My eyes are fixed on the window – a rectangle of faint light in the shadows of my room. The house opposite mine is dark and still, the XGen beacon on the roof reflecting the glow of a nearby streetlight. There are no lights from passing cars. No hum of distant traffic. All is silent and unmoving, like the moment before a shot is fired to start a race. Watching, listening and waiting.

I’ve almost convinced myself I was stressing over nothing when something eases into view from the top corner of the window: a black shape behind the blind, stretching slowly downwards. It’s a human hand.

156 It comes into view as it reaches past the point where the blind ends. A hand, and an arm, inching down the glass like something out of a horror movie, fingers tiptoeing like spider legs. They stop at the window catch, and as they grip the edge of the frame, I see a flash of gold and green. And however bad I thought things were before suddenly shrinks into a first verbal warning, when I realise the gold and green is a ring – a ring I recognise. The thing on the roof is my mum.

As the hand – Mum’s hand – claws and pulls at the window, a second hand and arm appear, followed by the outline of a head, with long dark strands of hair hanging towards the ground. My mum is crawling down the outside wall of my house, hanging upside down like a fly. It’s the most awful thing I’ve seen in my life.

I hear the window catch give way as she pulls it with that steel grip she’s developed. It creaks open a crack, then stops. She’s listening to see if she’s woken me. I wonder if she’s holding her breath like I am, but I think probably not, seeing as she’s a stone-hearted wasp creature who tries to force soup down my throat and can stick to walls. I only 157 have a second to decide what to do. I’ll never get past my own stupid barricade in time to get out of the room. I don’t want to fight her, and I’m not sure if I even could. She’s clearly super strong, and I don’t have anything close that I can use as a weapon. So that leaves sticking to my original plan – playing along. As she pulls the window open further, a gust of that disgusting sweet smell hits my nose, and I pull my CPAP mask back up, lie down and close my eyes.