Friends In Darker Places

How cold and dark it was in her little cupboard. It always was. She shivered under the filthy, threadbare blanket as tears prickled at the corners of her eyes.

Aunt Petunia wasn't happy with how she had made tonight's dinner, so her punishment was ten seconds of her hand being pressed against the hot plate of the stove.

Meli clutched her hand to her chest. Her cheek throbbed, no doubt it would bruise from Dudley's favourite game, 'Meli Hunting.'

He and his friends had driven everyone away so she would have no one. She was all alone in the dark, with the spiders in her little cupboard.

The sore and exhausted six year old heard the old clock in the sitting room across the hall, strike midnight and she squeezed her eyes tight, wishing so hard that maybe, someone, somewhere in the world, would be her friend. Someone that her stupid, fat cousin couldn't scare away...

And someone... something ancient and curious... heard.