The old one leads you both from the building. If anyone in the lobby takes notice, they hide it well. You cross the city, street after putrid street, unsure where you are going, following like faithful pets, the boy tightly holding the old one’s hand. You are scrambling over broken paving slabs and litter. Occasionally broken human beings. The air is rich with fog and morning. There is the light of a new day, but somewhere beyond, upwards, there is a closer light on the horizon, buildings of a district you barely know. The city beyond your city. It twinkles with reluctance, a rare stone trapped in dull earth. And the old one takes you towards this place, guiding your younger self with a gentle hand, making sure he does not fall, whispering, showing him the way.

There is a wound cut deep into the centre of the metropolis. It is centuries old, bleeding south until it reaches the ocean. Once it was a river, but that was when it brought life, vitality, and later, wealth. Now it is stained brown with neglect, the rotting flesh of the dead souring its taste, bringing sickness where it once brought prosperity, mortality where there was hope. The stink is like the tepid warren of sewers beneath your feet. The sound is a lazy slosh of water almost too thick to move. The old one brings you closer to the edge of the wound, as close as he can, and stops. On your side there is darkness, humped shadows, a smell of moss, the soft slap of moored boats. On the other side there are lights illuminating a wooden dock, a ladder, steps. There is no need for words, at least between the older one and you. For the boy there is confusion, yet he smiles.

‘You will be chased,’ older one says. ‘By a group of boys, right?’

‘Some young men,’ you correct. ‘But mostly boys.’

‘They will chase you here,’ the old one continues, ‘where they’ll stop, and catch you and beat you. They’ll make you join them. But you can’t. You have to get away. You have to cross the river.’

The boy stands silent, gazing over the water. You recognise the smell now, that first encounter with him in your flat. It was him. It was here.

‘Now?’ he says, looking up.

‘Yes. You can make it; you just give up when you get here. You let them catch you. But you can’t. You have to swim.’

You remember it well. The fear, the ache from running, amplified when you saw dark water. You didn’t believe you could. What happened afterwards was a blur, as though you sank beneath the water anyway, only to emerge years later wrinkled by immersion, dripping experience. You believed the pain of not making it was better than the pain of trying to. The old one’s right, you realise. It shaped who you became. You were wrong.