What are you afraid of, then?

The question curled its way into her consciousness but only served to spur her on. She pointed herself towards the crowds and busy traffic of London Bridge Road and staggered along in her heels.

She couldn’t think about that. She couldn’t think about why she was running or what she had just done. Better to just lurch along numbly in this insulating haze.

She turned the corner onto the main road and was swept along with a group of people at the crossing. She found herself in one of the outlying areas of Borough Market, a kind of glassed-in picnic area on most days, but tonight it had been transformed. People ten years her junior mingled, drinking, talking, laughing.

Anna entered and pushed her way through them until she reached the solid structure of a bar and clung onto it with both hands. ‘Gin! Double!’ she yelled at the bartender. The gin arrived in what looked like a goldfish bowl on a thin glass stalk, but Anna didn’t care what kind of glass it was in; it wasn’t going to be staying in there long anyway. She downed it and shoved the glass back in the direction of the bartender, who nodded and refilled it as nonchalantly as if she’d been politely asking for a vanilla latte.

She bumped up against something, realized it was a bar stool, and slid onto it.

No, this was not happening again.

Damn that man for waking her up, for changing her from a sleepwalker into… this. This person who could think and feel, who had so much more to lose than a semi-conscious zombie. It was all his fault.

For a moment, she managed to cobble just enough anger together to justify her actions. But only for a moment. After that, it all began to slide, down and down into a vast black pit that was opening up inside her.

Anna only knew one way to deal with these kinds of feelings. She needed to return to that state, that place – calm and blank and peaceful. But since there were no soft white sheets here, no duvets to be seen, Anna picked up her gin and began to drink.

BRODY CLOSED THE bathroom door, walked over to the toilet and put the lid down. He sat on top of it, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Oh, God. That had been humiliating and embarrassing and terrifying. Basically, his worst fears about a panic attack come to life.

All those people looking at him… And he’d had no way to get away from them, paralysed by his own mind and body.

Thankfully, he’d managed to convince the paramedics he was fine, quietly outlining to them his history as the lift attendant had shooed the gathering crowd back around the corner and out of view. After a few tests and checks, the medical professionals had reluctantly agreed. They’d been really nice about it, actually. Which had only made him feel even more stupid and helpless.