Darkness choked him. It choked him every night. There was nowhere left for him to run. Solitude, loneliness, and fear loomed in the air as thick as morning fog. Where could he go to hide?

He jumped into bed, clutched the covers up around his neck, wedged the blanket under his feet, and prayed for comfort from the watchers, ghosts, unseen visitors, monsters, and those unwanted and uninvited specters that always come from the other world into the room where he slept. They invaded his will, his mind, and his soul.

Eyes filled with piercing vapors and encircling flames stood by his bed once again. Fearing the faintest touch from them, he flinched as if electricity leaped from the wall socket of its own will onto the bed. Unspoken words from childhood prayers stood at the gate, but refused to be spoken.

Needing a release to fight off the creatures from some niche forgotten by the world, Scott, a man now 18 years old, took his normal last available escape from the torment covering him. Seeking to retain his sanity, grasping sleep, a form of release, or so he thought, he rode the familiar reserved seat on a fast-moving beam of light that thrust small spiral-shaped shards into uncharted regions where, if one wasn’t vigilant, arms of the aggressor would seize the living light unwilling to relinquish the flame of one’s soul.