The world is closing in around me. I don't know what to do. I can't see anything that makes sense to me. The walls bend and distort, curling around my small body, paint peeling off in flakes of colour as I struggle to breathe. It feels like a prison inside my own mind. I'm chained to thoughts that have no meaning or worth to me but the forest inside my head won't let them float away.

I sit up abruptly, a thin sheen of sweat shining my face and my breathing ragged and hoarse. I've had this nightmare over and over again, the same recurring dream, Okaachan says. At least, that's what she calls it. I think of it as a punishment that I've earned in a previous life. Maybe, in some distant universe a long time ago, I lived as a psychopath, or perhaps a serial killer. Someone bad, anyway. Okaachan is forever telling me that I am naughty. Ever since we left the boarding house in Japan, my country, she has scolded me and Ichirou, my older brother. Only my sister Akemi gets special treatment from Mama. She is the favourite child. 

Ichirou doesn't care about our family very much. He is never with us as he leaves the house late at night and only arrives back a day or two later. But he is 17, so Mama and Papa say he can do what he likes. Akemi is the middle child, and she is 14. Papa and Mama love her the most as she is beautiful, good, polite and quiet. Not troublesome like Ichirou or worrying like I am. I'll be ten in a few months time. I wonder if they'll decide to celebrate my birthday this year. They forgot last year, so it's probably unlikely.

A small slither of sunlight creeps through my open curtains. I glance around the messy inhabitants I have only recently been able to call home. It may be small and stuffy and is home to a few rats at night but that never worries me. I have always been the animal lover of the family. They make me happy, animals. They make sense to everyone, not just in this reality I have been forced to live in, but also in my own head. They make me feel safe. Especially as I don't see the world like other people do.

Just as I acknowledege this, my bedroom begins to warp and twist into something unrecognisable in terms of size.  "違います", I moan, beginning to shake slightly and curling up in a terrified ball on the coarse, mushroom-coloured carpet. "No, no, no, no...."  My voice rises to a crescendo and then drops to a guttural moan. I lie there, shivering, suddenly cold, and hear the sound of footsteps. But they seem far away somehow. Slowly, I look around my bedroom, which has transformed. The wardrobe and the bed seem at least 200 feet tall, towering over me like skyscrapers. The toys I once loved no longer look comforting and their smiles have become more menacing than cheerful. My body stiffens as sobs of pain and panic course through me, crashing over me like huge tsunami. Suddenly the door is flung open, and my world swirls back into reality.

KEY: Japanese words and names

Okaachan = mother

Ichirou = 1st son

Akemi = bright beauty 

違います = no