and didn't fall.

He wrapped the wires quickly—around arms, legs, and chest—then yanked hard.

The line went taut.

The Heloxian roared in its insect-chirping voice, thrashing wildly as the reinforced wires bit into its joints.

But Ash had already pulled the knot into place. The creature collapsed to its knees, still struggling, but unable to move.

Ash panted, pressing a hand to his bleeding side.

Somehow... I didn't die.

Then, as his breath steadied and the burning in his side dulled to a throb, Ash spotted the spear lying on the ground near the father's fallen body.

Blood still clung to the jagged blade, soaking into the cave floor.

He stepped toward it, slowly, as a strange idea began to form in his head.

---

Deep inside the cave, in a spot where the shadows were thick and the ceiling low enough to feel like a ceiling, he worked in silence.

His fingers moved quickly, but carefully. There was no room for error here.

On the rocky floor before him lay the strange, green-tinted remains of the Heloxian's hide—thick chitin plates, overlapping segments of what used to be shell, and thinner layers of stretched skin with a faintly rubbery texture.

They weren't beautiful, but they were tough.

With a bent needle and salvaged synth-threads from his vacuum, he stitched. He had no formal training in tailoring, but necessity made fast learners out of fools and cowards alike.

He'd scavenged shell plates from the arms, the shoulders, the back, even the legs of the creature.

He left the kid and the other Heloxian alive—unconscious, yes, but untouched aside from bindings. The father had not been so lucky.

The corpse now lay slumped in a corner, chest caved in from the spear wound, with most of its protective shell stripped away.

His face remained frozen in that last moment of fury.

Ash didn't look away.

Instead, he knotted the last piece in place and held up his creation.

It was grotesque.

A stitched-together coat made from another species' body, formed of layered shell plates like oversized scales, bound together by sinew and polymer strings.

A part of him felt sick, and another part just felt alive.

Because he knew why he made this.

The Heloxians lived on this planet without any problems of the acid rain. The lightning possibly don't target them either.

Their shells must have some kind of natural insulation, something like rubber—non-conductive, acid-resistant.

They evolved on this planet.

He slid the crude armor over his torn clothes, tightening the straps until it held against his body.

It wasn't comfortable, but it worked.

The outer shell creaked faintly with each breath.

But it was protection.

And more importantly—it was freedom.

With one last look at the unconscious Heloxians, he turned and left the cave.

Outside, the world was still soaked in the slow, poisonous downpour. The trees stood like alien statues in the distance.

The acid rain hit him.

And nothing happened.

It sizzled on the coat but didn't eat through. It slid off the curved shell plates like water off glass.

And when lightning cracked across the sky, it struck somewhere else.

Ash smiled to himself, hunched slightly under the weight of the coat, and whispered with a grim kind of pride,

"This... is the Heloxian Jacket."