Behind Giallo a sky yellow as lemon drops and buildings broken as rose bushes. The door ahead is filled with water sounds, water smells, rounded as the inside of a spoon and empty as a thought. He peels his fingers away from the jam, counting to ten, watching them bend, pitches forward on stiff legs into the underground river.

Water steals the sounds of pursuit.

He bangs, turns, chokes and beats for the surface, severed from the certainty of down. Water red as the inside of his eyes, crying loud against brick like blood in his cheek. Giallo nightmares of grates, of a stretch without air, of their hungry bone fingers digging into his side. Down and out is still better than back; he perseveres.

Daylight finds him encrusted on the side of the bay. Slick and oily with filth, hair and body nacred with bile. Someone is screaming music against the concrete further down, voice and drums and guitars biting into the air like a chainsaw. He drags himself up, no sound the sweeter, glad for the moment to just be outside.