“The Man in the Closet” by Alexis Chateau

It was happening again.

That familiar, faint feeling gripped me in the knees and shoved me to the floor. I didn’t try to get up. Instead, I pulled my legs up to my chest and hugged them tightly.

Outside, the summer sun blazed relentlessly. Yet the lighting in the room dipped and brightened like a lonely flame, struggling by an open window. I shuddered. A chill had come in and crept up my spine with icy fingers.

A room away, my mother prepared a delicious meal I would have no appetite for tonight. It smelled like steamed fish and vegetables, with rice and beans cooked in coconut milk – my favourite.

The clinks and clangs of the knife on the cutting board, and the spoon in the pot, cut loudly into the stunning silence. My mother noticed it, too. It was far too quiet for a six year old tom…