‘All of this is mine,’ the Creeper says in my ear. ‘If you come here, you’re at my mercy. Remember that.’

I snap out of my reverie and try to turn around because I want to know if the Creeper is greyscale or colour out here in the Dream City. If it’s greyscale, then I’m dealing with another dreamer using the Sweet Dreams platform – which I’m now starting to suspect may be the case. If it’s colour, then it’s just some part of Mel’s consciousness. (Unless the Creeper is bloody lucid like me, which I don’t want to think about because bad implications.)

I need to know more about this entity; I need to make myself look. But while its voice is in my ear, I can’t seem to move. I’m still standing in the doorway, and now from the dressing room behind me I hear water running. Then a muffled soprano cry. With a great effort I manage to turn around, step back inside the dressing room and slam the door on the Creeper and the Dream City. Where is that sound coming from? It’s a rushing, echoing sound of water.

‘Mel?’

My hand is still on the door handle. When I was outside, it sounded like the water was in the dressing room. But now I’m inside, it sounds like the water is outside – but how can it be? There was nothing but scaffolding out there.

I put my ear to the door. No doubt about it: rushing water. I stand back and look again. Now there’s a universal trousers/skirt symbol for a unisex toilet printed on it.

I pound on the door. ‘Melodie! Melodie, I’m coming in!’

Yet I hesitate. What will be in there? What is the person in Mel’s dream capable of doing?

I know one thing. Whatever it is, I’m stopping it.

I turn the handle and go in. It’s not a tiny bathroom like you’d expect in a theatre. It’s a huge marble affair, like the one in her hotel suite. She’s on her knees by the side of the bath. The Creeper is standing over her, holding her head under the water. She’s struggling. It looks over its shoulder at me, and suddenly the Creeper isn’t a masked man in a black suit. It’s Mel herself. There are two of them: the one in the water, and the one holding her in the water. The Creeper Mel is covered in blood and her eyes are staring. Still forcing the real Mel’s head down with one hand, Creeper Mel stretches the other out towards me.

‘Is this what you want to happen?’ the Creeper says. But now it speaks with Mel’s voice. ‘Don’t interfere,’ it says as blood pours down Creeper Mel’s face. ‘You’ll get me killed.’

Then the Creeper does something it shouldn’t be able to do. It boots me out of the dream. I wake up.

The pigeon sisters

The hotel room is freezing. Someone has turned the air con all the way up. Still bleary, I stand and call Mel’s name. I go to the bed, reaching out to shake her. She isn’t there. The bedclothes are all twisted, half on the floor.