His mind is now clear of those images of blood and violence. He feels empty.

Still unsure if he is out of danger, he hunkers down beside a pile of rocks and turns to look back into the valley below. He has to rest. More than that, he has to know what is happening.

Like how I can hold my breath for half an hour even when it wasn’t really my breath.

That was Mohserran’s last breath. He understands that, at least. And his father gave it to him so that he could survive, and everything he does from now on will be to honour that gift and to treasure that sacrifice.

Down in the valley an uneven ring of lights surrounds Longford, far out from the town’s furthest extremes. It’s made of vehicle lights and larger, stationary lamps that all shine inwards, illuminating the town’s perimeter. He’s too far away to make out these lamps, but he guesses they’re big barrel-sized apparatus mounted on the backs of trucks, similar to the one they use on TV to send the bat signal into the sky. There are no bat signals here.

He starts to shiver, and not from the cold, because he’s warm and sweating from his rapid climb up the hillside. He’s shaking because he is afraid. He can’t remember ever feeling so alone, and what he can see in the valley reminds him of things he’s seen on TV, movies about aliens and the army, monsters and men with guns coming to blow them away. The kid understands the distinction between truth and make-believe well enough, even though a small part of him—perhaps one informed by his experience of television and comics—understands that something about his life might well be regarded as make-believe by most other people.

Caught within the circle of lights, the air above the town appears heavy with something he can’t quite make out. It’s like mist—although the air is light and dry—rolling and pulsing, moving above and through the town like a living, breathing thing. He can’t see where it’s coming from. He doesn’t know what it is.

This is why he told me to hold my breath.

He thinks of the strange noises he heard in the town, and wonders whether there are still shouts, roars and screams in Longford now. He guesses he won’t hear from this distance.

He’s not too far away to hear the first crackle of gunfire.

* * *

By the time dawn arrives the boy is cold and damp. The horrible thoughts of blood have been purged from his mind, but he knows with a shattering certainty that he cannot go back home. Home is safety and love and warmth, Longford is now just a place.