I walked all through the night. I had a destination in mind to begin with but somewhere along the way I got lost and my sleep-fogged brain couldn’t think clearly enough to come up with a new one. I kept moving and searching, looking for danger, finding nothing but afraid to stop and rest. The stars wheeled overhead, the summer constellations dipping below the horizon, and the people I passed in the night became faceless blurs, threats to be avoided.

By the time the sky started to lighten in the east I was too tired to keep going. I was afraid to stop moving and afraid to sleep, but my limbs felt like lead and I was starting to get the weird light-headed feeling that comes with sleep deprivation. Going to Elsewhere doesn’t refresh you in the way that true sleep does; your body rests, but your mind doesn’t. The constant stress was draining my energy reserves and I was reaching my limits.

I didn’t know where in London I was anymore; I had the vague feeling I was south of the river but I’d gotten lost after crossing Waterloo Bridge. I’d passed hotels, but I didn’t want to use them; hotels had people, and people were dangerous. Instead I searched the short-term futures as I walked, looking for somewhere empty.

There was an old building down a narrow back street in the shadow of a red-and-brown tower block. It had been a pub once, but the sign was faded and the windows boarded up. Someone had smashed one of the boards around the back, and I used it to climb in. The ground floor was covered in bottles and plastic bags and old needles and rotting food, and it stank of piss and decay. I found a way up to the second-floor rooms; they were bare planks but at least they didn’t stink as badly. There were signs someone else had used the place—a lice-ridden mattress and some food wrappers—but it was empty now and that was all I cared about. I curled up in a corner and tried to rest.