In his sleep Riley was running down a dark corridor towards a window, its frame blurred by light. His footfalls were silent. All he could hear was the breathing of the Thing behind him. Blinded, he broke though the glass as though it were tracing paper. His stomach spilled out and he began to fall.
Even as he fell, he knew this was the old dream – the dream that had begun the day of his acquittal. And even as the stairs appeared, he recognised that this was the development – like a turning of the pages in his mind – that had started after he’d received the photograph. He was observing himself, and yet experiencing the rise of terror.
All at once the nightmare cut location. Riley was no longer falling. His stomach was in his belly He was walking along a small corridor in a silent terraced house. Upstairs there were three bedrooms. Outside, at the back, there was a small garden with a gate that led to three trees. He didn’t know why he knew all this, or why he was aware that the front door was green, or that the kitchen floor had been laid with fake marble. It was simply part of the sensation of being in this empty house. He moved slowly like an underwater diver. Sunshine lit the floating dust. To his right, through a doorway he saw an iron fireplace. The grate was clean. By the hearth were a pan and brush on a stand; the poker was missing. A kind of barking started in Riley’s guts – a juddering sensation brought on by the recognition of his surroundings: this was home. He noticed that he was not a man, and not a boy; that he was in between the two. Ahead and to the left he saw a hand on the carpet. It hung off the bottom step of the staircase. The bystander in Riley vanished. Riley became Riley in his entirety. Slowly bravely his eyes moved along the arm, up the shoulder and onto the matted hair.
A lifeless, loveless face looked back. So great was Riley’s horror at the sight of himself that he didn’t even scream.