I had to make up a story about only being able to go to the doctor next week, but the shop assistant helping me believed it and made no fuss. It was a shop for hiking or camping, some kind of outdoors activity. I asked a pharmacist first but luckily the clerk sent me to this outdoors store.

A sturdy splint isn’t as easy to buy or make as I thought. The ones sold are meant to be temporary until you can get some real medical attention.

The outdoor shop I went to keeps small compact first aids to take with you on your activities. I spent so long standing around there looking at all the different first aid kits that I ended up buying one. A time will come when I need it, scrapes from an Ambit or worse. I ended up buying two splints as well. That’s what I made up the story with the late doctor's appointment for, to get the shop assistant to help me put one of the new splints on. Now my broken arm is in a sling, snuggly tucked away against my ribs.

I bought extra bandages and already replaced the ones mom would have noticed missing

Once I was there in Chervoryska, spending the money, I couldn’t stop myself. There seemed to be no reason to hold back and only buy what I needed. That’s how I ended up with a few bags of food among other things. I bought a hoodie, stockings, a long coat, a few pairs of gloves, a few sets of black clothes and shoes, two sets of elbow and knee guards and a pair of steel toe boots.

I realised something when I was buying the splint. For the next month or so, I’m not in a disguise even if I wear the silver helmet to hide my identity. My broken arm in its splint makes sure of that. I’m easily identifiable just because of that common feature that normal clothes can’t obscure.

That’s what made me start looking at clothes. Which led to me buying anything I thought would be helpful like black clothes to use at night, gloves and some protection for my knees. What ended up fixing me being easily identified is the long coat. The colour is dark and it’s big enough that my broken arm, when folded against my ribs in the sling, doesn’t look strange when wearing the coat, especially in the dark. I should be able to move around - mainly stalking Radovan at night - without any problem.

There were only lesser problems left over after that. Like the helmet's mirror finish reflecting any light around it and generally attracting the eye. Between the hoodie and the stockings, I’m hoping that’s fixed too.

That’s why I’ve spent the last twenty minutes struggling to get the silver helmet on. It’s dusk now and I’m going to put on the stocking over the helmet first, then pull the hoodie up. Aside from having a bulbous perfectly round head, I think it should look okay.

When I was at the shops I did think about getting some kind of paint or grease to cover the face of the helmet with but thankfully Delusion told me about the helmet having microscopic holes which provide vision. I would have ended up making a mess and blinding myself. Then spent hours cleaning.

With the stocking on I pull the hood up and tighten it by the drawstrings before tying a loose knot. Have to use my teeth to pull the glove on. But I think I’m ready now.

Mom won’t be home for another few hours so I left my room's window closed but unlocked in case she’s here when I get back. I can dump my helmet into my room rather than bumping into mom. Not sure how she would react. Maybe think I’m a fiend there to steal or mug her.

My steel toe boots crunch on the compressed gravel roads in the last of the dusk under an overcast sky. Rain has darkened the housing district with its wet. However, even now in the cool evening air, the housing district is deserted. No one to see the strange silhouette of my sphere-like head though the rain ended a few hours ago.

I want to run, run through the districts, across the wet streets that have been washed clean. But I can’t. I need my energy in case I need my greater power for later. Never mind the pain running will cause. At the end of the night I’m going to use my greater power like Delusion has said. Getting past this one-shot and drop phase is important.

So, I want to run but I can’t. It’s a long walk to the drug house. Radovan’s car should be there around this time. Maybe he checks how much business there’s been today or delivers stock for tomorrow from his stores, I don’t know. But he should be there. And if he isn’t? I’ll wait and see what happens anyway. I just need to follow him a bit, see where a few other places he frequents are.

Maybe I’ll follow Kostas or Artyom instead if they need to leave on an errand. Good chance they’ll lead me right to Radovan.

A long walk through the housing district in the dark then. There’s not much light here by way of streetlights or light bleeding out of homes. Not even cars. The housing district is near dead.

-

I don’t want to get too close to the drug house because of all the fiends and it being in such close proximity to the park, but Radovan always parks his car behind the drug house. Probably because anywhere else and the fiends would regularly break in during their lapses of judgment. But at the back of their minds they also know whose car it is.

So I’m skirting the park to try and get close enough to spot Radovan’s car.

I move slowly, dreading that I might stand in a spot one fiend or another decided to drop his feces. There’s always a faint scent like that here, this side of-

Brake lights glow in the darkness. Is the car reversing? Driving away?

I drop to the ground awkwardly on my right arm, not daring to put any strain on my break. I can’t tell what the fuck those floating break lights mean in this darkness.

A car's door slams shut and the car begins reversing in earnest.

It must be Radovan. But I’m in the wrong spot. This is exactly what I wanted to avoid.

I only came this close to check if his car is even here. I was meant to wait much further back, maybe looking out from the top of the shortwave tower this side of the block district while watching for headlights. Now I’m way too close to see which district of Toprak Radovan is going to head to.

His silver car makes a U-turn before speeding off. Maybe for the blocks, but who really knows.

Fuck. I walked all this way for nothing.

We’ll I’m trying, aren’t I? I didn’t just say I wanted to stalk him and find his other dealings then conveniently forget about it when I felt better. Because it’s not about me.

Lera can’t stay with people like Radovan. With this threat hanging over her head, whether it’s real or not. Around such easy access to drugs, around the people who push it and the fiends who use it. I have to take her back. But we won’t be safe until they’re all dead.

So I keep going.

I still need to use my greater power tonight before returning home. One of the dead blocks in the block district will have to do. I even have a plan for getting back home afterwards.

Rolling onto my back, I start fishing around for the energy bars I bought from the Outdoors store. I stuffed around ten of the dense bars into my coat pockets earlier. These things are hard. I tried to snap one in half after buying them. Dense like lead, I would break my teeth.

After pushing on the lever to relax my helmet, I tear an energy bar open and start trying to melt part of the bar down in my mouth.

Better get going. The blocks are pretty far away if I’m not running.

-

The furthest dead block from the residents. That will be the one. Less chance of noise carrying over.

This block isn’t abandoned like a few of the others. This block is partially built, a concrete skeleton construction stained by graffiti. Rebar decorates the place, sticking out from the tops of structural pillars, out of the side of stairs without handrails, all along prefabricated walls.

How deep into the building do I go? I don’t know. I want the sound and damage to be shielded from the nearby residents, but the further I go in will be the further I have to come out while dealing with the exhaustion my greater power causes.

I tear open the third energy bar and start sucking on it.

This dead block is dark on the inside. The sky is still overcast so there’s very little light around to reach past the building's concrete remains.

I didn’t bring my torch. The one thing I forgot. But I haven’t needed it yet, only now when multiple stories of concrete slabs prevent ambient light penetrating.

I’ll climb the stairs up a few stories and find a quiet corner.

The half built block is just another tombstone mourning Toprak’s past. A past of promise and purpose when construction was at its peak. When the factories, in their district, billowed smoke by day and night under pressures to keep up with demand and schedules. When the town was growing and homeless were few. People believed Toprak would one day cross over from being a town to being a city back then. Twin cities, Toprak and Chervoryska. Or so my dad said.

It must have been exhilarating to grow up in a time like that. But then it’s easy to understand why Toprak is filled with broken spirits after seeing it all crumble.

I stagger over refuse in the dark and onto the third floor. Slabs of passageway with no railing stretch out before me.

Somehow it feels like I’m being watched here. A restlessness fills me and I can’t help but peer around. Likely, the energy bars at work. Or fiends reaching for whatever little shelter they can in the shadows.

A pillar or a wall, which would be better to use for my greater power? Damaging a support pillar with me in the building seems dangerous. A wall will do.

I begin wandering deeper into the structure, weaving between what might be normal passageways around a block and through half finished apartments, around rebar fences and along prefabricated walls. I stick to the passageway side when I can, where a sheer three story drop allows what little light there is to filter in. The effect is like I’m partially blind. No colour reaches my irises. A grayscale landscape of concrete and shadow stretches into the depths of the block.

I almost stumble as something hard and brittle cracks under my boot. My heart leaps with the thought of falling near the edge of the passage that has no railing and a three story drop. I turn and kick whatever I nearly tripped down the passage. A bone of some kind. Probably a chicken bone tossed after kids or one of the homeless were done with it.

This place is disgusting. Smells like there’s something dead around too. I’ll find a freestanding wall quickly and get out of here.

One or two would be apartments further along the passage I find a prefabricated concrete wall tucked away. Construction must have stopped around here. This lone wall likely being the last thing placed and secured, possibly for a janitor's closet, maintenance access or just the start of the next apartment.

I walk around the wall and make sure I’m not going to accidentally collapse it onto a homeless man and his square of cardboard. Turning back, I start walking over to a good spot to trigger.

Movement in the shadows of the passage I walked through earlier catches my eye. There’s someone back there, a vague shape, shifting in the darkness, making no effort to hide itself. I quickly reach past my hoody and into the back of my helmet and pull the lever, tightening the silver scales into a perfect sphere.

“I can see you.” My muffled voice bounces down the half built passage.

Maybe that was a stupid thing to do. But I just feel…

Frustrated.

Someone else can run for a change. A fiend or a kid from the bocks. They can run this time.

I begin pacing down the passageway towards the silhouette. Who’s going to break first? Doesn’t feel like me tonight when I have my greater power tingling along my arm.

Before I can get much of a look, whoever it is slinks into one of the partially built apartments.

That’s not enough. Whoever it is needs to run. I can’t be using my greater power here with someone watching me. I’ll chase the fiend off.

Starting to move slowly, I silence the steps of my steel toe boots and begin stalking closer to the partially built apartment. My boot bumps into something and it skids across the floor to the edge of the passage that drops down three stories. Another bone.

The pale bone littering the floor stands out more near the edge in the partial light. No wonder I stepped on one earlier. But this one doesn’t seem small enough to be a chicken bone like the other.

That bad feeling of being watched earlier grips me again and I can’t help but get down on my knees. Something isn’t right here. The backdrop of light coming from the edge of the passage reveals a handful of silhouettes on the floor. More bones by the shapes of the few I can make out.

I freeze. Delusion warned me about this.

It is no longer safe to go out at night.

He repeated himself several times. Sure, I was in the tunnels and busy with an Ambit, but he kept emphasising his warning. How did I forget about that?

My heartbeat is suddenly in my ears as the potential danger of what I saw earlier, slinking away between concrete walls and pillars, might be.

Is this old block the creature's den? Am I being hunted? How do I get out of here? Is there another way down than the stairs I used to come up?

There could be but I can’t see for shit. Normally I would just jump down a story, maybe using some of the rebar sticking over edges if I had to. But I can’t now. The landing of a drop that high would feel like breaking my arm all over again.

I’ll have to just retrace my steps. It’s the only way and I’ll kind of know where I’m going.

I get to my feet and try to be even quieter than before. But now my slightest step is like grinding a spade against the floor, and my half breath has the sound of trees rustling from wind.

I’m going to blast this thing if I see it. Blast it and run.

I bring my working arm up and try put my greater power on a hair string trigger like I felt with Lubov.

Step by step I make my way down the passage. Step by step I make my way closer to one of the partially built apartments it slunk into.

Is it waiting, preparing an ambush?

A gap for a doorway between two concrete prefab walls is coming up. I edge closer and closer, wanting to be right on the brink of popping around the corner so I can see it before it sees me.

I step out suddenly, my boot scraping sand and concrete beneath me. I can almost hear the echo of my scuff off the walls.

Nothing. A Rebar grid with darkness below is what I find. Not even a floor in this apartment. I turn to quickly retreat to the passage but a tangle of some knotted mess in the corner of the rebar grid catches my eye. I can’t be sure of it in this poor light, but by the terrible smell of death coming from this apartment, I think those are someone or somethings remains.

Whatever is lurking here mu-

A brittle snap echoes up and down the dead block. It’s the same sound as the bone I stepped on.

I’m going to blast it.

I move quickly this time. My boots still not making much sound as I cross the distance of the next two prefab walls. I don’t hesitate at the doorway of the next apartment. I step into it, arm raised and hoping my greater power is on as much of a hair trigger as it feels.

The creature is crouched down on overly long hands and feet before a broken bone. I continue moving towards it as it looks up.

I want to blast it point blank.

Beaded eyes find me. They’re framed with a long arched brow, so long that the skin seems stretched. Its nose has been broken or torn off. Bloody bone pokes through the skin there; the arch of the nasal bone.

I won’t wait for it. I take one final step as it begins to move and the air snaps. I see a brief glimpse of it being bolted across the floor towards another rebar grid where un-laid flooring falls into darkness. The dust and sand explode upwards from the force of my greater power and I’m blinded.

Coughing from the dust, I know I don’t have any other choice but to run now. I can’t use my greater power again. I can already feel it hollowing out my chest.

The energy bars better work.

Turning, I tear out of the room and start running down the passageway, my good arm holding my broken one. I’m about to slow down thinking of the stair without handrails and the three story drop when I hear it, this thing. It lets out a scream like its voice is a knife edge.

I’m getting down to the bottom and running before it finds me.

My broken arm has been stabbing me with pain all this time and starting to take the stairs down six at a time doesn’t help either. I’m fully winded now, my greater power having caught up with me. I feel empty. But I can’t stop. Those energy bars must have been worth something.

My boot lands on the second story floor and I hear a large metallic object batter the floor or wall several rooms away. A sheet of metal or maybe a door, it echos against the concrete surfaces essentially deafening me.

No time to stop. No time to look where it is.

I leap down the next set of stairs. Only I don’t. I fall. My legs aren’t strong enough to carry my landing anymore. Tucking my broken arm in further I crouch around it as I tumble down. The top of my helmet bounces off something as I hit the landing before the last set of stairs.

I can’t help but grunt in pain. My head is fine, but all this running and jumping feels like it’s grinding my broken bones together.

Still cradling my arm, I roll up and start running on wobbly legs. It takes me longer to reach the bottom, but I do.

I pause for a moment on the ground floor. My breathing is shaky and I know I should be running or at least jogging away from here, but I’m worried that creature is already down here waiting for me.

Looking across what could be the blocks yard or maybe the car park, trying to pick out anything of a similar shape, anything moving slightly, I try to make a decision. Run or wait.

All is still. Unnaturally, eerily still.

I can’t wait too long either way. I set off slowly and crouching down, aiming for the nearest cover to break line of sight with the dead block; An abandoned stack of prefabricated concrete slabs. My legs are shaking now because of the strain. They don’t want to be crouching and putting in extra effort.

Getting to the next populated block will be enough. Once I’m there I can rest.

My arm supports me as I grip the corner of stacked concrete slabs and make my way out of line of sight.

I need to hear. I need to listen out so I can tell if it’s following me.

My body goes still and I try control my breathing for a minute.

Another frustrated growl of metal on a knife's edge pierces the night. It goes on for a few seconds, echoing through the dead block.

I’m all fucking jumpy right now so I tense up and my broken arm bursts into pain.

It’s still in the dead block, lost or hurt hopefully. I don’t think it over anymore. I’m already running across the stone yard for the nearest populated block.

I keep going, a sad excuse for running. A lethargic shuffle as I struggle to raise limbs as needed, stumbling every few steps. My breathing comes in stinging gulps of air. But the light of a few of the windows in the populated block guide me.

Further, further. I’m beginning to feel safer now, the dead block so far away and the populated block close enough to smell food cooking.

I wander between the two blocks sharing this yard and start looking for the back entrance. Couldn’t see the front entrance in the dark. Didn’t want to walk around in the open, exposed.

The back entrance to the block will take me to the ground floor near where the machine room is, where residents come wash their clothes. The back entrance is always easy to find, multiple washing lines in the yard are always near it.

I start ducking under clothes as I zero in on the back door. Someone must have left their washing out tonight after the rain. All the better for me. The effort it takes to move around it is tiring, but I feel even more shielded.

Leaning against the door frame, I push myself up the steps into the block's ground floor. I let go of my broken arm for the second time since I started running and keep myself from falling over by leaning on the walls as I turn down the short passage to the machine room.

I don’t care if anyone’s in there at this hour. I’ll just be a weird teenager who should be home in bed.

The hum of powered washing machines find my ear as I step into the room and I collapse onto one of the wooden benches on the far wall. Tilting my head as to try and hide my actions, I look around the room cautiously.

It’s empty. What a relief.

My good arm numbly reaches past my hoody and into the back of my helmet. I struggle for a minute to pull the lever, with the lever repeatedly snapping back into its closed position before moving over the crescent of its arc. Shaking fingers eventually push it over and I jam an energy bar into my mouth.

I still need to get home.

Maybe when I’ve rested for an hour or so.

Can’t believe after all that, after Delusion warning me about this thing, I still walked right into it. Also, how has no one living in the blocks around here noticed it? People should have seen it around as it stalked residents or slunk between shadows. Even the noise it makes, people should have heard.

I gently gnaw on the energy bar as it softens.

My arm throbs painfully in rhythm with my heart beat. I sit trying not to think, not to move, and wait for the minutes to pass. Willing the energy bar to melt down.

Eventually I worry that I’m not going to get any strength or energy back without real rest. I’ve managed to gnaw into half the energy bar. This will have to be enough. If I don’t get home to rest I’m going to end up falling asleep here.

Then again, maybe I should just sleep here. Going out there into the block district so late at night when I’m feeling unbelievably weak might be just as stupid as forgetting Delusion’s warning in the first place.

Sleeping here would be a relief.

I Pull the stocking off my helmet and shove it into a coat pocket. After pushing my hoodie back, I unhook the helmet at the back where the first and last scale meet. I struggle, but it comes off me as a length of scales in a chain again.

How to hide it? Laying it along the length of my body under my long coat should work while I sleep.

I lie down on my back along the wooden bench and begin struggling with the coats buttons. Feels like I struggle for thirty minutes to undo the buttons, insert the length of scales and make sure I’m comfortable, then do all the buttons up again.

I feel exhausted. I would not have made it home, I’m sure. But the washing room here has some warmth from all the machines or the heated water needed. Whatever it is, I appreciate it.

With my hoodie back on and the drawstrings tied off, I close my eyes for the night.