When he said he'd take me far away, to a world I'd never seen, I had expected more than this.

"You're just seeing the scaffolding."

"What is there that isn't scaffolding? It's...there's nothing else there. It's hollow. It's broken."

He covered my eyes with his hands, pointed me in a direction and hissed "walk" in my ear.

I had presumed this was going to be a date. Clearly I was incorrect.

I could feel the ground beneath my feet alter, and suddenly everything felt different - I was enclosed, and yet not enclosed at all (there was light spilling in, that feeling that you get when you're out in the elements, even if they aren't doing anything), there were echoes here, the past was breathing through me.

He removed his hands - same building, same scaffolding, but from the inside it looked like a cage, like it was trapping the past.

"They should remove it. It's stopping it from - "

"Falling down." He interrupted me, giving me one of those self-righteous looks (I found myself pleased this wasn't a date, he could be very preachy sometimes). "It's protecting the building, keeping it standing."

"Well, maybe it doesn't want to stand anymore. Maybe it needs to fall, maybe it needs to rest." I replied, running my hands over a stone wall, looking out into the mesh of metal intruding on such elegant, ancient stones. "It lasted for long enough without it. Maybe we should turn the life-support off."

His face fell, and I wondered if I'd said something wrong, if I'd tripped over words I should've chosen more carefully.

"I think she'd live on anyway. She'll outlive you and me."