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Hush, let me tell you a story. Are you snuggled up in bed, with the covers up to your necks, so you are safe, safe from all the hidden terrors of the night? Good, good, for you need to be safe to hear my story. Because you know, they only come out at night.

There once was a man who was so full of himself he thought the world entire resided within his own shell. If anyone claimed to be good at something he would loudly declare himself to be better. If someone dared to speak of an ambition he would best it. If someone said they wanted to be boss, he would declare himself king.

For some reason, people let him do that. When he was a child his parents grew tired of trying to argue with him and were worn down into agreeing. He went through life pretty much the same way. No-one could withstand the onslaught for long. He was so sure, so sure of himself, so sure he was everything and a cherry on top as well!

And perhaps he was right, eventually. Not at first. At first he was just an arrogant little boy. But over time, they say, belief causes things to change. You can bend the world to your will, if it is strong enough. Writers write the future, as prophecy, without even knowing they are doing it. Painters paint worlds that come to be. Quantum physicists will tell you the experimenter always changes the experiment.

So perhaps, over time, he did start to have everything within him, everything and a cherry on top as well.

But what he didn’t count on, because creators rarely think through their creations, is what that might mean. And that, eventually, if everything was inside of him, a whole world, well, eventually that world would want to come out.

That’s where they come from, you see, all the horrors of the night? All the not quite right things that haunt our dreams? From the man who was everything, and everything had to come out. Right out of his own lips, where such boasting lured them out, out. Bursting forth, bursting him into nothing, because nothing can be everything, no matter what he thought. Out into this world from some other that he either imagined in his pride, or he tapped into in his delusion. Either way, they came.

And as you know, they only come out at night.

(c ) Helen M Valentina 2018