Tony Walker

They occurred at the same frequency every full moon, and like clockwork they formed a regular pattern in his life.

Now, thirteen, no meaning was to be found as the two duelled between worlds.

Matthew was no longer afraid, not even of death, only curious, with a deep weight on his chest like someone pressing down.

He couldn't take his eyes off it, the shadow at the window which felt as familiar to him as a family member.

His father slept soundly in the next room, but he had only eyes for this thing.

every time he closed his eyes he saw the cloaked man from the nightmare outside his house its shadow casting a long form over the street where it stood its face was in shadow as it moved not only beckoning with its finger occasionally dreamland its home come to me my child it often said come with me

Let us fly and see the sky for ourselves.

Then join me in the land where you can be free.

At last.

He'd felt able to move whenever that happened, but a better sense of instinct told him to stay put, for his winged friend was not done.

He sensed a conflict between the two, as if he were a pawn in the larger game, as he remained fixed on its form.

It occasionally moved, a brief flutter of the wings before remaining motionless again.

he remained in bed simply staring at it another flutter would follow and his eyes would close of their own accord visions of strange words forming in the darkness

He kept written records of them hidden away, an unusual language that he could never forget.

They resembled no other words he'd ever seen, yet every new moon he studied them, feeling a subtle transformation inside as he recited them occasionally.

As he did, he felt a sudden desire to look in the mirror.

whereby his face would contort slightly.

The first time he had screamed, his father raced in to determine the cause of his son's anxiety.

He refused to speak after that, a mute, for whom the doctors could find no reason for his affliction.

"'Since then, he wrote profusely, "'a work slowly forming that he knew would mean something to him someday, "'but for what purpose he did not know.