‘From you?’ comes the voice. ‘Truly, not very much. I’ll settle for your death.’

Fin grinds his teeth, swallowing blood and gritty, bitter air. Focuses on the voice. Manages to locate a little column of darker air, somewhere off to his left, where the sound seems to be coming from. He focuses on it. Watches the darkness delineate into a form. Broad shoulders, stocky legs, the perfectly smooth outline of a domed head. He glares at the shape, trying to make sense of it. There are no blurs to the edges – no suggestion of clothing. He can make out the exact outline of a physical form: a silhouette; a cardboard cut-out, black and silky, like tadpoles.

‘Why? Why me …?’

A flash of flame. The sudden suggestion of a long, sunken face, all hollows and dips, as if the features were an assemblage of twisted tree roots and wet earth. A burning ember, now. The rasp of fire eating paper; the sudden pungent stench of cigarettes.

‘I made you, boy,’ comes the voice, smoke bleeding into the air. ‘If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t exist. Your mammy, your daddy, they made you while I was being buried in the earth. Brought them together, so I did.’

Fin tries to reply but the pain in his throat is becoming unbearable. His legs are cramping up. He can feel dizziness, a bone-crunching weariness, starting to take little bites out of him. He wants to close his eyes. Wants to let go, and drift into a place without pain.

‘Your grandfather,’ he says, a hint of true feeling creeping into the lifeless voice. ‘He thinks I begrudge him his vengeance. He thinks I’m hurting his kin because I’m angry about what he did to me. Truth be told, I understand. I came for his daughter. He was entitled to do whatever he saw fit. Kept me in the dark, underground, more dead than alive, watching the worms fall from the earth like rain, watching my skin devour itself, my bones twist and splinter, feeling myself decompose while I was still alive. He did what any man would do. Did less than your mammy would do if she were here now.’

Fin can’t seem to make sense of the words any more. There’s a thudding in his ears. He’s aware of his heart – can see it pumping, flexing, a fist-sized lump of gristle expanding and diminishing like a bullfrog’s throat. He gasps. Tries to shout. Feels spit run down his chin.

‘Don’t go dying yet, boy,’ comes the voice, and Fin is suddenly aware of movement, a ripple of silk as the black figure moves quickly towards him, the cigarette’s tip a lance-point bearing down upon his exposed, upturned face.

A flash of a blade, and then the sudden blessed release as he crumples onto the hard ground, his knees and face smacking down on concrete. He sucks in a breath. Throws up. Gags on mucus and blood and the salty snowflakes and curls into a ball, feeling returning to his wrists and hands with such sudden savageness that he lets out a shriek.