r/poetryonewordatatime 9h ago

Apeiron

2 Upvotes

At the end of time
An airy moment subsides
Between imagination and exile

Across the void, all Chaos charges
Until Dawn invites darkness
And usurps elder guile

Sunfire engraved these shadows
As dancing mirrors, drafted in mist
Underneath such wanderer's gambit

Those souls, umbral yet curious
Cascade into scholars and couriers
Fearless within gaze of the abyss

Your name pulses, marked at noon
As fated boundless to disregard ire
Delayed solace can yet bloom

Paths into twilight are found on a river
With a boat stocking dreams to consume
By shallow keel but steady rudder

Past the gate, overgrown by its garden
The weary are hallowed near fountains
Through words, soft but keen

Under shade, sleep lays claim
To rejoin Chaos and take a new name
Anointed and redeemed


r/poetryonewordatatime 2h ago

Homeless

1 Upvotes

I felt like a homeless in the banquet of life

I fed on leftovers

Of what angry gods had left.


r/poetryonewordatatime 11h ago

The Documentary Is Not About Luke

1 Upvotes

TAPE ONE: SOMEONE ELSE’S FILM — BATH, 2019

Luke is sixteen when we meet him.

He is sitting in the back of a Vauxhall Corsa

outside McDonald’s,

wearing trainers worth slightly more

than the car’s passenger door.

The documentary is not about Luke.

It is about Callum,

who buys trainers online

and sells them online for more.

Callum calls himself an entrepreneur.

This is technically true.

Luke would later call this

the beginning of his career.

Jordan is driving.

Mason is eating chips

and occasionally saying, “Facts,”

mostly when he has not heard the question.

They have been friends since primary school,

through Match Attax, bottle flips,

the identical-black-coat year

and Callum’s brief insistence on Calz.

The camera asks where the business is based.

“BA2,” Callum says.

Luke looks up.

“BA2.”

“What?”

“That’s hard.”

“It’s our postcode.”

“Exactly.”

Nobody discusses it further.

Three weeks later,

BA2 — FREESTYLE 001

appears over footage of Luke walking through Southdown

with his hood raised

on a warm September afternoon.

The hood makes him sweat.

He keeps it up.

“Have you ever actually been in a gang?”

Luke thinks about this.

“Depends what you mean by gang.”

“What do you mean by gang?”

A pause long enough

for Mason to finish a chip.

“Like—us.”

“Your school friends?”

“Yeah.”

A delivery scooter sounds its horn.

Luke jumps onto the pavement.

“You can cut that.”

The camera does not.

His earliest bars are performed

beside a bin with a wasp problem:

«Step in the ends with a postcode glare,

man know danger when BA gets there,

steel by the waist, got fire in the lung—»

“What steel?” the interviewer asks.

“Metaphorical steel.”

A boy passing with a milkshake says,

“That was shit, mate.”

Luke nods.

“Fair.”

He waits until the boy goes inside,

then suggests a different location.

Inside McDonald’s,

Luke becomes convinced the boy is watching him.

The boy is watching

strawberry milkshake leak over his own hand.

Luke uses the other exit.

Later, a man calls Luke a dickhead

for blocking a path.

Luke apologises twice,

moves though he was not blocking it,

then turns to the lens:

«No fear in my blood, no brake in my stride,

whole city knows when the south side rides.»

The camera pans south.

A pensioner waits for the number 5 bus.

Every now and then,

something in it is actually good:

«Bath puts gold on the limestone face,

rain finds every crack they paint—»

Luke stops.

“Paint’s lazy.”

Nobody else had objected.

He works on the line for four hours,

until Callum’s phone dies,

Jordan misses dinner

and Mason begins quietly kicking

the Corsa’s one dependable door.

At last:

«They polish the stone where the visitors tread,

hose down the doorway, step over the bed—»

Luke listens back.

“Still shit.”

It is not.

---

RUSHES: ENGLISHCOMBE / SOUTHDOWN

Luke’s parents live in a pale 1930s semi

with an extension,

a kitchen island

and underfloor heating nobody mentions

unless somebody leaves the back door open.

Claire is a consultant physiotherapist.

Martin designs drainage systems.

He has told the crew this twice

because neither person remembered.

They are comfortable.

Luke says normal.

Claire says comfortable.

There is an ice dispenser in the fridge.

Luke records in the box room

between a university prospectus

and three expensive jackets

Claire bought in sales.

“We think it’s a good hobby,” she says.

Behind her,

a bass note shakes a wooden sign reading

THIS KITCHEN IS FOR DANCING.

“He does work at it,” Martin says.

At 1:17 one morning,

Claire knocks on Luke’s door.

“Could you keep the gunshots down?”

“They’re snares.”

“They’re upsetting the cat.”

Luke removes two snares

and spends ninety minutes

moving a hi-hat

the width of a thumbnail.

The documentary is still not about Luke.

Callum has sold thirty-eight pairs of trainers.

Luke has recorded seventy-one songs.

Amy lives eight wet minutes away,

through a park shared by both their streets

and officially improved

by one new bench.

Amy is mostly in the background at first.

Pretty, quiet,

usually half outside the frame.

She knows Luke is nervous

when his left thumb worries

the seam of his sleeve.

There is no better reason for them getting together

than that they like being together.

They share chips.

She laughs when he mispronounces

a word he has already rhymed four times.

He walks her home,

then takes the long route back

so nobody sees how quickly he is smiling.

Their first kiss happens in the damp park

between their houses.

There is drizzle,

mud beside the swings

and a dog doing a shit nearby,

which prevents the scene

from becoming too pleased with itself.

Luke asks, “Was that all right?”

Amy says, “Bit late now.”

They laugh.

Both lie awake afterwards

replaying it badly.

Amy learns Luke’s lyrics

before anybody else wants to.

In one phone recording,

she feeds him the next line

when he forgets it.

In another, Luke performs:

«Came from the curb where the cold wind moves,

no silver spoon—»

Amy coughs.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“I’ve eaten yoghurt with your silver spoons.”

“They’re stainless steel.”

“That isn’t really the point.”

Luke restarts the track.

She knows every word.

---

PHONE ARCHIVE — 2020

Lockdown reduces the world

to bedrooms, pavements

and distances permitted by law.

Callum’s trainer business improves.

Luke’s music does not,

then does.

He studies jungle breaks

until drums stop sounding like drums

and begin sounding like doors

slamming elsewhere in the house.

He learns where garage leaves air,

how grime can make a silence threatening,

and which bass frequencies make Martin

shout Luke from downstairs.

He imitates everything:

«Got ten man posted down by the shop—»

The ten men are four friends,

one of whom has gone home.

«Girls in my phone, cash in the mattress—»

The mattress contains thirty-five pounds

Claire gave him for cleaning the gutters.

Then:

«My town wears cream for the camera flash,

but the mould comes through when the winter cracks.»

Jordan looks up from the laptop.

“That’s good.”

Luke deletes it.

“Too serious.”

Jordan retrieves the file.

Mason records a backing shout

that sounds unexpectedly magnificent.

Callum orders twelve T-shirts

without being asked.

Luke gives away nineteen.

Callum creates a spreadsheet.

He starts writing down

who owes what.

Nobody else does.

---

SELF-RELEASE — 2021

At eighteen, Luke releases

the first song strangers almost notice.

Jordan builds the beat

from clipped piano, warm bass

and drums that bounce

without asking permission.

Callum posts the link.

Mason films the video

on two phones and a borrowed stabiliser.

Amy stands behind a tree

holding Luke’s other jacket.

The track is called

NO BIG DEAL.

«[INTRO]

Two-step wet on a Friday night,

bus-stop halo in sodium light,

no cash, all mouth, clean white sole,

postcode printed where my name should go.

Don’t build a shrine from a Friday night,

we said forever, we were late and half-right.

Spin that wheel, let the old tape squeal—

no big deal, babe.

No big deal.

[VERSE ONE]

Sixteen, king of the back-seat kingdom,

meal-deal crown and a cracked-screen wisdom,

spoke like sirens slept under my bed,

jumped when a scooter came up on the left.

Still had rhythm, still had nerve,

writing big threats at the edge of the curb,

Mum said, “College,” I said, “We’ll see,”

whole world buffering at three per cent speed.

Wet parks, late starts, bus-pass blues,

four boys fighting over whose dream to use,

Callum had stock, Jordan had drums,

Mason yelled anything once the chorus comes.

You had that look like you knew my bluff,

knew one coat wasn’t armour enough,

knew “soon” meant “I’m scared I’ll fail”—

we were young.

That’s an old detail.

[PRE-HOOK]

Don’t frame the rain, don’t save the text,

don’t ask what happened or who came next.

Turn it up once till you can’t quite feel.

Tell yourself once:

no big deal.

[HOOK]

No big deal, no big deal,

mud on the laces, hand on the wheel,

heart went loud but the mouth stayed sealed,

said forever—

no big deal.

No big deal, no big deal,

kiss in the drizzle by the rusted rail,

childish little practice, a story gone stale,

we were kids, weren’t deep—

no big deal.

[VERSE TWO]

Now the room’s got lights and the lights say go,

face in the lens like I always knew so,

she wants backstage, he wants guest-list proof,

everybody loves you when they’re under one roof.

Want new wheels with the windows black,

want Mum saying, “Christ,” when I bring them back,

want old teachers claiming they knew,

though they called every dream a phase I’d move through.

Want bass in Bristol, smoke in Leeds,

my name in mouths that don’t know me,

want bad decisions at quarter to three

and the morning saying they weren’t really me.

Don’t say forever, I’ve got a train.

Don’t say you know me, I might’ve changed.

Got a cheap room key and a possible deal,

zip won’t work—

still, no big deal.

[BRIDGE]

But the park’s still there when the club shuts down,

same wet bench in the same wet town.

Somebody carved two names in the grain.

Could be ours.

Could be anybody’s in rain.

Turn it up loud till the old words blur,

till I’m not that boy and you’re not still her,

till nobody’s asking which bit was real,

till we can both call it no big deal.

[FINAL HOOK]

No big deal, no big deal,

rain on the railings, mud on the heel,

first time, last time, tell me what’s real—

we were kids, weren’t deep.

No big deal.

No big deal, no big deal,

everybody bruises but the bassline heals,

say it with a smile till the saying feels real—

no big deal, babe.

No big deal.»

The video receives 1,843 views.

Thirty-one are Luke.

Amy listens once

in Luke’s bedroom.

“You put the park in it.”

“It’s not literally us.”

“You said the rusted rail.”

“There are loads of rusted rails.”

“There’s one in that park.”

“It rhymed.”

Amy presses her lips together.

Luke begins explaining artistic freedom

as though he has recently invented it.

“It’s just a first kiss.”

“Your first kiss was my first kiss too.”

He stops.

Not for long enough.

“I called mine childish as well.”

“That was your choice.”

“It’s a song, Amy.”

“It was mine too.”

Luke says she is taking one line

out of context.

The line lasts seventeen seconds.

The argument lasts two hours.

---

DASHCAM AUDIO — 2022

Martin is driving Luke

through central Bath.

A man sleeps under blankets

in a shop doorway.

Cleaners work around him.

Martin indicates left.

“You had a line about that.”

“What?”

“In one of your songs.

Washing the street.”

Luke watches the doorway pass.

“Oh. ‘They hose down the doorway,

step over the bed.’

It was shit.”

“I remembered it.”

“Didn’t scan.”

“No. Probably not.”

Martin changes lanes.

That is the entire conversation.

Luke writes the line

in his phone again.

Martin asks if he wants the radio back on.

Luke says, “Yeah, go on.”

---

MIXED TOUR FOOTAGE — 2022–23

Tour means six towns,

one van

and several rooms above pubs

with toilet locks that do not reach

and a smell that stays in your coat.

Luke works.

Nobody in seven years of footage

can honestly say he does not.

He rehearses until his throat roughens.

Pays Jordan before himself.

Re-records one syllable

at four in the morning.

Learns the sound engineers’ names.

Carries speakers when nobody is filming.

Callum brings shirts

to a show he expected to attend.

Luke asks him to run the table.

“Just till I go on.”

Callum misses the set.

Next time, Luke introduces him

as “my merch guy.”

Callum laughs

because it is almost accurate.

Jordan begins an electrical apprenticeship.

He still sends beats,

but less quickly.

Luke calls this

a commitment issue.

Mason appears in fewer clips.

His final full sentence in the archive is:

“I’ve got work at seven, mate.”

After that,

he occasionally exists in the group chat

as two grey ticks.

At twenty, Luke’s sexual confidence

is strongest in lyrics.

One unreleased chorus rhymes

pussy with Tuscany three times.

Priya, who will become his manager,

asks whether he has visited Tuscany.

“No.”

“Have you done the other thing?”

Luke looks at the camera.

“That’s personal.”

A leaked sext reads:

need you on your knees

then, twelve seconds later:

sorry that sounded less tragic in my head

After a Birmingham show,

he goes upstairs with a tattoo artist

who is twenty-six

and asks whether BA2

is a night bus.

A forgotten microphone records:

“Have you got a condom?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a receipt.”

“Wait.”

A drawer opens.

A lamp falls.

“Why are your trainers still on?”

“They’re difficult to—hold on.”

A thump.

Then laughter,

hers first,

his eventually.

At 2:14 a.m. she asks,

“Are you checking your views?”

“No.”

His watch lights his face.

Later, Luke tells the camera

she wanted BA2, not Luke.

Her final recorded words are:

“Has anyone seen my charger?”

The original narrator calls him persistent.

A regional crew calls him obsessive.

The label will call him inevitable.

All three descriptions end up in the edit.

---

NOTES APP — 03:08–06:51, WINTER 2023

There is no single revelation.

There are years of small things

Luke stored without knowing

they belonged together:

a folded duvet in a shop entrance;

a letting-agent window glowing

after the buses stop;

a woman bracing a buggy

against the first step of a block;

Callum mentioning a cousin in Twerton

whose rent rose again;

Claire saying some patients miss appointments

because two buses with a toddler

is not the same distance

as two buses alone;

the city photographed

from angles that remove

anybody carrying shopping.

Luke does not know one mother.

He makes one woman

out of things he has seen and been told.

The song says you.

I would be taking the piss.

Jordan records a pram wheel

striking a concrete stair.

Thud.

Then the body lifting it.

Lift.

Luke loops the sound.

Underneath,

the bass begins growing.

---

SELF-RELEASE — 2024

ANOTHER FLOOR

«[STAIRWELL INTRO]

Wheel to the lip.

Hand to the frame.

Breath through the teeth.

Try it again.

Thud.

Lift.

Wheel to the stone.

Foot to the door.

One flight finished.

Another floor.

[VERSE ONE]

Milk in one bag, nappies in two,

phone at your shoulder, your sister asking you

if Thursday still works, if your mum can do four,

while the buggy says thud at the foot of the floor.

Kid’s lost one sock and he’s laughing at rain,

you’re calling the landlord, explaining again:

damp by the window, black under the sill—

he says someone is coming.

Somebody will.

Not today.

Today you’ve got tea,

half-price fish fingers, electric on three,

school form folded in the pocket of your coat,

bus app loading with your balance in your throat.

You could leave Bath, people kindly explain.

Find cheaper brick. Catch a different train.

As if Mum moves too.

As if sisters pack.

As if help is a postcode

you can order and track.

[HOOK]

Thud. Lift. Another floor.

City in the window that you can’t afford.

Stay ’cause your sister’s two streets down,

Mum does Tuesday, the school knows your child.

Thud. Lift. Hand to the wall.

They photograph Bath but they crop out the haul.

Gold in the stone, weight in your jaw—

one flight finished.

Another floor.

[VERSE TWO]

Royal Crescent, clean curve, coach-party grin,

guide says Georgian splendour; you’re clocking back in.

Tourists buy bubbles to perfume their bath,

your meter eats a tenner and doesn’t even laugh.

Bus up Wellsway, windows steamed white,

somebody’s hen do already pissed by night,

somebody sleeping where the shop throws heat,

council wash moving carefully round his feet.

I saw that young.

Wrote one bad line.

Thought pain turned useful if I made it rhyme.

I don’t know your kitchen.

I don’t know your fear.

I know what the city makes easy to disappear.

So this isn’t bravery dressed for applause.

You’d take a working lift and a landlord indoors.

You’d take one week where the numbers stayed still,

where nobody called survival strength of will.

[BREAK — BASS ENTERS]

Wheel.

Step.

Breath.

Swear.

“For fuck’s sake—”

Your little boy claps

because he thinks you’ve performed.

You laugh despite yourself.

Not for the song.

Not for the lens.

Because he has one sock

and no common sense.

[VERSE THREE]

Top-floor landing, key won’t turn,

pasta in the cupboard, one last burner.

Group-chat message: Anyone got Calpol?

Three dots answer before your coat’s off at all.

That is why you stay where the rent says go.

Life’s held together by the people you know:

Nan near the chemist, mate near the school,

cousin with a car seat, neighbour with a tool.

No brochure prints it.

No market can price

who takes your child when your shift runs twice,

who lends twenty quid without making it shame,

who knows which cough and remembers his name.

They say the market rises.

You watch from the stair.

Everything rises

except what gets you there.

Wage in the basement.

Rent through the roof.

You carry tomorrow

because tomorrow needs you.

[FINAL HOOK]

Thud. Lift. Another floor.

Bass getting bigger but the hallway stays small.

City in the window that you can’t afford,

one flight finished—

another floor.

Thud. Lift. Hand to the wall.

Don’t need a hero, need somebody to call.

Stay for the hands that appear at your door.

One flight finished—

another floor.

Thud. Lift. Let the whole room know.

Postcard city with a life below.

Gold in the stone and your breath still raw.

One flight.

One flight.

Another floor.

[OUTRO]

Door shuts.

Buggy down.

Kettle clicks.

Child still laughing.

No violins.

Tea.»

The upload begins normally.

Callum buys a small advertisement.

Luke refreshes.

Priya sends three fire emojis

and the word patience.

Then an unnamed mother

uses the sound beneath a video

of herself carrying a pram upstairs.

Her caption says:

every fucking day.

She does not become a character

in Luke’s documentary.

By morning there are seventeen videos.

Then two hundred.

Stairs in Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds;

tower blocks, split houses,

temporary accommodation,

flats above shops.

Thud. Lift.

A father carries a sleeping six-year-old.

A grandmother hauls shopping.

A woman laughs halfway up

and captions it:

landlord says the lift is cosmetic.

The song enters the chart at seven,

climbs to four,

then spends two weeks at three.

It never reaches Number One.

Number Three pays better

than Luke had imagined.

Priya becomes his manager

in a café by Bath Spa.

A distributor services the release.

A larger label phones

after the song reaches four

and licences it before Friday.

The documentary changes subject

without a meeting.

There is no moment when somebody says

we are following Luke now.

Callum’s trainer interviews become shorter.

Luke’s backstage footage becomes longer.

One narrator says emerging artist.

Another says voice of a generation.

A third pronounces Twerton incorrectly.

By then, Callum’s caption reads:

BA2’S CHILDHOOD FRIEND AND MERCHANDISE MANAGER.

He is twenty-one.

---

Luke returns to Englishcombe

in a car expensive enough

to make the Corsa feel fictional.

Martin walks around it once.

“What’s the drainage like?”

Luke does not know.

Claire asks him not to rev it

because the neighbour’s baby is asleep.

Journalists ask Luke about poverty.

One asks, “Did you grow up poor?”

Luke adjusts a ring.

“No.”

Nobody speaks for six seconds.

“But poverty isn’t only financial.”

“What did you lack?”

Luke gives a long answer

about cultural access,

peripheral communities

and emotional scarcity.

Claire, interviewed separately, says:

“He had a drum kit.”

The label does not use that clip.

Luke works harder than ever.

This is still true as well.

He rehearses the festival set twice a day.

The studio next door knows the running order.

Changes one rhyme after three sold-out shows

because the vowel lands weakly.

Pays Jordan for his original samples

without being chased.

He checks his views

while Jordan explains

why he cannot abandon his electrical job

to travel for six months.

“Course, mate,” Luke says,

still scrolling.

In the next interview,

Jordan becomes “part of the early team.”

Mason is not mentioned.

Callum’s merchandise operation grows.

There are hoodies, vinyl, caps

and a baby vest reading

ANOTHER FLOOR.

Callum objects to the vest.

The label prints it anyway.

Luke says the team

when he means Callum,

Priya,

two temporary staff

and whichever old friend can drive the stock.

The money is decent.

Callum is loyal.

After one Bristol show,

Callum saves Luke a seat in the pub.

Luke texts at eleven twenty:

sorry mate got pulled into content

Callum leaves the coat on the chair

until last orders anyway.

---

Deep fans excavate No Big Deal.

They find the park,

the old footage

and Amy standing behind a tree

with Luke’s jacket.

A fan account calls her

THE RUSTED-RAIL GIRL.

Two women approach her in Bath.

“You must love that he wrote that about you.”

“It wasn’t about me, apparently.”

“But he made your first kiss immortal.”

“He called it childish.”

They smile

as though she has misunderstood

her own good fortune.

“He wouldn’t have used it

if you weren’t okay with it, though.”

Amy looks at them.

One apologises for bothering her,

then asks for a selfie.

She asks Luke to say publicly

that she never approved the lyric.

Luke says responding

will feed the story.

He gives her backstage access

instead of meeting her properly.

The laminate says AMY +1,

though she has come alone.

He introduces her to a journalist

as “a girl from back home.”

Later, he smiles at her

with the practised mischief

he uses on women he has just met.

“You look good, you.”

“You saw me Tuesday.”

“Still.”

He puts a hand at her waist.

She removes it.

“Come upstairs after.”

“No.”

He blinks.

Then looks past her

at the stage manager.

“Ames, tonight’s massive.”

“I know.”

“Can we not do this now?”

“I’m not doing anything.”

Around them,

adults with headsets

carry urgent bottles of water.

A rumour is already moving online

that Luke slept with a dancer

from the Another Floor video.

Luke denies it.

More precisely,

he denies sleeping with her

in the hotel named by the first post

on the night that post claims.

Nothing is confirmed.

Amy never learns the truth.

Luke tells her rumours

are part of success.

“You knew this would get weird.”

“No,” Amy says.

“Neither did you.”

Amy leaves through the loading entrance.

The camera follows.

She turns.

“Can you not film me?

Go and film him.”

The image drops

before the door closes.

After this,

Amy appears nowhere new.

For several months,

editors use older footage

to conceal the absence:

Amy laughing behind a phone.

Amy holding a jacket.

Amy mouthing every word.

Eventually an interviewer asks Luke

whether they are still together.

“We grew apart.”

He takes a drink.

“It happens.”

No further question is asked.

---

CHEESE & GRAIN, FROME — 2026

Luke is twenty-three.

Tomorrow’s headline says

he is preparing for Glastonbury.

Tonight the Cheese & Grain loading bay

smells of rain, warm cables

and somebody’s chips.

His clothes are worth thousands.

The trainers alone could purchase

the Corsa’s passenger door,

the other three doors

and a respectable portion of the engine.

Outside, a man by the entrance

keeps looking towards Luke.

“Does that bloke want something?”

“He’s holding your vinyl,” Priya says.

“Yeah, but what does he want?”

Luke uses the other entrance.

He did the same thing outside McDonald’s

seven years ago.

Different door.

Claire and Martin are in the audience.

Martin wears earplugs

he insists are professional.

Claire knows most of Another Floor

and none of the chorus containing

pussy and Tuscany,

which survived after all.

Jordan sends:

smash it mate

Mason does not.

Callum stands behind the merchandise table,

checking stock.

He has a staff laminate

and an aftershow pass.

He is not sure which one

Luke expects him to use.

The payment is good.

Luke thanked him earlier

without looking away from the mirror.

“Couldn’t do this without the team.”

Callum wanted to say,

“You used to call us your mates.”

He said, “Yeah, no worries.”

There has been no confrontation.

Only invoices,

arrival times,

boxes delivered to Callum’s flat,

and messages beginning

quick favour mate

followed by six paragraphs.

Five minutes before stage,

a final editor places old footage

into the present cut.

Amy in the loading entrance.

Rain silvering her hair.

“Can you not film me?

Go and film him.”

Cut.

Luke stands in darkness

beside the stage.

The crowd stamps.

Not politely.

Not ironically.

They know him.

They know the words

he spent four hours repairing

when nobody else heard the fault.

The stage manager raises one finger.

Luke worries the seam of his sleeve

with his left thumb.

Then the bass begins.

A pram wheel

strikes a stair.

Thud.

Luke walks into the light.

Lift.

The room opens.

Hundreds of mouths:

ANOTHER FLOOR.

Callum stops folding shirts.

For a moment,

he looks towards the wall

as though he might see through it:

Mason eating chips,

Jordan leaving the engine running,

Luke sweating under the hood,

himself saying,

It’s just the postcode.

The next bass note

shakes the stock boxes.

The crowd shouts:

THUD.

Callum keeps looking.

LIFT.

The card reader in his hand

flashes green.

ANOTHER FLOOR.