The jeer weasels through the humming that fills my head which I haven't been aware of until now. Someone is talking to me, and it must follow, therefore, that someone can see me, and that means I must be real.

And other people are real. I'm still somewhere with people.

Maybe I'm in Hell.

What am I doing here? Well, this is where I belong.

I'm a bad son. I'm a bad friend. I'm a bad person. I should have come two summers ago but the doctors insisted on delaying my arrival.

My own voice is equally surprising to hear. 'It's not any of your concern, is it?'

I'm not sure if I'm the one talking, though. I'm held hostage somewhere at the back of my head whilst someone else sits at the control panel. Who? God? Shayṭān? Someone else entirely? Am I a machine?

It seems so because I don't blink when Tristan snaps his fingers centimetres from my face. 'Look at this.' He glances at the others as he waves a hand in front of me to no response. 'He must be high.'

When he steps forward, the smoke from Lysander's cigarette wraps around my head like a plastic bag they fasten at my throat. I cough.

So I need to breathe again. Interesting. I didn't think dead people needed to breathe.

Counterintuitively, the smoke clears my vision enough to register the glint of knives in Lysander's mouth when he grins. 'This isn't your side of town, Leech.'

His whisper — too sharp, too sharp — slices my eardrums bloody. I groan, though my arms remain limp at my sides.

'You know, it's not my fault that you're stupid. And maybe if you spent less time botherin me, you wouldn't be.'

Tristan snorts. He exchanges confused yet thrilled grins with the person to his right who I recognise from school, though he graduated a year before us and no name presents itself in my working memory.

He steps aside, bowing in mockery. 'No problem.'

I stride past them. 'Thank—'

He kicks my knees in. My palms grate against the asphalt.

I try to stand back up. A mistake. I should've used the time to shield myself: once the strikes start, it's much harder to curl up.

I should know this by now. Why don't I know anything? Where has it gone, my memory? I think I might be stupid. I think maybe aliens removed my brain– no, not aliens. Doctors. But then how am I thinking right now? Am I a machine?

I'm not sure Descartes was right; I don't think I "am" simply because I'm thinking.

They're still wearing shorts and calf socks, but I'm lucky they've changed football cleats to trainers. Metal studs would make this hurt a lot more tomorrow. If I'm back to being real tomorrow, that is. Otherwise, it won't hurt at all. If I'm dead. Which is probably best for me.

I try to tell them that I'm already dead and that, if they're trying to kill me, they're too late — I got to it first.

'Oi!'

How can I recognise your voice from so little?

'Leave him alone!'

Miles bolts from the other side of the road with a clatter of his zipper pull-tabs. He throws his bag onto the curb, iPod earphones spilling from it, and leaps into the tangle of legs.

Their feet shuffle back and forth in front of me, threatening several times to trample my fingers, and yet my hands don't curl into fists. I watch, brow furrowed. Whoever's controlling my body isn't well-trained in self-defence.

An expert in self-loathing, however — maybe my fingers deserve to be bruised.

Finally, the others step back. 'You gonna defend your boyfriend now?'

I expect Miles to defend himself — "he's not my boyfriend!" But he doesn't. His New Balances shift a centimetre closer to me.

'Aye.'

The third person whose name I still can't recall scoffs. 'C'mon, these puffs aren't worth the time.'

Lysander already has a new cigarette in hand. The spark wheel of his lighter grates. The lid clicks shut. He drags his first inhale and keeps the smoke in his lungs as he speaks, gesturing at us with the ashes. 'We'll leave you to suck each other off or whatever.'

'Fuck you.'

A laugh rolls in his throat as he turns around and loiters after Tristan and the other bloke.

Miles stands as silently as heavy breathing allows, his achilles tendons pulled as tight as I expect the rest of his body to be, until the three of them disappear. Then he turns around and crouches in front of me. He's wearing his football shirt with its Asda and Video Bliss sponsorships on the sleeve.

Did they have a game or do they wear uniforms for practice? Does it matter? I've just outed him.

Why is he walking home? The football field is on the opposite side of the road from our street. Shouldn't his mum pick him up? Does he always walk home?

He eases me into a seated position. I allow him to manoeuvre me. It's oddly comforting to be controlled by someone else when I know who it is, or maybe it's comfortable being controlled when it's by you.

An empathetic hiss leaves him as he tilts my head to get a better look at my wounds.

'Where've you been? Your parents've been looking for you all day.'

All day?

Someone forces down a resisting button and the white sky rotates to black like a ViewMaster reel. The pieces of yellow vellum paper are swept onto walls to imitate windows, whilst new circular cutouts are placed under streetlamps.

I stare at my hands though I'm not entirely sure they are my hands. They must be because I'm looking at them and they're at the right spot to be mine. But they could be someone else's hands. And the rest of my body too, which I think is gaseous rather than solid. Maybe the doctors took out my brain and put it into a mannequin.

Miles's hand leaves my shoulder. 'I'm gonna ring your mum.'

My head snaps up. 'No! No, no, don't. She's gonna make everythin a big deal.' I grab onto his forearm to stop him. 'Ring Dal.'

'Who?'

'Dal.' I dig my own cell out of my pocket and thrust it at him since I've forgotten how to use it and wouldn't know how to speak either. 'Dal.'