I stay on the ground for a while, drifting in and out of consciousness. Ben texts me again and I manage to read his message, but I don’t reply. He asks how I am and says he’ll come downstairs with some food for me later. It makes me want to laugh. And then several voices like a chorus speak at once in my mind. All of them, in unison, tell me to eat. On the floor next to me, Yaga’s mouth opens and she says, in a voice that doesn’t sound human or animal, “Feed me, Lydia.” Then my body stands up, lifted by my hunger, and I go out, with just my keys and my phone in my pocket.

It is already dark outside. It’s getting colder too. People have scarves around their necks. Behind windows, there are people sharing food and drinking hot chocolates and coffees, or holding wineglasses and talking animatedly. Other people are out running. Some are walking dogs. I walk along the river for a while, doubled over in pain and breathless, looking over the edge of the railing, down at the river, watching out for sand, and for animals, dead or dying, perhaps even alive, to eat.

Everywhere around me, I smell people’s blood; I hear it in their systems, to the extent that I feel like I know, intimately, the layout of each of their bodies, the distance between all the different valves in their hearts and their lungs, and the size of their muscles. When I walk past a couple of men who seem like they’re in a rush, clutching hot drinks in takeaway cups and struggling with the lids that they haven’t put on properly yet, I sense a little knot in one of the men’s legs, halfway up his thigh—a blood clot—and I briefly consider telling him. But I don’t. I keep walking. Rain starts falling. I weave in and out through crowds, staggering as I go, and cross the river. All the people running past me, some glancing at me and avoiding my path; all the people ducking under shelters; all the people with umbrellas up, hoods up, or ducking into pubs, hands over pint glasses; they all exist in my world for a moment, and then disappear from it quickly, the rain closing behind them as a sheet, like a curtain.

I keep to the light and look through the windows of restaurants and pubs. I climb up the stairs of a theater and see people inside standing around in little groups on a red carpet and talking. There are tall tables some stand around with bowls of sharing food on top—nuts and crisps and dips and olives. I keep walking, past an Italian bistro in which people are eating seafood pasta; in another restaurant, two people have a huge plate of oysters between them; a man and a woman are talking animatedly about something they have on their table—a thick wad of paper that has text on it and notes written in pen—while they share food in a Peruvian restaurant. “Have you tried the scallops?” someone says. “Have you had time to look at the menu?” says another person. Two women, all in black, with instrument cases, are sharing a bottle of wine outside. A waiter comes out with a platter of sushi.