Elizabeth sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed, doing her best to ignore the warbling of the TV through the wall. Her favourite blue and cream Sleepy Head` pyjamas were wrapped in a quilt to keep the chills of the night away.

　　The window streamed with the hammering of rain.

　　Elizabeth`s fingers found their way along the crinkled edge of the tin, gently prising open the lid as if the slightest wrong move might cause the whole universe to implode.

　　She called this her memory box and it was her only record of a life before the accident. Of a time when she still had bedroom wallpaper that she liked. Back when she was growing up in a house on a quiet road with a garden.

　　Back before there were things that came for her in the night.

　　Her favourite photograph was still there on top of the pile. Taken during the sticky summer before last it showed Elizabeth standing next to a shimmering pool, her hair wet and straggly like clumps of red seaweed, giggling helplessly as dad tickled her sides. It was a picture postcard moment, his irrepressible smile and emerald green eyes shining with hers forever.

　　There were more like this underneath, along with a well-thumbed notebook that was all smudged and covered in ink. Lines of barely decipherable handwriting, not unlike her own, spilled across its pages, filling them with inky, spidery strands. Elizabeth removed it from the box and began to pick her way at random through the scrawl. Most of it was just a string of meaningless symbols. But this was him. Right there in front of her. His thoughts. His ideas. The work that took up so much of his time.

　　"One day I`ll show you", was all he would ever say if she asked.

　　Beneath the notebook, at the bottom of the tin, were the newspaper clippings with their edges faded and torn. Elizabeth always looked on these with wary, hesitant eyes. The headlines about the crash contained a raw power, even now.

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

　　The images were stuck on an endless loop, going round and round and round and round until she felt dizzy and sick.

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

　　What was he saying? What was it she needed to know?

　　Think remember think remember think remember. Think.

　　But it was no use.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

　　Nothing ever came.

　　Elizabeth sank beneath a bleakwater of despair, her heart all of a crumple like a flimsy paper cup. She kicked the tin away, scattering its contents. She hugged her knees and melted into a raw cascade of sobs.

　　Elizabeth cried until her stomach ached, her eyes burned and the world was still and gone.

　　Then she heard it. The faintest sound of scratching from the walls.

　　This was how the dreams began.

　　Every single time.

　　Her first instinct was always to hope that somehow the noise might go away. So she curled herself up into the smallest thing she could, clutched the pillow to her face and pulled the quilt right over her head.

　　But there was nothing she could ever do to stop it.

　　The walls of her room were transforming, melting like soft wax, turning into silken reams of swirling liquid smoke. The plumes began to rotate, encircling her as the eye of a wicked storm. And there, amongst the rings, were the creatures: sleek-tailed demonic beasts wreathed in scales of purest black. Claws slashed, fangs gnashed with a repulsive clicking sound that burrowed deep inside her ears, chomping like maggots as the coils of smoke drew in closer towards her bed.

　　Elizabeth tried to call for her mum, to howl and scream and shout and holler and cry out as loud as she could.

　　This was when she always woke up.

　　Only now she wasn`t waking up at all.

　　The melting walls, the creatures with their dead, malevolent eyes . . .

　　A spike of panic travelled through her and she dived over the side of the bed, scrambling for safety.

　　And it was in that precise moment, in which everything usually happened, that it happened.

　　At first it was like the thin beam of a torch, flickering fitfully against the rolling black curtain of smoke, but rapidly, in seconds, it became a feeling of warmth on her cheek, the bright shaft of sunlight pouring out to illuminate the room.

　　Elizabeth`s very next thought was that this made literally no sense whatsoever.

　　There, right next to her, was what could only be described as a hole. A small and brightly shimmering rupture, an opening, just hanging in mid-air, a shining portal with a hazy corona of purple and orange and blue.

　　It was no larger than an apple but the sight of it was mesmerising, so much so that for one instant all thoughts of demonic horned monsters were completely expelled from her head. The urge to touch it was irresistible, her hand reaching out with an instinctive mind of its own, the light rippling as if she had disturbed the smooth, still surface of a crystal pond.

　　Suddenly it grew - the hole swelling before her eyes, a glittering alien presence that was now the size of a beach ball.

　　Elizabeth gasped, her heart yammering madly, willing to burst free of her chest.

　　Smoke was creeping beneath the bed, flame-scorched rings around her ankles, terrible claws that were reaching out for her . . .

　　So Elizabeth did the one thing she could think of.

　　She crawled headfirst into the glowing, ethereal void.

　　It was just like sliding into a deep warm bath. The rays, blinding at first, quickly softened into a kaleidoscope of colour, the sheer immensity of it leaving her weak and dizzy and faint. For a moment then she was simply weightless, floating outside of time and space itself, a sensation of being without any beginning or end. She was everywhere and nowhere all at once.

　　Until gravity, quite rudely, came back.

　　Elizabeth started to fall.

　　Tumbling into nothing, hands grasping at the empty space around her, rushing out of the light and into the cold night air beyond.

　　Falling .

　　Falling . .

　　Falling . . .