I’ve learned that a Clinker across the way has a weakness for coin, and I now sweat at this impossible chance of escape. Jack speaks of an underground, sort-of trade that goes around during the Balsamic month, using method of the sewage pipes. He’s spoken of this numerous times, though I am not entirely sure the poor, sick craze is aware of it.

I’ve also learned of the old mate above me; Jassah. We began commuting through taps, I using a makeshift rod I rubbed together with metal bits in the stone and a missed wire in the bed. What absurd luck that was. I thought of the use of it to slit a coming Clinkers throat, yet I’ve held it secret for some time.

And now I salivate – my dreams turning to Ursula, and my fevering thrill squelching the life from her. I must bide, I must plot, but it is nearer, and coming here: my freedom.

The Physician will soon get a taste of her own blade. It is this thought that will keep me alive in the coming months.

Rov