It didn’t make sense to stay in the city, not after seeing it outside her apartment. Her parents were away until the weekend, but home still seemed the safest place to go. It was there that her dad used to sit by the bedside whenever the nightmares came. He would stroke her hair with one hand and dry her cheek with the other. The monsters knew better than to mess with him, he used to say, stifling a yawn. Warm memories such as these were all she had to thaw the terror now closing around her life.

There was only one other person who could understand what was happening but he wouldn’t answer his phone. Fiona wanted to empty her lungs with a scream, to vent all that frustration in one deafening blast. She didn’t know if Tom was alive or dead. But he was studying in a different university, in another county. Maybe it hadn’t found him like it had found her.

She couldn’t afford to see it a third time. That’s what she had been told. And now, in these lonely hours, with the night pouring down on her like black soil, Fiona knew it to be true. No matter what happened, she mustn’t look outside.

She’d closed every door and sealed the curtains, leaving only a darkness so haunting it felt tight to breathe. That sense of being chased never went away. Fiona hadn’t slept. She couldn’t remember when last she had eaten. She yanked down the kitchen blind, taking a moment to scan the surrounding fields. All was still. Only the hollow thrum of her heart broke the silence.

She scrambled up the stairs to her old bedroom, locking its door behind her and pocketing the key. Through its skylight – set high in the ceiling – the firmament above was darkening. Soon the stars would return to recommence their search. But spy as they might through the glass, they would never find her in the room’s corner, where Fiona had slept as a child and watched them with a sense of wonder, not the fearful distrust that plagued her now.

If she could wait out the next few days, her parents would know what to do. Her dad would chase the monsters away. He would keep her safe like he used to. Until then, she would fear the dark wildering world outside as though night and death were one and the same. She had no other choice.