In the quiet of the stairs, he'd started to drift. It wasn't quite sleep, but it definitely wasn't awake. That strange phase of being where everything floats, the real blends with the unreal, memory and dream are the same. Dimly, he knew he was still sitting on the stairs, he could feel them hard beneath him. But that was a fact as distant as the sky on grey day. He knew he shouldn't sleep, that this was a terrible place for it. But still he hoped that maybe the unfamiliarity of such a place, a spot not tied to memories, could allow him a little peace. Just for a moment.

However, in that way the mind plays tricks in the dark, so does it play tricks in half sleep. He heard the footsteps but didn't care. Not at first. But his mind tried to give them form, give them shape. Tried to match the sound to the owner. Possibilities mixed with fears. Before him lurked any number of figures, some impossible, some dead. None of them he wished to face. Old enemies, old rivals, his father, then just as they stopped. Just as she spoke, the deepest fear took hold. It warped her voice into something different. Something high, but much darker. More sinister. And from the artificial darkness his mind had flooded the stairwell with, a pale face with gleaming, slitted eyes surged out of the shadows, hissing his name.

He sat up with a start, a pitiful shout as his arm flew over his face to shield him from the imagined horror. But like so much ice cold water, reality rushed in to sober him quickly. He blinked, staring at the girl before him. Where fear once sat, dread took over.

A nightmare of a different sort. One where he'd been the monster.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" He growled, reaching up to brush back his mussed hair.