I hang back in reserved silence, unnecessary risk isn't my natural environment any more than this factory is and coming here to play certainly wasn't my idea.
How many have died here before I do not know, but I feel certain there must be many and most of them are probably waiting for you beneath the murky waters if you fall in.
We play here for a couple of hours in reckless abandon, to my surprise we all survive unscathed.
Late one night as I was prowling by myself in the area around the town's power station, I saw three older boys playing football off in the distance. One of them kicked the ball over the fence surrounding it and as he was scaling it to retrieve it he lost his balance, grabbed hold of one of the low-hanging powerlines and was instantly burned to a crisp as thousands of volts coursed through his body.
His friends go into a catatonic shock and the electricity cuts out all over town, I barely notice it as the midnight sun is still shining and no shadows exist tonight.
I run in panic all the way back home, even cutting through the old haunted cemetery in my blind haste to get home. The ghosts don't catch me this time, maybe they're scared too and hiding in their graves, waiting for the morning to relieve them.
Another time we are playing closer to my house on top of the old concrete water towers and find an access hatch on top of it to be unlocked, we open it of course and one of the other boys dares me to climb down the stairs inside into the swirling, frothing mass of water a couple of meters below.
What higher purpose the climb down would serve I had no idea, you do not ask why when your honour and courage as a 12-year old is being questioned.
I'm halfway down the stairs when I hear the hatch start to close above me and the darkness closes in, I panic and almost slip off the ladder as I frantically scramble upwards towards the fading light. I manage to bump my head into the hatch before it closes completely and the shock of the impact is enough to jar it open momentarily and I throw myself through the narrow opening just before it shuts.
In my mind's eye I see an alternate past version of myself drowning in the darkness below while my friend runs away. My older friend laughs at my silent distress, I find it less funny but laugh anyway.
