• The fol­low­ing is a pre­view of Chap­ter I of Only Shad­ows Ahead:

     When I opened my eyes, all the build­ings had gone. The taste of salt and sand filled my mouth, per­haps even a stray string of sea­weed, but I was at peace con­sid­er­ing. The sky was blue for the most part, descend­ing into grey beyond the shore, and the air cool and refresh­ing. I knew I had some obsta­cles ahead, to what­ever end I was head­ing for, but that was not a con­cern — some­thing to deal with later. For now, I was alive and intact. I could stand as I did and brush the beach from my clothes, spit the sand from lips, and take a big fat breath of free air. That said, now what was I to do? Beyond the beach and the white of the break­ing surf, sheer stone cliffs craned over me like over­bear­ing par­ents, blot­ting out that sky I enjoyed so much. A climb looked less than invit­ing, less than safe to be hon­est. A quick look around the beach told me noth­ing new; it was either back into the water or up. I was a dodgy climber, but an even dodgier swim­mer — I must have floated most of the way here, because I cer­tainly didn’t breast­stroke my way to freedom.

     I would go up, hap­haz­ardly prov­ing grav­ity wrong.

     By the time I got to some­thing resem­bling a halfway point, I was exhausted. The sun had dipped, the grey clouds were gath­er­ing and a wind was begin­ning to tug at me, threat­en­ing to dis­lodge me from the cliff and send me plum­met­ing to a quick death. I thought I was more or less fin­ished; the rest of my climb to be a hilar­i­ous exam­ple of bad moun­taineer­ing. Then I reached for a new perch, and pulled myself into some kind of mid­way cave. It was black and creepy, I should have expected noth­ing less. I walked a few steps into this new and excit­ing place, feel­ing the walls as I went. It would take time for my night vision to kick in, so I tried to lis­ten and smell, to take in all that I could which wasn’t much. In the end, I slowed to a crawl and even­tu­ally stopped, rest­ing and star­ing at noth­ing. I’d never been a fan of the dark, it was so bor­ing. The ten­sion of the unknown wasn’t intrigu­ing to me, it was time con­sum­ing. If some­thing was going to jump out and bite me: bug, bat or vam­pire, do it already.

     Time even­tu­ally granted me with the abil­ity to see once more, which was less reward­ing than I’d hoped. The cave sim­ply went on, and on, and on. Pools of water dot­ted the floor, though whether from rain or rodent piss I had no idea. I was thirsty yes, but not that thirsty. I must have dou­bled the dis­tance since enter­ing when I came across a col­umn of sky shin­ning down from high above. I looked up, try­ing not to destroy my new bat-vision, and accepted that unless I could some­how inflate myself and float out, I was not get­ting up there.

     I was begin­ning to get hun­gry when I found my next won­der on this intre­pid jour­ney. The cave had widened out at some point, finally dis­pens­ing me into a large cav­ern. Of course it was empty save a few tufts of grass at its cen­tre, but I wasn’t alone any­more. I could hear the soft­est of squeaks. A mouse? Would it have cheese? Don’t be ridicu­lous, but could I eat it? Pos­si­bly, though uncooked would add vio­lent bowel move­ments to an ever-growing list of chal­lenges. So, eat­ing it wasn’t a good idea, but then I remem­bered the escape hole back in the tun­nel. Perhaps…

     Wait­ing for a crea­ture so small was a test I’m sure. Was there a time-frame on use­ful­ness? This mouse could help me escape the caves, and it knew it. It was if the lit­tle bas­tard was putting his affairs in order and say­ing his good­byes before the end, which I guess was fair. But now I was at the point of mak­ing excused for a mouse’s tar­di­ness, surely it had been long enough? It must have agreed, as no sooner had a re-adjusted my posi­tion it bolted out from a hole between the grass and ran for the tun­nel behind me. I pounced — as is the tra­di­tional way of catch­ing a mouse I think — grab­bing it with my hand and land­ing with a thud. The air explod­ing from my lungs left me winded; a small vic­tory for my lit­tle dead friend. As I rolled over, climb­ing to my knees and throughly wreck­ing my trousers, I gave it a quick squeeze, break­ing its neck.

     The tun­nel was as wel­com­ing as ever, the light still shin­ning down from unreach­able heights. Not for long, I thought, feel­ing smart. The mouse was still warm as I stood to one side of the hole above. I fid­dled in my pocket with my free hand, pulling out an injec­tor. Sea water had got­ten into it, but I knew that meant lit­tle. These things were built out of mate­ri­als far from the annoy­ances of rust. I set it to extract and jammed it into the mouse, the lit­tle thing deflated like a saggy bal­loon. Throw­ing it aside, I set the tool to inject and pulled back my col­lar. I had never been a fan of this part of the process, it just seemed so basic and rudi­men­tary — metal tubes and syringes. But it was a neces­sity, if I wanted to get out of this theme park of tun­nels and dead mice alive, I had to do it. The injec­tor stung in that famil­iar cold sen­sa­tion, pump­ing the blood of the mouse into my jugu­lar with a hiss. A moment or two passed as the cock­tail went about its course, then my body went numb and I imme­di­ately felt high. The walls of the cave con­tracted and melted, like a jelly under pres­sure, and ver­tigo hit me. I knew I was going to vomit, yet before my stom­ach could spasm, a spike of adren­a­line surged through my body and I could sud­denly see every­thing wrapped in a white light. It looked divine, the rock edges snap­ping with organic bor­ders, the dead mouse blurry and black. My own hands glowed red — peak effect, so I formed fists and drew them closer, touch­ing all eight knuck­les together. I took a deep breath and focused on the hole above as my mind threat­ened to explode: thou­sands of neu­rons pop­ping every few sec­onds. I could feel the stone ceil­ing mor­ph­ing, break­ing as stones and dust filled the air. The hole stretched wider and wider like a spi­ral drawn out­ward. Then every­thing went quiet, and I collapsed.

     When I woke up, I had no idea how long it had been. The dying day­light had gone though, replaced by the rain clouds I’d seen on the beach. An hour, two at the most. My feet felt unsure as I found them, hold­ing onto the wall and pock­et­ing my injec­tor. I’m not sure why, but I looked around for the mouse. It was gone, under the rub­ble of the expanded open­ing above. Much of the cave’s ceil­ing had col­lapsed into the tun­nel, and thank­fully the hole ran down to a reach­able height. I grabbed the lip, pulling myself up and out, into the rain. Though wet — again — it felt good to be out­side. I could smell the sea air blow­ing in from behind me, push­ing me away from the cliffs. It seemed apt to fol­low their sug­ges­tion, so I descended a few boul­ders and awk­ward steps until I saw lights in the dis­tance, at the bot­tom of what I now realised was a huge val­ley, at the far­thest and high­est end of which I stood. The lights were bright for so far away, a city per­haps? But after the Vixen had fallen, what kind of peo­ple remained to pop­u­late it I wondered.

     I walked to the east.

• Thank you for read­ing. I hope you enjoyed it, and I appre­ci­ate any comments.