There's some things you have to get off your chest before the blood dries. You tell him he's shit in bed and that's why you've been shagging Rob every time he's out on a run. You tell him he's a dreamer with the brains of a potato who was never going to make it, no matter how this deal went. You've been wishing for a heart attack to permadeath him every time he crams another pizza crunch into his bloated, greasy gob. You wish you were a million miles away from this forgotten patch of concrete they call town. A million miles from him.

Eternity is still in your pocket, for now. But possibility is fast becoming probability. Best to say all this while you can.

But all Crib does is shrug. Like he knew all this already, and he doesn't give a shit. The reaction makes you want to turn that potato brain to mash right now. But you manage to stop the gun halfway up. It wouldn't be fair. You really do mean everything you've said. But still, you and Crib have been through a lot together. Soon, you'll be free. Its not like you have to spend eternity with him.

And besides, time isn't up yet. Maybe you'll still get out of this one.

Everyone knows eternity will be better than all the nothing going on around you. But something about lack of control intrigues you. You've got some reservations about the absence of struggle that awaits you. Because struggle is all you've ever known.

There's plenty of struggle now, because things are well and truly out of control. Crib has his back to you, wiping the red off his hand onto a charity banner. The colours of the supermarket bloom out from him, pulsing with your heartbeat. Shelves of tomato ketchup complement the mess by the checkout. Boots at the kiosk. Hand, limp, on the conveyor.

And there's no way in to the till. Not without a colleague log in. You don't think you can call for a manager now either. You know for all your planning you're stupid just the same. You deserve death.

There's the frantic thudding of feet by the doors. Even Crib hears and turns. Sirens too. They'll be armed but there's no immediate danger. Life is precious. It's how people like you can get away with crap like this.

The pounding halts. A policeman in a padded vest edges silently to the glass. He has a handgun clasped firmly in both fists. A touch of grey in his once tar-black short back and sides. You wonder how many years it took him to get to this point, on a response as important as this. Enough years to get an apartment out on the Sea Wall, you decide. Nice view, away from all this. His perfect wife and glowing children are waiting for him. He has bowling booked for eight. Then they'll go get noodles. He was hoping to get away a bit early. Quiet day. But the disturbance came first.

"I just want to talk," he calls out in a tone a little higher than expected. Trepidation. Uncertainty. Fear. You relish every twitch of his head as he approaches. This is what it would be like to live without eternity, you realise with slow satisfaction. Never knowing which moment might be your last. The thought makes you feel warm and tingly inside. Secure.

When the policeman reaches the doors, they glide open and Crib stands up behind the counter and blasts him. His handgun goes skidding off down the tiles on the ramp, its metallic rattle drowned by screams for help. They're all over the place, maybe round the back. Thirty, perhaps more, against two untrained opportunist druggies from the places where the patrols don't come any more, two classless scum with dodgy weapons off the dock that will probably jam up after a couple more shots. You've had your fair share of luck, yet you hope for a little more, to get you out of this shop. At least a bit further down the street.

You reach across and pull Crib down behind the conveyor as bullets fly. But they're way overhead. They're still trying to scare you into surrender. But what fun would that be? So you push that luck a bit more. A finger wave at Crib's crouching bulk. Then, you're sliding off down an aisle, then up on your feet and sprinting for the warehouse. Guns roar behind. Something deadly slips by an inch from your arm. You tip your head back and howl up at the skylights, tasting life. Crib laughs like a loon just behind.

There's a keypad by the warehouse door. It's time to test that luck again. You can't think about it because there's nothing to actually think about. Either you get it and go on a bit longer or you don't and this is where it ends.

You reach out one grimy glove and tap it out. 1.2.3.4. There's a click. You push and you're into the gloom of the the stock room. You just knew it would be that. Thick shits. And they think you're the mindless ones.

It's Crib's turn to play hero. You can't get out the back because they're already there, ramming the door down with one of those big metal things, but Crib's found a ladder leading to a loading bay midway up the racking. You climb and wait in the dark. You marvel at all those ants scurrying about, every one focused on you and the chaos you have caused. You're so important and you were only after some spare change before the big hit at the factory next week.

It's comical, the way it plays out. There should have been a lookout, but when the door breaks and clangs onto the concrete floor, they all pile in, screaming for glory, desperate to be the one who bags you. All you do is wait for them to start searching and then squeeze through the hatch and out into the yard where they've all come from. It's a shame you can't shut that big door behind them, hear them pounding to be let out so they can kick the shit out of you.

It's surprisingly quiet outside. And the town is strangely beautiful when you're so close to death. The money is good, when you get it, but this is what it's all about for you. The high of being alive.

The sky is turning pink over the warehouses, reflecting in the waters of the old quay where the yard slopes down to a cargo ramp. It's suddenly quiet, only the clomping clumsy boots of Crib slapping through the sunset. You both tense as a siren wails out of an alley to your right, but it's another band of goons after another band of low-lifes. There are plenty in these parts.

You look back. No signs of a chase. They get more and more stupid every time. And they'll be gone soon enough. It wouldn't do for the police to be out here after dark.

All in all, it was disappointingly easy to get out.

You tell Crib you're sorry about the things you said, back there in the shop. It was just, if it was the end, they were things he needed to hear. Because it was true in a way eternity wouldn't be. It was true because it couldn't change in a heartbeat.

Crib just shrugs, grunts that you'd have had the cash if you hadn't been so slow with security in the office. That was also true. It seems you both have faults. And what were you going to do now, to pay for tonight? You'll just have to have another favour off the squad on Ember. It will work out in the end.

And if it doesn't, never mind.

You walk in silence for five minutes along the cracked wall of the quay, which last saw a boat about a hundred years ago. Then, just when you're about to think of something else to say, it happens.

Spotlights banish the gloom. There's shouting and barking dogs. The thunder of a megaphone telling them to drop their weapons and put their hands above their heads. The clapping of boots to left and right as they form a ring around the quay.

Crib yells and drags you across the wall. You sink down onto freezing stone. But no-one tries to shoot you, because they know they have you. The bastards tricked you, played you into thinking that luck had gone on again, let you saunter straight into their trap. There's cops all around, beyond that wall, and in the other direction, just the water and the lightless buildings on the opposite bank, jutting into that beautiful sunset.

Oh well. Maybe, you think, this was a decent way to go out after all.

You look over at Crib. He knows it too. There's time for a kiss, you know, the police are still wary, but there's no point. That's enough of reality for one lifetime. You suppose it was alright while it lasted, as long as you made your own fun.

You reach into your pocket. So does Crib, like a mirror image, only uglier. Eternity is just a small, speckled tablet, nothing much to look at. It tastes even worse. But as you swallow, the approaching officers melt away and so does the water and the town and the sunset and something wonderful takes its place, something you could never have imagined in the old world, and this will be your home for all time, and there is nothing to fear.

* * *

Cautiously, Seargent Williams peaks over the wall. It is five minutes since they heard any noise from the other side. There they lay, limp like boned fish, against the outer edge, eyes open, seeing things that aren't there. Quickly, before anyone else can see, he boots the woman sharply in the ribs, hoping something gets through to that dreamworld. "Clear," he calls, and the paramedics come in and wrap them in blankets and take their vitals. It's always a shame they have to be looked after like this, especially these two, after what they've done today. Another friend down, among many. Just another day in this sorry excuse for a town.

But there's just one thing that makes Seargent Williams smile as he watches his colleagues climb into the ambulance, guns at the ready. These two might spend centuries building their kingdoms, whole millenia in the stars, lifetimes upon lifetimes with the fairies. But they're wrong, a false hope that he has never been keen to dispel.

There's no such thing as eternity.

And here, in the real world, in about ten minutes time, they are going to find that out for themselves.