Billy sat on the edge of his bed feeling completely dazed after the magic of the Bright Room. He looked around his cell, and although he knew it was just an illusion, it was so much like his bedroom at home that he found it hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t any more.

He put his hand in his pocket, hoping to find a mint to suck, but found his pocket watch instead. He took it out and looked at it – it ticked away like a little mechanical heart, but the hands didn’t move and it still read four thirty. Billy sighed. It hadn’t been the good-luck charm his dad had promised, but holding the watch gave him some comfort, a connection to home, and to his mum and dad. With a mind full of questions and thoughts of escape, he crawled under his duvet and went to sleep.

He only awoke when Rickett clattered into his room the next day.

‘Bright Room,’ he intoned.

Billy had formed a plan to take the collector by surprise and make a mad rush for the door and for freedom – but he instantly changed his mind at the mention of the Bright Room.

I can always try and escape tomorrow, he thought, because now his only desire was to get back to that magical room.

So he dressed quickly, and obediently followed Rickett along the landing. Each of the cell doors had a little grille in the middle, and Billy glimpsed the tops of heads and frightened eyes that ducked out of sight as they passed.

When he reached the Bright Room, Tom and the others were already there.

‘Hi, are you OK?’ Billy asked, but they seemed a little distracted and just nodded mechanically. Even Tom seemed a little distant.

Billy didn’t care – he was so eager for the magic to begin again, he didn’t want to waste time talking. The next minute a huge circular hole began to open in the floor, making Billy and his friends back up until they were against the wall.

This time a large and very old-fashioned carousel rose up from below. Billy was so disappointed. The roller coaster had been incredible, but carousels were just kids’ stuff. His friends were already climbing onto its wooden horses though, so he followed, and as soon as he sat down the carousel began to turn.

Billy couldn’t believe it – the show was even better than before. The carousel began to spin faster, then faster and then faster still. It spun so fast the room became a blur and the prancing wooden horses snapped from their mounts and leaped high into the air. The Bright Room melted away around him, and Billy found himself galloping high above fields of golden barley. His horse raced down again, its hooves skimming a field of tulips and shaking their petals loose. The petals rose into the air as a cloud of coloured butterflies, and Billy’s eyes widened in wonder. The horses galloped back to the Bright Room and Billy and his friends sprang down as they dropped into the hole in the floor. The hole closed and another magical feast appeared and Billy and his friends had a wonderful time, gorging themselves all over again. When it was time to go, Billy really didn’t want to leave. He loved it in the Bright Room.

‘Mooore tomorrow,’ promised Rickett, so Billy obediently followed him back to his cell.

That night his dreams were a swirl of magical rides and miraculous banquets, and when he woke up he could hardly wait for Rickett to come and collect him.

 

Every day Billy was taken to the Bright Room, and every day the magical shows got better and better. He flew over pyramids on the back of an eagle, and lumbered through ancient ruins on a trumpeting elephant; he was transported back into the distant past and saw dinosaurs roaming the Earth; then off into a future full of strange alien beings.

At the end of each wonderful ride, a magical feast was waiting for him and his friends. The more he ate of the delicious food, the calmer Billy felt and the less he thought about his mum and dad. He could quite happily have stayed in the Bright Room for ever.

Then on the seventh day, when Billy ran into the Bright Room as usual, he noticed something that made him shudder with fear.

Tom and the others looked different! Their eyes had grown a little bigger and their skin was paler.

‘Are you all right, Tom?’ Billy asked. ‘You look a bit, I don’t know – sick.’

‘Fine,’ said Tom, but his voice was flat and his gaze distant. He wasn’t the funny, bubbly friend that Billy knew.

Billy touched his own face. Was he changing too? If he was, it was nothing like as quickly as his friends, but he had no idea why.

Later, as they sat at a table eating bowls of thick chocolate mousse, Billy watched in horror as Tom changed even more, right in front of his eyes. All the colour drained out of his friend’s skin until it was a pale, muddy grey. His large eyes grew even bigger, as big and luminous as headlamps. Billy thought they might pop right out of his head.

When he looked at the others he saw they were changing quickly too. He started to panic. They were becoming so alike it was difficult to tell them apart.

‘Tom!’ he cried.

‘I’m 5572,’ said Tom, as if in a trance.

‘No, you’re not,’ cried Billy, devastated. ‘You’re my best friend, Tom.’

He turned to Zoe. ‘What’s happening, Zoe?’ he asked.

‘I’m 4738,’ she said flatly.

Now Billy was really scared.

‘Samir?’ he cried, but Samir didn’t react at all. They were all just staring into space like grey-skinned automatons. Then the collectors arrived to take them back to their cells.

‘What have you done to my friends?’ Billy demanded, but the collectors ignored him and led the other children away. They went as meekly as lambs. ‘What’s happened to them?’ he asked again, as Rickett led him out of the room. He wanted to kick and scream, but his brain felt muddled after the feast and he went quietly too.

Afterwards, he sat on his bed and tried to work out what was going on. He felt sure it had something to do with the magical rides and the mouth-watering food. After each trip to the Bright Room, his friends must have changed a bit more. Now they had forgotten who they were.

With a jolt of panic, he realized he couldn’t remember his own name, or where he came from either, and he leaped to his feet and rushed to the mirror. His skin was paler, and his eyes were slightly bigger. He was beginning to change, just like his friends.

‘Think,’ he whispered, staring intently at himself. ‘Who are you?’ But his mind was a complete blank.

Then he heard the watch ticking in his pocket. He took it out and held it in his hands, and a picture of his dad and his home gradually formed in his head.

‘My name is Billy,’ he said with a huge sigh of relief. Now he knew he must fight against the magic in the Bright Room with all his strength, or he would end up just like Tom and his friends.

 

When Rickett collected Billy the next day, Billy had made up his mind to resist the wonders of the Bright Room and fight the urge to gorge himself on the incredible feast. He knew if he ate too much it became difficult to think clearly, and he had realized it made it easier for Rickett to control him too. The collector no longer had to drag him around the fortress kicking and screaming, and Billy was sure the food must be laced with a terrible magic.

As he was led out of his cell, he heard the same soft thumping noise he heard every morning. His mind had always been on the Bright Room before, but now he glanced over the balcony to see what it was.

He froze with shock! The landings below were packed with shuffling lines of goggle-eyed children, just like his friends. There were hundreds upon hundreds of them; they wore long habits and stared mechanically ahead as they were marched down the spiral stairs from one landing to the next and into the depths below.

Another collector appeared on Billy’s landing and began to unlock the row of doors. A grey-skinned child appeared from each cell and shuffled past him to the stairs.

‘Hey! Just a moment,’ said Billy, reaching out to touch a child’s arm, but they didn’t even glance in his direction, and soon they had all disappeared to the landings below.

‘Who were all those kids – where are they going?’ Billy asked.

‘The night-children,’ was all Rickett said, and then hustled him quickly out of the tower.