The sun had set, and the hallway had lost its pinkish tint. In the receding daylight, the pigeon loft

felt clearer than it had in ages, but Ryan still felt suffocated. As soon as he escaped, he breathed in

deep. Ginger was still on the floor, in the recovery position they’d left him in. Ryan sank to his knees,

wincing in pain. Why did his body hurt so much? It was as if he suffered the results of that beating in

the vision. Those awful men, the way they’d clawed and...

A sob broke out of him. Ryan closed his eyes, but it didn’t stop him from seeing, from

remembering. They weren’t his memories. It was all too much. He curled over Ginger’s body, clinging

onto the other man’s shoulder, and the arm that hung limp at his side. Ryan hadn’t cried in years,

couldn’t even remember the last time he had, but he cried now. A well of despair swirled inside him,

and he didn’t know what to do. He was hurting too much.

At first he didn’t feel the hand on his shoulder. Someone said his name and, for one hopeful

moment, he thought it’d been Ginger. When Ryan looked up, he saw Beth crouching next to him. She

smiled at him kindly, her pale grey eyes holding his. She helped him up to sitting, then placed

something in his hand. Ryan looked down at the object. Beth’s wooden pendant. It was wood, surely,

yet it felt curiously hot.

“What –”

“Shh,” she soothed, her hand on his shoulder. With her other, she closed his fingers over the

pendant. “You’re holding onto pain that doesn’t belong to you,” she said softly. “Let it go.”

“Huh? I-I don’t –”

“Let go, Ryan.”

He breathed out a sigh and focussed on the awful images he’d been trying to ignore. The pendant

grew hotter in his hand, almost burning. His skin tingled, a shudder ran down his spine.

“Wh-what’s happening?”

“I’m taking away the pain that doesn’t belong to you. I can’t take away what you saw, but your

body won’t feel it now.”

Ryan breathed again, and was amazed to find that his ribs didn’t hurt. In fact, his body wasn’t

hurting at all. He felt oddly calm. “How...how did you...?”

“Don’t worry about it for the moment.” She smiled at him, patting his hand over the pendant. “Keep

hold of this. You can give it back to me later.”

Ryan watched her fish inside her pocket, pulling out a thin sliver of a mobile phone. He’d been

expecting more pendants, not a piece of modern technology. Beth dialled, putting the phone to her ear.

“Ambulance,” she stated clearly.

The word brought Ryan back to the moment. Ambulance. People unconscious. Ash, Sammy, Pete,

the two paramedic’s. Ginger. Ryan snapped his eyes back to Ginger, still unmoving. He was breathing,

just barely. Ryan stared at his face, willing him to open his eyes.

Maybe Beth could do something? She was speaking on her phone, explaining in a vague way that a

number of people had collapsed upstairs in the building, including the two paramedics. Ryan could

hear the operator asking questions, and Beth giving replies, but he wasn’t listening. At the back of his

mind, he realised that Rachel was downstairs, manning the bar on her own, on a busy Saturday night.

He should probably call Dom, the area manager. Or maybe he could call round the local pubs, and

pool an emergency cover team together.

The thoughts of work whirled on the brink of his mind as he stared down at Ginger. Ryan couldn’t

move away, couldn’t even contemplate moving away. He sat in the curve of Ginger’s body, in too

much shock to act on anything.

* * *

Paramedics stormed up the stairs, crowding around Ginger, trying to move Ryan away as he clung

fast. Beth told them he was in shock. Ryan could hear the words, but he didn’t care. He just had to stay

with Ginger. There was shouting, barked orders. More paramedics squeezed past him, going into the

pigeon loft as Beth instructed. Sheila called to them from inside, and Ryan heard her voice giving a

vague explanation of what had happened.

Then the police arrived, asking questions. Sheila and Beth answered what they could.

“And do you live here?” the officer in charge asked, as two paramedics hefted Ginger onto a

stretcher. They had to move him first, in order to clear the stairwell.

“Nah, mate,” Beth replied, her voice affecting a vacant tone. “We’re friends, we were just drinking

downstairs. We came up to help. Dunno what happened. It’s really weird.”

Ryan left them all behind, following the stretcher down the stairs. Someone had put a blanket

around his shoulders. On one level, he felt faintly ridiculous but, overall, he didn’t care. It felt surreal

to exit through the side door with the paramedics. Ginger’s body was on the stretcher, carried across

the pavement. The night sky was lit up with the now silent flash flash flash of the emergency vehicles,

all parked outside the pub. People he knew spilled out onto the pavement, some even blocking the

road, to get a good look.

Another patrol car arrived. Its siren whirred lowly, as a warning for the gawkers to move away, as it

parked on the curb. Ryan turned his back on it all. He couldn’t lose sight of Ginger. He clutched the

wooden pendant tightly in his hand, feeling like he was on the verge of losing his mind any moment.

Ryan was allowed to sit in the ambulance with Ginger. He climbed inside, helped up by the

paramedics. They spoke to him, but he only answered if they pressed it. He mumbled, “I’m fine.”

It all felt like a dream, or a nightmare. This kind of stuff only happened in movies, didn’t it?

In the ambulance, things were a little quieter. The world outside was noisy, panicked, and flashing

in blue. “What happened?” the voices outside kept asking each other. Muttered speculation.

“Dunno, everyone’s collapsed, apparently.”

A man, one of the paramedics, opened up the door. “Mind the step. That’s it.” He helped someone

in. Ryan glanced up briefly, long enough to see that it was Rachel, then Matt, then he went back to

staring at Ginger.

The paramedic got in after them, and shut the door. “Right, then, let’s get going.”

Rachel was in tears, though Ryan knew that she was unharmed. Thank God. Matt, too, appeared

fine. He sat silently at the end of the bench, his fists clenched tightly. The paramedic crouched in the

narrow aisle, making sure that the stretcher holding Ginger’s body was secured. Someone, another

paramedic, presumably, got into the front of the vehicle and started the engine.

“I just don’t get it,” Rachel sobbed. “What happened? The police asked if it was a gas leak...”

“They’ve closed the pub,” Matt said quietly. “They’ve actually got the yellow tape out, like for

crime scenes.”

Oh, right. Ryan answered in his mind, but the words never untangled themselves enough to make it

into speech. He focussed all his energy into willing Ginger to wake up.

* * *

“I’m fine,” Fizz said. “Please, let me walk.” He didn’t want anybody having to carry him down all

those stairs. The poor paramedics had enough work to do carrying everyone else. His room was full of

people; people collapsed on the floor, being lifted onto stretchers, paramedics tending to them. Fizz

had wanted to see Ash, but Ash was swallowed up in a sea of green uniform as the paramedics

swooped in.

“He’s fine.” Sheila was by his side. “Just not awake yet. I think Sammy came off the worst out of

this, he’s probably got a broken arm.”

“Sammy?” Fizz looked around, trying to see who exactly was in the room with him. What had

happened? He had no memory of this. Had he blacked out? He’d woken up with a jolt, to see a smiling