The moon fights storm clouds for space in the night sky, peeking out briefly before disappearing again. Even in this dim light, Elliot can make out the outline of a distant forest from where he stands at the window. The branches are woven together so tightly it is a wonder anything might pass through them, whether in flight or on foot ... but he senses life within those trees, so many beady eyes glowering at him, as he looks down upon them.

When the moon reappears, Elliot holds his hand up in the light. His flesh is pale, nearly translucent. He can just barely make out the blue veins beneath the surface, watching without interest as they course with blood.

Outside the window of his bedroom, some gargoyle stands sentry. Thick talons holding firm, wrapped around the intricately carved limestone of his uncle's macabre Second Empire-style manse. Round black eyes seem to leer out over the grounds and distant forest. He can almost picture the gargoyle sweeping down from the wall and alighting on the back of its prey, digging its talon into the wretch's muscle so quickly there would be no time to cry out; there would only be death.

The moon grows brighter still, and Elliot looks up, watching as the clouds part in a peculiar fashion. Rather than just drifting past, they seem to split at the center, with some moving to the left and others to the right as if the moon nudged them apart. The light of the moon falls on the gargoyle and casts an immense shadow of its beastly shape on the wall inside his room. As Elliot watches, the shadow's head seems to turn, and its wings seem to stretch: a beast waking from a long slumber. The toes of the shadow's feet twitch, free themselves from the aging stucco and spread as the creature grows larger still and appears to step down from its stone perch. Elliot turnns to look at the actual gargoyle outside his window, where it sits, unmoving and lifeless, as it has since the home was built. The moon remains fixed, yet the shadow appears to be walking across the room, looming larger with each step. Elliot stares as one clawed hand and then the other tracks across the wall, crawling across posters, his buruea and bookshelves, inspecting the surroundings.

Elliot wants to reach for the light on his nightstand but he's frozen in place, as though pinned to the mattress. When had he returned to his bed? Or had he always been there? He grunts and whines, frustration and fear warring in his paralyzed limbs. His resistance is futile. The creature advances.

It creeps across the room, caressing every surface and object. When the wraith reaches the photograph of his parents on his dresser, it hesitates and shrinks back, carefully avoiding the frame, before moving on to the chair in the far corner. Elliot watches as the shadow's molten blackness rounds the corner and continues along the wall ... an impossibility, he knows, as the light of the moon can do nothing more than shine through the window. Yet the creature stands there just the same, a shadow within the shadows, continuing to explore his bedroom. As it reaches the final corner, having come full circle, the shadow leaves the wall and oozes across the floor, expanding, until it comes upon the foot of his bed.

He cannot scream. He cannot move. He can do little save for stare, wide-eyed with horror as the creature stirs, rising from the floor, growing until it nearly touches the ceiling. The shadow spreads its massive arms until they embrace the walls on either side, then grow longer still as they stretch around the bends, encircling the room. The arms are no longer arms, Elliot realizes, but wings. Great black wings with little webbed digits which lead the way as the shadow looms over him, around him, until it fills nearly every inch of the space. Consuming him.

At first, he perceives nothing in the creeping gloom. No discernible features, no face in which to peer. Then he spies the eyes, two eyes of vibrant hazel, staring back at him from the depths. His eyes. Perhaps they are inching closer, for they seem to wax brighter, or perhaps he is rising from his bed to meet them. He cannot tell. He only knows that he does not want to die and some part of him is certain that if he meets with this shadow, merges with its depths, he will. The beastly bat-like creature is inches from his face now. There comes a growl as the eyes pierce his. Elliot cannot move, cannot speak. He can only watch as the creature bares its teeth, dripping with saliva and acrid gore.

Hello, Bruce.

The voice from within is his father's.

The voice from within is his own.

Elliot wakes with a shout, flailing in sheets soaked to the mattress with sweat. With both hands, he punches the air, only to realize there is nothing there. He twists and struggles, desperate to free himself from the shade of his terror, but he is alone. He is far from his uncle's estate and that bedroom which held so much of his grief. The cityscape shimmers from a distance outside his bedroom windows. He is home.