Chapter 1
I stand at the window of my apartment and look out over the empty street that runs in front of the building. No cars pass by and there’s only the howling wind for noise. The sky is grey like wet slate, and the clouds sag low and brooding. Snow hasn’t stopped falling for days, and an old woman is struggling through the dirty street, pushing a shopping cart that is clearly empty. Behind, a dog lags behind her heels, it heads down against the wind. It stumbles and falls and does not get up. It sits there waiting but the woman does not return.
My breath fogs the glass and the chill sinks deep. My head aches and my eyes sting. Four days without sleep.
I turn from the window and shuffle across the floorboards and ease myself into the cracked leather armchair that sits beside my unmade bed. The room around me feels suffocatingly small. Dark patches of damp crawl up the peeling plaster near the corner, staining the wall with splotches that glisten faintly in the dim light filtering in through the window.
Above, the lightbulb flickers. I close my eyes and begin to drift. My head feels heavy and my breathing slows. Then it starts. Like it always does. I jolt upright. The walls vibrate. The ceiling shakes. I hear banging and shouting above. A woman is screaming.
I push myself up from the chair, my legs trembling beneath me as if they’ve lost the memory of motion. Still, I urge them onward, step by faltering step, toward the door. My hand reaches for the knob—its cold, damp metal slippery under my fingers—and it resists briefly before yielding to a sharp twist.
I hesitate only a moment, snatching my coat from the hook beside the door. Behind me, the apartment feels as though it’s closing in, the air growing heavy, almost unbreathable. I can’t bear it any longer. Stepping into the hallway, I stumble into a run, awkward at first but gaining momentum. The corridor unfurls before me, long and shadowed, its flickering fluorescent lights humming faintly overhead.
Hitting the stairwell, my hand sliding along the chipped banister as I descend. The air grows colder the lower I go. My breath comes in short, ragged bursts, fogging in front of me as I near the bottom. I’m almost at the front door, its grimy glass panel rattling from the wind. But before I get there it swings open. A burst of cold air.
Old Mr. Jenkins shuffles in. His coat is dusted with snow, his face crimson from the freeze. I halt mid-stride, my hand still gripping the banister. I’m in no mood to talk-my head’s pounding, my stomach’s churning-but his eyes lock onto mine before I can step away.
‘Alex,’ he says, his voice gravelly as he shakes the snow from his wool cap. His eyes narrow as they settle on me. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Very well, Mr Jenkins.’ I wish he wouldn’t be so nosy. He obviously knows too much.
He steps closer. ‘Did you hear about what that bastard did last night?’
‘No,’ I say, my voice low and tight. ‘What happened?’ It’s a lie. I know exactly what happened-Daniel Parker beaten bloody, his life now hanging by a thread. I hear the whole thing, but I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t talk about it.
Mr. Jenkins leans forward ‘That miserable bastard attacked Daniel when he went up there. Middle of the night, we heard him stomping past our door heading upstairs. His wife went out after him. Begging him not to go. That didn’t stop him, though.’
‘I haven’t heard about it,’ I say, sharper than I mean.
He steps even closer. ‘Daniel went up to complain. Then the shouting started. Heard the fighting Sounded like a pack of feral animals up there. Went on so long my wife started crying. Tried to call the police, but they wouldn’t come out. They say they aint got the men but I know different. Lazy bastards is what they are!’
A sudden, vicious pain lances through my skull, a pulsing throb that starts at my temples and spreads like wildfire. My stomach churns, acid rising hot and sour in my throat. I bend forward a touch, pressing the back of my hand to my mouth as if I can hold it in.
‘You alright, Lad?’ Mr. Jenkins says, stepping closer and resting a gloved hand on my shoulder. The weight of it feels intrusive, but I don’t shrug it off.
Breathing shallowly through my nose, I wait until the bile settles. Slowly, I straighten up ‘Yeah...I’m alright.’
Mr. Simms nods, but he’s already picking up his thread again. ‘So, when the police didn’t come out, I turned to my wife and said-’
‘I have to go,’ I cut in. I don’t wait for him to finish-his mouth hangs open, mid-sentence. My shoulder brushes his coat and I aim for the front door. My hands slam against the glass and it swings wide, banging against the frame, and I stumble out into the freeze.
The air hits me like a blade-sharp and bitter. It claws at my throat. I gasp, but it’s like the oxygen won’t come. My chest tightens. My vision blurs, the edges of the world swimming in a dizzying haze. The snow-dusted steps, the skeletal trees lining the street, the dull grey sky-they all smear together into a suffocating mess. I can’t tell if my eyes are watering from the cold or something else. I stagger forward, one hand groping for the rusted railing beside the entrance. I squeeze my eyes shut and sit down against the wall. The snow soaks through my jeans, but I barely register it.
Some time passes, I don’t know how long, and I pick myself up and stumble across the grass, the snow coming up well above my ankles in places. Rubbish is strewn around the street, there is graffiti on every building including mine. I cross the street, half-blind, then the sharp beep of a car horn cutting through the haze. I don’t look up. My head’s too heavy, my body too frail. I feel like I’m dissolving, like the wind might scatter me into nothing, and I wouldn’t even care.
My boots are soaked through and they squelch as I walk to the café on the street corner. When I arrive, the windows are boarded up and shattered glass lies in the snow. It wasn’t like that yesterday.
I kill the day by wandering the streets aimlessly, and when darkness creeps in I return to my building. Outside the main doors, a few men loiter, the sharp stink of various drugs hanging on the breeze. A hulking dog, chained at the neck, growls low as I near the steps. Its owner tugs the chain and laughs. I give them a quick nod and a polite smile, but their eyes stay cold and hard. One spits at the ground in front of me as I shove through the glass door. They call out after me but I don’t hear.
In the foyer, I can already hear the pulsing music from above. The smell of burning plastic and vomit. A woman is slumped at the base of the stairs, dried blood under her nose, mascara smudged down her face, broken bottles scattered nearby. She shifts to stand but collapses back down. She offers me her hand but I step past her and keep going.
Moving up the stairs and down the hall, fresh graffiti catches my eye, scrawled across the wall in a language I can’t decipher.
Back inside my apartment, it feels colder than outside. Dust shakes from the ceiling as the bass rattles the whole building. It’s a relentless thud, clawing into my head. Then shouting upstairs erupts-a man’s slurred growl, a woman’s scream choked off quick. The floor thumps, glass shatters, and the music swallows it all. How much more can I take.
Removing my coat, I crawl under the covers of my bed. There’s food in the fridge but I don’t want to eat. I can’t eat. I pull the blanket tighter, but the cold’s already in my bones. I need to sleep but my eyelids are pinned open.
Then a siren wails outside, light slashing through the window, gone in a blink. The cops won’t stop here-they never do. No matter how much people complain, they never come. Then the bass shifts, heavier. My ears sting and I jam cotton wool into them but it won’t help.
Staring at the ceiling, time turns slowly. I lay there in the dark of the night. And no books to read, no phone to kill time-just me, the noise, and the cold. Always the cold.
***
Dawn light spills grey through the gap in the curtains. Now five nights without sleep. Hauling myself from the bed, I drag on yesterday’s clothes-stiff jeans, a threadbare coat. The music has died upstairs but the stench of drugs is still strong. It fills my nostrils and I feel sick to my stomach. I stumble to the door, boots scuffing the floorboards. As it clicks shut behind me, Mr. Jenkins door creaks open down the hall. ‘Alex!’ he rasps, voice gravelly with phlegm. I don’t turn, don’t answer-just lurch toward the stairwell. Outside, the day seems greyer than the last. I stagger to the bus stop and slump onto the bench. Twenty minutes pass and then a bus screeches up. The driver grimaces as I climb up and pay the fare. My body swaying, vision swimming as I drop into the plastic seat. I might pass out, but the ride jolts me awake.
Downtown, I stumble off, boots crunching in scattered rubbish-crumpled cans, soggy wrappers, a busted bottle glinting in the gutter. The streets reek of smoke and urine. My head’s a lead weight, legs barely my own, but I push toward the café on the corner. The bell jangles as I shove inside. Joe is behind the counter, grizzled and squinting, same as always. He nods, no questions-just pours me a black coffee into a chipped mug. I collapse into a booth by the window clutching the warm mug. The heat stings my palms, but I don’t drink. Not yet. Outside, the fog thickens, and my eyelids sag. Five nights without sleep. How is that possible?
Then Joe slumps into the chair across from me, tossing a greasy rag on the table. I try to smile, but my face won’t move.
‘Still not sleeping?’ he says, wiping his hands on his stained apron.
‘Worse every night. The music. I’m cracking.’
He grunts, eyes flicking around empty café. ‘Eaten anything?’
‘Nothing. I don’t want to. Five days, no sleep. I feel like I’m-’
‘Least someone’s still human around here,’ he mutters. ‘Everyone’s so damn miserable.’
‘Feel as If I’m drowning right about now. I just need sleep.’
He leans in, voice low. ‘That’s the problem-nobody fights back. Filth runs the streets, and this government’s laughing. Laughing at people like you. Good people. Vulnerable people. But no ones got the balls to stand up to it.’
My hands grip the mug, coffee scalding my skin. ‘I just need quiet. A new place. Something where I can rest up. Get away from it all.’
‘And so would I. Get away from this miserable city.’
‘I’d rather just go back to the hospital. Anything is better than this.’
‘Forget it,’ he snaps, not loud, just sharp. ‘They’d rather someone like you choke than fix a damn thing. They don’t care about people like you. Or me. They taxed me dry, and for what? I worked hard my whole life and I’ve got fucking nothing to show for it. No. This government won’t change until they’re forced into it.’
’I can’t keep going. I’m thinking of bridges. Rivers. ’Something is forcing me to open up. ‘There has to be somewhere else. There has to be something or someone that-’
‘And that’s why we’re dying out here. No one’s got the guts to stand up. They’re taxing me to death. Worked hard my whole life. What we need is action. Civil unrest. These politicians are useless bastards. We need action.’
Is he even listening to me? ‘I just feel so hopeless right now,’ I continue. ‘I feel like I’d be better off-’
‘And how do you think I feel?’ What we need is action! People sit around complaining on the internet all day, but when it comes to action, they do fuck all. Everyone’s good at bitching but, when it comes down to it, no one wants to act. It’s all words and no fucking action.′ He slams his hand down hard. ‘They’re happy to take my taxes but don’t want to spend the money on me. Worked hard my whole life...and for what? Fuck all, that’s what!’
The mug trembles, spilling over my fingers. I wish I’d never come in. I can’t take much more.
Joe lights a cigarette and leans in closer. ‘And that’s the fucking problem. Everyone’s happy to sit about moaning and complaining and bitching about everything. Had some homeless guy in here the other day, buying a cup of coffee. He feels the same way but he doesn’t even pay taxes. Can you believe it! Standing their moaning when he doesn’t even pay into the system.’
I nod my head in agreement but my mind is swimming - what do I do next? Do I go to the bridge?
Joe doesn’t let up. ‘I should have left this country years ago. Packed up and left. Packed up and fucking left it to the criminals and migrants.’
I lean back. My chest is tight. ‘Yes,’ I say. I want him to shut up. To leave me alone.
He leans in even closer. ‘And did you hear what happened last week? Some old guy walking his dog over on Grange Avenue. Beaten and robbed by scum at knifepoint. Fuckers even took his dog and hit from a tree near some children’s park.’ He taps ash from his cigarette onto the floor. ‘A children’s park,’ he continues. ‘Little kids had to see that shit!’ He stubs the cigarette out on the table. ’All I’m saying is that we need someone to stand up and take a fucking stand. Someone steps to rob you, then slices them up with a blade. Someone breaks into your business, beat ’em with a fucking bat. Shoot the cunts. Slice ‘em up. But no. All anyone wants to do these days is sit about moaning and bitching. We need action.’
‘I just think people are scared.’
‘And that’s the problem!’ He sits back and scratches his face with his large hand. ‘Take your problem. They’ve housed you in some shithole full of stinking old people. That’s no place for a young lad. You should be out working and building a life for yourself. Not stuck living in some fucking retirement home.’
I nod my head. ‘But that’s all that was available. But now, I just I think I’d be better of--’
‘And the pigs won’t do anything!’ he nearly shouts. ‘Had some bastard in here the other day paying for his breakfast with fake money. Fake fucking money! Called the pigs about it but they aren’t interested. So now it’s up to good people to stand up and take action. Force the government to act. And if they don’t...well...we take matters into our own hands. Get out on the streets. Make our voices heard.’
I’m willing him to shut his mouth. To leave me alone. ‘I just hope something changes,’ I say. I drink the my coffee in two large gulps. It burns on the way down and now I feel worse. Another customer shuffles in. Joe grabs his rag and stands with a heavy sigh. ‘We need fighters, Alex. Not ghosts. People willing to take a stand. Stop this government bullying hard working people.’
I bide my time until Joe’s shadow dips behind the counter, then slip out the front door, heart pounding in my throat. The bridge looms close—its iron railings, rusted black, hunched over the river like some creature bowed by exhaustion. I lean over, peering down into the abyss. The water roars below, a slate-grey maelstrom studded with jagged ice that flashes like shattered teeth, relentless and frigid. The wind slices through my coat, as if to peel away the last of my resolve.
The urge hits hard-step over and let it end. Some pain but then peace. My hands grip the rail, knuckles white, but my feet won’t move. Something’s chaining me here, and I know what it is: cowardice, plain and ugly. Deep down, I’m too gutless to finish it, and that truth burns worse than the freeze.
I board the No. 84 bus and ride it home. Outside the complex, near the main doors, an ambulance idles—its lights flashing briefly before it peels away just as I approach. I don’t know why it was here, but a grim suspicion gnaws at me. Another death. Another murder maybe. Inside, the lobby greets me with a carpet of shattered glass glinting under the dim lights. A needle lies abandoned in a murky puddle—urine, I assume, the stench confirming my guess.
In the hallway leading to my front door, there are fresh stains on the carpet, dark and congealed and a man sits slumped against the wall, a cigarette burning between his fingers. He’s skinny and frail and the skin beneath his eyes is puffy and bruised. I pass him, my head averted.
‘Any spare coin?’ he calls after me, slurring his words.
I keep walking.
‘Well fuck you too then,’ he shouts. ‘I know where you live. I’ll come and cut you up before morning.’
The key shakes in my hand as it’s jammed into the lock. The man is still shouting but I can’t understand what he’s saying. My ears are ringing. I look back but he has gone. Vanished.
Stumbling inside, the door slams shut behind me. The chain and latch goes on. I move to the bathroom and yank the cord and the light flickers on, harsh and buzzing. Then I catch myself in the mirror-bloodshot eyes, cracked lips, stubble crawling over my jaw like a rash. Below the sink is a bottle of cheap vodka. I gulp heavy - it burns like battery acid. A few more gulps then I collapse into the armchair by the bed, the bottle dangling from my hand.
Joe’s words claw at me. Everything he said. “Fighters, not ghosts.” Then my mind lurches to the guy in the hallway-slumped against the wall, reeking of urine and menace. Where did he go? Will he come back? He knows where I live. The thoughts twist my stomach. Fear hits like a boiling wave. Bolting up, I pace the creaky floor, boots thudding, heart slamming against my ribs. No stopping it now. The bridge and the icy water was my best option, and now I’m back here.
I tip the last of the vodka down my throat, forcing it past the burn. It catches-choking me, gurgling up like a blocked drain. It hits fast, a screwdriver to the skull. The rooms lurch, walls spinning like a fucked-clock. Staggering to the kitchen sink, my legs buckle and I slam against the cupboard, sliding down hard onto the floor, a heap of sweat and shakes.
Now the tears come, the first in days-slow, then unstoppable. Sobs rip through me, wet and ragged, shaking my whole body. The vodka churns and claws back up my throat. Lurching over I puke hard-hot, the stinking bile splattering the floor tiles, splashing back on my hands. The room tilts, black edges creeping in, and I slump against the cupboard, a broken mess, until the dark swallows me whole.
ere…
