Rain crashed against the old thin glass on the window causing it to fog up. A dull glow illuminated the old room making its musty red carpet look black and its off-white walls grey.

He groaned as he came to, hearing the squeaks and groans of the old mattress more clearly as he tried to sit up.

Where was he?

He frowned as he scanned the unfamiliar room. A rat walked slowly beside the skirting board on the far wall, its hind legs waddling lazily behind the rest of its body.

His eyes rested on a dark portrait of a man standing in a field. Deep lines and dirt obscured the detail of most of the field that the man was standing in. He seemed to stare straight at Peter, straight through him, looking into the contents of his mind. Knowing its secrets.

Peter climbed from the bed and collapsed onto the floor. Pain shot through his body. He screamed when he looked upon the ravaged remains of his legs. Greasy brown bandages covered most of the flesh on them. Dried congealed blood rested on flesh that had not been covered by bandages.

He tried to steady his breathing as he brought a shaky hand down to unravel the bandage that had been wrapped tightly around his right calf.

A key rattled in the door and it swung open. A tall hairy figure stomped towards Peter. He wasn’t sure if it was a man.

‘Get up!’ it growled. Its large teeth glistened with saliva.

Peter’s heart thumped in his ears. He struggled to get up from the floor. The thing reached down and pulled him up, holding him towards the ceiling.

‘We won you!’ it threw him across the room. He crashed against the far wall and screamed as the thing stomped over the bed towards him.

It picked him up again ‘your coward father gambled with his own life and when he lost we came to get him’ the thing laughed. ‘And when we came to get him, he gave us you instead, you’re younger, so of course, we agreed’

It slammed Peter against the wall and tore a chunk of flesh from his torso with its teeth. It grunted as it chewed and swallowed.

As he screamed and trashed, Peter wished he could awake from this nightmare. Instead, the world around him faded to black and he never woke to it again.