The Identical Boy is available NOW through Amazon.
Click one of the links below to buy for just $0.99/£0.99
Hey there Genre Readers! I’m Matthew Stott, one of the people behind this here site, and my new book, The Identical Boy, is now available to download, direct from Amazon! *does a little dance*
It’s a creepy little tale about a lonely boy and a monster. Here’s the blurb:
Things live between awake and asleep. In the moment after your eyes grow too heavy to stay open, but before the dreams take you.
Night after night, Sam dreams that he has a real life best friend; but when he wakes up, he always seems to forget him. One day he does not forget. One day he remembers. And on that day, the boy comes to stay…
Ooh..! Here’s a peek at the first chapter:
The Identical Boy: A Tale From Between
Chapter One
This sort of thing happens to children all the time.
More often than you’d think, really.
Wherever the dark night falls and tired eyes falter.
Sam didn’t know that, of course, as he lay curled within the thick blanket upon his single bed and listened to the wind howling outside, rattling the wooden sash windows. The only people who do know are those whom it’s already happened to, and just who are they in a position to tell?
Sam could hear a voice.
He thought he could.
He was sure he could.
Had? Would? Was right now?
Sunlight crept through a parting between the frayed, drab curtains of his bedroom. Sam’s forehead creased at the intrusion, eyes wrinkle-tight.
There was a voice.
A boys voice, wasn’t it? Yeah. Or? Was it actually a boy? Maybe it was something else. Something other. He was sure that sometimes the voice seemed to change. Perhaps it was really a—
Sam needed the toilet. He turned over in bed, legs curling up to meet his stomach.
Where was he? In bed, asleep? No, he was in the forest again, yeah.
‘Sam! Over here, Sam!’
The voice!
Sam stopped wondering about whether he was or wasn’t asleep, whether he was dreaming or really sprinting through a forest with trees the size of skyscrapers, and instead focussed in on that voice. That voice. That intoxicating sound that was…. Wait.
What had he been thinking about?
Was there a voice? Perhaps it was just in his head. Had he been alone all along?
The trees knew, but they wouldn’t let on.
‘Did you hear a voice, too? I think I might be waking up, and I can’t quite remember what’s happening. It’s all going away again. Dreams do that, don’t they? They can just go away and hide when we wake up. Tell me, did you hear a voice, or not?’
The trees rustled their leaves and whispered at each other in the sleeping place, but they refused to answer in any way that Sam could understand.
‘Over here, Sam; you have to remember!’
Remember what? Remember wh— Brown hair. A conversation. Running and running and laughter and secret signs and not alone! At last, at last—
Sam blinked. Once. Twice. Again. He could see his bedroom ceiling. The other place, the dream place, was fading. The trees had gone; his bedroom pushed them out of the way.
What had he been thinking about again? Had he been dreaming? He tried to grasp it and pull it close as he awoke, but it was like trying to hold onto smoke. It fuzzed and warped and fell apart as he became more and more awake. Sam sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he yawned, expelling the night and inhaling the day.
It was gone again. Whatever it was, whatever he’d been dreaming, it was gone—just like the day before, the day before, the day before.
But wait—
No. No, not quite like the day before. Something was different this time. Sam balled his blankets tightly in his fists as he concentrated. This time something had clung on. Ever so slightly, but it was there. A hook had lodged. At last, at last. An idea remained.
Itching.
Persistent.
There had been a voice.
*****
The Identical Boy is available NOW through Amazon.
Click one of the links below to buy for just $0.99/£0.99
*****
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