The creaking wouldn’t stop. It moved across the wall, following the ray of moonlight, creeping up towards the ceiling. Tom tracked it with his left eye, his head half wrapped in the blanket.

The shadow of the air conditioning vent’s frame, drew an ominous, oblong grid on the opposite wall. Every time a car flew by on the flyover, it opened up for an instant, and then shut again.

Tom knew better. That was not just any shadow. That was a cage. They were letting them out. One by one. He could hear the scuttling. The sniffing. He clasped the covers.

The appearance of the cage meant his room had already been detached from the rest of the apartment. His parents were asleep in the other room, but actually far away. Beyond the gargantuan columns of gas, on the edges of the known universe. Light years and billions of miles divided his room from the suburban condo. “The between” had opened, and the laws of Tom’s world were not valid on this side.

‘Sleep well, tomorrow’s going to be fun!’ his mother had said, putting him to sleep. He had looked away, trying to hide his thoughts, his cheeks burning with a feeling he had not experienced before. He had followed her with his eyes as she left the room. His voice locked behind his throat. He couldn’t call out to tell her not to leave. As she closed the door, already he could feel his mind roll out of the back of his head, sinking into the pillow.

Most of his room was dark. He could just make out the door, the other side of which now faced an abyss of emptiness. The cupboard and the armchair glowed with blades of silver rays from the void outside. Somehow he could still hear the sound of the expressway. This was most certainly due to a space-time paradox, catalyzed by the aluminium “Three-dimensional map of the solar system” hanging in the middle of his room.

The creatures were closing in. Worming their way under the carpet, out of the cracks of the old wallpaper. Micro-wraiths were swarming down towards the floor. Clad in thermal camouflage robes, they were invisible, yet the sound of their furious skeletal steeds could be heard, in between the whistling of the trucks, speeding down the expressway.

A low fog spread across the floor, a viscous, oily mass, hiding an army of eyeless, undead orcs. Hairy-legged, fat spiders, with toothed eyes, walked beside them, leaving a trail of gelatinous slime behind them.

A glint appeared in the eye of the elongated clown, its body twisted in between the armrests of the armchair. Clearly all creatures responded to the clown. It was he who imparted orders to them, by means of a procession of ants, leading to a part of the room Tom couldn’t see. That was likely where their directional centre was situated.

The clown ruled over the creatures of the lands beyond the west of the bed; a despot who kept control of his subjects with a firm hand; a third eye on his forehead, always set on Tom. He had been careless enough to have drawn it on himself, with a marker, to scare his little sister. While he told her it was all-seeing, he felt something inside him, in his brain, a cackle, warning him that what he was saying was true.

Tom would be the last of the inhabitants of the room to succumb to the clown. It had been six years since he had entered the lands, as a newborn. The time had come for him to give up. And today was the day. The hurricane swirling inside his mind was the sign.

What defences did he have? Tom desperately made an assessment, as sweat trickled down the side of his eyes. Or were they tears?

‘No tears! Boys don’t cry!’ his father’s words echoed in his head. So this must be sweat.

He had two pillows. They could be used for defence. But only for one side of the bed. Two sides remained exposed. Maybe he could fold the bed covers to make a rampart?

He needed weapons. Conan’s sword! Alas, it was out of reach, on the chair next to the door. There was no way he could get there. The skinless, slimy hands would reach out from under the bed, the moment his feet touched the floor.

As he lay still, shaking with fear, his eye fell on the cupboard.

Something worse than all the creatures arranging the siege, was watching him. From the slit between the cupboard’s doors, he felt the malignant gaze of a deep darkness. An entity beyond time, a faceless void, emanating a heaviness, which enveloped Tom and shook his soul. Like a dense liquid pouring into his chest, a feeling of oppression grew, pulsating with the rhythm of the thousands of wooden legs of the stick insects, now marching up the sides of the bed.

Tom tied himself into a knot, pulling his feet as close to himself as he could. He couldn’t take any more. His breathing was frantic, his throat clenching like a fist, inside his neck.

He slid under the covers, wrapping himself as tightly as he could, with blankets and covers. But as he did, he realized this was his biggest mistake. The entity in the cupboard was waiting for just that.

From under the covers he heard the hinges scrape. The figure sliding down onto the carpet, advancing slowly. Tom tightened his fists, almost ripping through the mattress. He held his breath. He knew the colorless, grinning mass was now inches above his head, staring with its red-hot flaming eyes. In the deafening silence, the dark entity and all of the creatures would be on to him, any moment now.

The next morning Tom rushed at hurtling speed to put the chocolate biscuits his mum had made for his sister’s birthday, back inside the jar in the kitchen.