As the gates clanged shut behind him, Gavin felt the world, finally and at last, all laid out before him. Like a delicious Victoria sponge. Twenty years. Two decades of confinement distilled into one moment of glorious freedom. He squinted against the sunlight, a raw, unfiltered brilliance that made him feel like a speck of dust in the debris of his own life. The sky seemed too vast, the air too clean, the noise too chaotic. Everything outside the prison walls had a sheen of unfamiliarity, a glossy layer that separated him from the life he had known, like looking at a shop window.

He stood, clutching a small bag of his belongings, the sum total of his existence. A passing car honked its horn, a sharp reminder that he was no longer insulated from the world. The skyline was a jagged silhouette against the sky, towers of glass and steel that hadn't been there before. It seemed like the buildings themselves had grown, an evolving, vast, living, concrete creature.

The people, too, were different. They moved with an urgency he didn’t recognize, talked of things he didn't understand. Dressed strangely. It was like he'd landed after a long flight in a foreign country. Both familiar but also very different.

He had no family left, no friends waiting to greet him. The world inside the prison had been harsh, horrible really, but it was familiar, its rhythms ingrained. Out here, he was adrift, a relic from a past time trying to find his footing on alien soil. He took a deep breath. He needed to find shelter, food, a job, a way to survive.

Gavin started walking, his steps tentative at first, then quickly, more determined.

Then he felt that hand on his shoulder.

"Gavin, mate, how long's it been? Twenty years! Well, it's been a long time. But you still owe me, so let’s you and I go somewhere unpleasant and talk about my diamonds."