[img]http://www.radiotimes.com/uploads/images/Original/62672.jpg[/img]
[img]http://snappa.static.pressassociation.io/assets/2015/10/08100922/1444295360-8ddb3ae5de0787420a1cc99d8bb5b394-600x1038.jpg[/img]

[hr]

When the world started going to shit, the first people to stop caring were the ones in charge, or so it seemed. That suited James quite well. After all, if they'd cared a little more, he probably wouldn't be alive. He hadn't been the first to break out, but he'd made sure he wasn't the last.

He'd been in that cell a grand total of fourteen hours, he estimated. It was all a bit of a blur, if he was being perfectly honest. The shouting, the blood, the police tackling him. The Asian couple hadn't been his first, but they had been his first in public, in broad daylight, where everyone could see. And his first in a different country. First time he'd been caught too... If he ever stopped and thought about it, he would count a total of about fifteen, up to and including that Asian couple from the square. All but four were knife jobs. He liked knives. Liked the way he could see the blood pooling under the sharp blade as it slid across skin...

After he got out, he'd stayed with three others from the cells. He didn't know what they'd done, and they didn't know what he'd done. It was probably better that way. Easier.

The sun jumped off the smooth running water of the Vltava, and James could see a lot of the water from his perch in a windowsill on the third floor. He'd broken in around back, through what seemed to be some sort of Italian place on the east bank of the river, right by the Palacky Bridge, Fresco Vento or something. He liked being up here. Off the ground. It made him feel powerful... He heard a thud and looked down at the cream carpet, turned brown by the dirt off his boots. He'd dropped his knife. He swung his legs off the windowsill and leaned down, picking the blade up and smiling a little bit.

He'd got the skinny one first. The three he'd stuck with from the cells. The skinny one tried to keep the knife... This knife. They found it in an overturned car when they were looking for new clothes. The other two didn't see... The skinny one didn't put up much of a fight... James frowned at the memory and touched his cheek, a long cut ran from his chin up to his right cheekbone... The skinny one had put up a fight. James never learned his name. The other three didn't speak English. He'd choked the life out of the skinny one, smothering his cries for help with an old coat. Tried to tell the other two he ran away. Never got to know if they believed him...

Some of the dead ones came after them then. James and the two ones left. They hid down an alleyway. And James had stabbed both of them in the back, quite literally, whilst they waited for the dead ones to pass. The smell of the blood drew the dead ones to his cellmates as they bled out, and James had ran...

Now, he was here. Holding his dirty carving knife, and staring out a window, in a city he didn't even know that well... Sightseeing, he supposed.