“Hey, Yaga,” I say. Everything about her looks more pronounced: the darkness of her wooden face, the blackness of her clothes and her eyes. “I ate,” I tell her. I put her in my rucksack. Then I leave, to go and pick up my mum, and then to go elsewhere, onward, somewhere.

As I step out of my studio, Ben appears at the foot of the stairs. He’s holding a Pret bag that looks like it’s full of food, and a cardboard container of soup; he carefully places the soup on the floor, and then looks for something in his pockets.

Looking at him now, it feels like the first time I have ever seen him; behind him, the part of his life that he has lived already bobs up and down, filling the stairwell; ahead of him, his future extends out, turning from where he stands and reaching toward me. I can see hints of grief in it, and also other things—his little sister, his dad, the home he grew up in, and his bedroom, which is still decorated as it was when he was a child, with blue walls, and a border of trains along the top—but I also see that it has a definitive end. While I saw the lives of others extend for decades and decades ahead of them, Ben’s cuts off sharply in just a couple of years. What is ahead of him is just the equivalent of a child’s life.

I move closer to him, closing the door to my studio silently behind me, and staying in the shadow cast by the stairs. I could tell him about the shortness of his time, I think, and maybe the course of his life would be altered and he would live on for a good few decades. Or else, I could turn him; I could stretch his tiny life to oblivion, distorting it in the process, making it strange and unnatural like mine. I can’t decide what to do. I stay very still. He has his phone in his hand now, and he’s texting. Then my own phone vibrates in my pocket and he turns around, squinting in my direction.

“Lyd?” he says. I see how beautiful his little life is; it kind of glistens in this light, perfectly formed, even though it is short. It’s irresistible. I step out of the shadow and, immediately, Ben’s expression changes—he looks shocked, and frightened. I must look mad and monstrous, filled with other people’s lives. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and see that it is covered in blood.