Tony Walker

The process was complete.

He looked different, younger, with blond hair over pale skin as the man's eyes shone through.

He winked at them, blowing them kisses as they gradually evaporated into nothingness,

eventually only faint moisture patterns remained which started to disappear gradually he grinned now whistling as he saw a light turn on in a house to the right a curtain opened and a young boy matthew dressed in pyjamas and possessing the very face of innocence stared out at the cloaked man

They stared at each other, one a statue of nightmare incarnate, as the silence bore witness.

Matthew was transfixed and the cloaked man winked, before throwing his cloak in front of him and disappearing.

He closed the curtain again, startled as the door to the house opened and the figure entered below.

He crept back into bed, covering the sheets over him as heavy footsteps approached, before all went black again.

matthew floated in darkness for a while longer before he woke up with a start the nightmare lingering he looked identical to the boy in the dream with short brown hair and radiant green eyes

he could still hear movement coming up the stairs the world blurry incoherent and surreal as a tale came to a slow but sure end he tried to move but couldn't still

the usual narrative played out as the moon shone dimly through his open window his occasional but too regular fear of dying when he went to sleep had vanished and now replaced by a curiosity at this new occurrence

He turned to the right to see a shadowy shape hanging outside.

It cast a deep, long shadow on his bedroom door, like a bat hung upside down but with no discernible shape to be seen.

Its features were leathery, something hidden under giant wings as it remained motionless.

It regularly appeared each full moon his visitor, as he'd come to think of it.

Ever since the night of the Blood Moon, many autumns ago, when he was three, the winged thing had come.

No sound announced its presence.

No movement, save for its sudden appearance as he awoke from the nightmare he'd just experienced.

The nightmare was always the same.

Sometimes he'd flee the figure, other times the cloaked man would vanish and he'd startle awake, though always paralysed as he was now.