The hole was round and ate deep into the earth. Elizabeth had been held there for as long as she could remember. A coin-sized patch of starless sky was all the company she had.

　　Bare feet pressed into the mud, cold grains of sludge squeezing in-between her toes.

　　And there she stood, not knowing what she was supposed to do.

　　She stood and she waited and her life was no longer her own.

　　Then came the noises, the first from somewhere far away. The crashing of waves on a long-forgotten shore.

　　Slowly, and ever so slightly at first, the ground began to tremble. Vibrations travelled up her knees and hips and spine.

　　The force of the waves grew stronger.

　　The well shook.

　　Elizabeth bent her legs for balance, but the mud was slippery and the tremors getting worse. She scrambled for safety, holding herself, pyjamas thin in the icy gloom.

　　Her feet began to sink.

　　Down, into blackness, to sensations of formless night. She was floating in an impenetrable void. And there were more sounds. Closer now. The surge of a battle and the steady drumming of rain.

　　And just as Elizabeth was certain that she was going to be forever lost and abandoned to the dark, she found herself standing on an old stone path.

　　Strange shapes loomed silently on all sides. Patterns that she could neither turn to look at or discern with any relief. Shapes that she knew to be the shadows of her previous life. Amongst them were the creatures with their blank and pitiless eyes.

　　The path curved away to an ancient tree, its branches gnarled and bereft. On the ground beneath it, between the roots and the dusty stones, sat the husk of a timeless, almost invisible man. His hair was lank and matted in an afterglow of long extinguished flame.

　　Elizabeth walked towards him, the path rough beneath the bare soles of her feet.

　　Above her, in something that wasn`t a sky, large winged shapes flew in rhythmic figures of eight.

　　The empty space around her began to tremble once again. She heard voices, but she did not know to whom they belonged or what they were trying to say.

　　The old man raised his head, his eyes as fragile as a half-remembered dream.

　　Elizabeth`s heart flew from its cradle.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

　　"Dad?"

　　Elizabeth wanted so much then just to run to his embrace, to bury herself in the living warmth of his chest, to throw her arms around him and to feel him holding her close, tightly and securely and forevermore.

　　"Why are you here?"

　　He said: "I`ve always been here".

　　Elizabeth knelt before him and held his weathered hands in her own. "Why did you leave me?"

　　The clouds. The traffic lights. Dad`s voice . . .

　　The car stopped at the junction as the signal switched to red.

　　And in that very same moment, the world outside rippled. The motion was like the rising heat of a mirage and in less than a heartbeat had completely faded away.

　　Dad fell deathly silent, glancing nervously about, scanning the shapes in the sky before them. Elizabeth had never seen him behaving this way and it was making her prickle with fear.

　　"Elizabeth, I need you to listen to me. I know this doesn`t make sense, but there`s something you really need to know".

　　The voices were even louder now. Barnaby was screaming: "Luella - RUN!"

　　The clouds. The traffic lights. Dad`s voice . . .

　　"You`re not like other children. I should have told you before. I`m so sorry. I was trying to protect you".

　　Elizabeth`s whole life was unspooling around her. "What`s going on? Why are you talking like this?"

　　"They`re looking for me. If anything happens you have to find the machine. It`s in the attic, hidden away. It looks like a box but it isn`t. You need to make it work. Find Barnaby. Tell him I sent you. The co-ordinates are in my - "

　　The turbulence in the air grew stronger. Elizabeth could feel the creatures circling, awaiting a chance to strike.

　　The clouds. The traffic lights. Dad`s voice . . .

　　Lights flared and memories flickered. Red became green, hit red again, then amber, and then all the colours together at once. The other cars moved forwards in jerky, uncertain, hesitant hops. The lights flashed on and off once more, changing randomly and chaotically from one colour to the next.

　　Tyres squealed like pigs as the lights returned to green. The car freewheeled across the junction and Elizabeth saw the truck coming from the corner of her eye. Her dad had spotted it too but by then there were already other things in the car and he was clawing at the rings of acrid smoke around his face.

　　"Find Barnaby . . . "

　　The wheels spinning as tonnes of steel hurtled in their direction.

　　"Tell him I was wrong . . . "

　　A swerve and a violent shriek of brakes.

　　"The prophecy is true!"

　　Elizabeth heard her own voice screaming before the deafening, shattering, bone-hammering crunch arrived.

　　A million glittering points of light took to the air.

　　Waking up.

　　The old man`s hands were faltering, his eyes an ocean of marbled green. "I was so scared they were going to find you", he breathed.

　　Elizabeth could feel the dreamscape crumbling and didn`t want to look away.

　　She squeezed his hands, blinking against the river of warmth on her face. "I miss you so much, dad".

　　"I miss you too pumpkin".

　　The stirrings of a great commotion were breaking on the other side of the veil. There were chaotic sounds of gunfire and the world was swaying like the deck of a listing ship.

　　The light that held her dad flickered as the soft dimming of candles. And in a juddering, sweeping jolt that carried all the breath from Elizabeth`s body, it was gone.

　　"Goodbye dad", she said, to nobody in particular.

　　The passing of the light released the creatures from their bonds, claws bared, their fangs like angry knives. Elizabeth felt as though she was back home, dreaming, on her bed.

　　She watched them coming with a steely cold glare.

　　"I`m not afraid of you any more", she said.

　　If any of the monsters heard this, then they gave no indication of understanding what she meant.

　　Elizabeth raised her hands, eyes aglow. "But you need to be very afraid of me . . . "