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they want? Who were they?
    A part of him wanted to put it down to tiredness. He wasn’t even sure if he’d got any sleep whilst curled up on the floor. It could be dark outside. He’d lost all track of time.
    They could still be there, watching him.
    They watch me from the painting.
    Something was wrong with that painting. Manny Bates had written about it and she knew something wasn’t right. Maybe that’s what sent her insane: the paranoia, the uncertainty. But who had painted it? Who were the children?
    And how?
    After a few more moments of complete stillness, Donny edged his head out of his hands and opened his eyes. His vision was blurred, but it was still light, which meant it was daytime. Unless he’d passed out and it was the following day. He just couldn’t be sure anymore.
    He lifted his stiff neck up and glanced around the bedroom. Everything was more vibrant, the red bed sheets even redder, a glimmer of sunlight peeking through the stained window. It was silent except for the slight breeze of the trees outside. No tapping, no banging—nothing.
    In the back of his mind, a naïve part of him clung onto the belief that maybe he’d just been asleep all this time, dreaming away. Maybe he’d crashed when he first got up the stairs and everything that had followed—the boys, the room—was all just make-believe. An offering of writing ideas from the forces above.
    He held onto that naïve belief until he saw the painting.
    There were only three figures between the trees and they were larger than before.
    Donny rose to his feet and moved slowly towards the painting. He didn’t want to get too close but he was close enough to see there were only three figures now. Or was it his eyes? Maybe it was another optical illusion—a trick of the light.
    He leaned in towards the painting. Between the trees, three black silhouettes, almost half the size of the trees now. Two, three inches. When he’d first seen them there were six—there were definitely six—and they were only an inch high. They were growing. Something was changing.
    We’rewatchingwe’rewatchingwe’rewatching.
    The three boys, tapping the air in front of them.
    Three figures.
    An overwhelming sense of foreboding intensified in Donny’s stomach. What if the figures were the boys? What if the three that were missing were… were the three boys he’d seen? He tried to cast his mind back to earlier, clenching his eyes together. Were there only four figures earlier when he’d seen the two boys outside? Five? The more he pondered it, the more insane he felt. You’re hypothesising about a fucking painting. Get a grip and write your book.
    He shook his head and squeezed the bridge of his nose. This wasn’t going to work. He’d spent hours awake, hours jotting away in his pad, and he’d got some really solid ideas down. He could take his pad home and work on them. He could get them typed up on his computer and then he’d really have something to work with.
    He looked up at the painting and the butterflies fluttered inside him. But what if I stay? Perhaps he was insane. Perhaps he was just going completely mad and the lack of sleep was causing him to go crazy, but a niggling series of ‘what ifs’ plummeted around his skull. What happens if the figures grow larger? What if another figure disappears?
    What if I stay for one more night?
    His chest tickled with boyish excitement as he walked over to the bedside cabinet and picked up his phone. He’d always been eager to discover, right from a very early age. His mother used to tell him it would get him into a lot of bother one day but Dad always quietened her and encouraged him to ‘find his treasure’.
    What if this was his treasure? Instead of ‘inspired by real events’ , what if he documented the real events?
    He pictured himself on the TV screens on a Friday evening. Well, I guess that mad part inside me just made me want to stay there and write on. He could be the Bear fucking Grylls of the