The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,115

you’re the last person on earth.

She stops and listens. It’s deathly silent. Nothing but darkness, snow, and drab, featureless houses.

Despite that, she doesn’t feel entirely alone.

She turns and thinks she can discern a figure, black against black, further down the street.

She walks faster. Tries to make it look natural. Doesn’t want to show she’s afraid.

When she passes under the viaduct by the railway station, she hears footsteps that aren’t hers echoing off the stone walls of the tunnel.

A lone car drives past. When it disappears the world feels even more desolate. No one lives on the other side of the viaduct. There’s just a string of closed-down petrol stations that Minoo can barely make out in the darkness. The streetlamps are spaced wide apart here and she thinks of the black smoke, how it could float towards her unseen, suspended in the darkness.

She is walking even faster now, almost running.

The other footsteps draw closer.

And closer.

‘Minoo, wait!’

It’s Gustaf. She stops and turns.

‘Sorry, did I scare you?’ he says.

There’s no point in trying to run. Minoo forces a smile as if it were a nice surprise to see him there. She feels she ought to say something, but when she tries, all that comes out is a hawking sound. ‘No,’ she finally croaks, when he’s just a few metres away.

It’s Gustaf. And yet not Gustaf. There’s something about the way he’s looking at her – as if he finds her fascinating.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asks, and tries to make it sound like an innocent question, as if she isn’t suspicious in the least.

She has the feeling it didn’t work.

‘I was out for a walk,’ Gustaf says. He continues to look at her intently. She feels like a lamb with a hungry wolf.

‘I’ve been thinking about you,’ he says. ‘When we spoke on the steps … it was as if all the pieces fell into place.’

‘What do you mean?’

It’s like being in a strange dream, one in which everything is familiar, yet feels totally wrong. Gustaf moves closer until their puffa jackets brush.

‘I think about you all the time,’ he says. ‘At first I thought it was because you remind me so much of her. But now I finally understand. I understand.’

This can’t be happening. She’s more convinced of that with every passing second. She’s ended up in one of those parallel worlds that the principal was talking about.

‘I like you,’ he continues. ‘A lot.’

When he bends forward and kisses her, she doesn’t realise he’s doing it at first. She has time to notice that his lips feel soft and warm and sort of melt into hers. That even though his mouth is new to her, it doesn’t feel strange. And a tiny part of her misses it when she shoves him away. ‘What are you doing?’

He shushes her and grabs her jacket to pull her to him.

Minoo breaks free and Gustaf loses his balance, slips on the icy pavement and drops to his knees. He looks at her with an expression of desperation. ‘Can’t you get it into your head that Rebecka is dead? We have to move on!’

She’s disgusted by what he’s said. It rouses her from her dreamlike state and makes her wipe her mouth. She wants to remove any trace of that kiss.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I can’t believe I said that.’

‘Neither can I,’ she says, and backs away.

‘Minoo …’

‘Leave me alone.’ She walks away, more scared than ever of slipping on the ice.

She wants to scrub her mouth with steel wool and rinse it with chlorine. She hears him call her again.

Fucking creep, fucking creep, fucking creep.

She’s not sure whether she’s referring to Gustaf or herself.

Then she remembers Vanessa. Gustaf’s invisible tail.

She must have seen the whole thing.

Vanessa has almost reached the cemetery gates when Cat pops up. It scowls at her with its one green eye. Apparently both dogs and cats can see her when she’s invisible. They don’t even need two eyes to do it.

‘What do you want?’ Vanessa asks in irritation.

It miaows and turns down a very narrow, virtually snowed-over path that disappears between the old gravestones. It turns to look at her, as if to make sure she’s following.

Vanessa looks at Gustaf, who is waiting for the bus some distance down the road. She deliberates with herself as to what she should do.

The moment in front of Rebecka’s grave has made her feel uncomfortable. Gustaf isn’t guilty. She’s sure of that. Enough of this crap. She wants to go home and forget