I heard something several floors below and my heart started to thump hard. Who can it be? Burglars? A saboteur? An enemy parachutist? What if this was the beginning of the invasion? I couldn’t hide. I couldn’t do anything. Another flash of fire in the sky outside and I closed my eyes tightly. What is happening? What has happened to Mags?

My brain spun through a dark maze of thoughts, and came to its terrible conclusion at exactly the same moment that a noise from the service room made me gasp and open my eyes and turn towards the stairs. Someone is inside the lighthouse. Mags must have got in their way. And that same someone was now coming for me.

There was a sound on the stairs – a soft, wet sound, but unmistakeably a footstep, and it was soon followed by another, and then another. Something scraped along the wall as the footsteps ascended the stairs, closer and closer, and I could hear another sound now – the hissing of its breath. I shook my head, struggling to breathe as the familiar terror took hold of my heart and lungs. It can’t be the Wyrm, it can’t be . . . My nightmare had finally come to life – I had conjured it into existence with my dream and my fear. I stared in horror as the shadow of the Wyrm now appeared on the wall in front of me, exactly as I saw it in my nightmare. It was a huge, distorted shape with the unmistakeable long, cruel muzzle of a dragon. It hissed again and I tried to control my panicked breathing, telling myself that I would be waking up soon. I always wake up at this part, always. I will wake up any second – any second now . . . But the shadow grew larger, and the hissing of its breath grew louder, and my arms were full of pins and needles. I closed my eyes tightly and waited.

It made its last heavy, wet step up on to the concrete floor of the lantern room, and then there was just the slow hissing of its laboured breath. I pictured it there – scaly and pale and terrible – searching the darkness for me. I could hear the sound of a child sobbing in fear, and it took me a moment to realize that it was me. I thought of Mags, lying on the ground outside and I was nearly sick. The Wyrm has killed her! Bitten her with its needle-sharp teeth! I forced myself to open my eyes and saw not a ghastly sea monster at all, but something very different.