Her mind immediately went to her four-year-old son. His name was Kyle. He was usually the first thing she thought of when she woke up. She missed him a lot. Her boyfriend on the outside was currently taking care of him. All she wanted was to be reunited with Kyle and in an indirect way that was kind of the reason she’d ended up in segregation.

She had originally been imprisoned for handling stolen goods. It had started casually, with a few things here and there – stolen phones and the like – but had eventually escalated to larger-value items from the proceeds of professional burglary. She had been sentenced to two and a half years, but with any luck she’d be out before then, if everything worked out…

She had been in the segregation block for almost a month now and she was in here for her own protection. One thing she did like about it was that it was considerably quieter than the rest of the prison. Its isolated location and the fact that she didn’t have a cellmate meant that she usually slept much better, which was why she found it odd that she had woken up all of a sudden.

What the hell had woken her?

She turned her head to the side and slowly scanned the shadows of the cell. Then her eyes widened and her body tensed, awake now.

She squinted and did a double-take. She rubbed her eyes.

She had to still be dreaming surely.

She knew that she must still be dreaming because what she saw defied reality. It defied the reality she knew, that she had become accustomed to in this place.

The cell door was wide open. It was open and unlocked and beyond it lay the dark maw of the corridor.

A shiver ran through her. She blinked again and shook her head, clearing the cobwebs of sleep from her mind.

But the vision remained the same. The door was wide open.

She slowly pulled the covers aside and stepped from the bed, her prison-issue vest scant protection from the chill night air, goose pimples immediately forming on the surface of her skin, on her arms and legs.

She brushed her hair out of her eyes.

Mesmerised by the black rectangle of the doorway, she straightened up and padded towards it, pausing at the threshold.

She had walked in and out of this cell many times before. But that was in the daytime. Now, at night, it was different. This cell was her home, her comfort zone. Out there, it was dark, in shadow.

A primal fear tugged at her, but something else – curiosity – made her tentatively place her foot over the threshold, the black shadow engulfing her toes, then the rest of her foot.

The open door was inviting her to walk through it and she couldn’t resist. It was almost as if she was hypnotised by it. The rest of her body was swallowed by shadow as she passed through the portal and left the cell.