Keagan felt as if he’d just come off the Vomitron ride at the amusement park. Eyes shut tight, he concentrated on keeping his breakfast from making a reappearance.

As his stomach settled, he opened his eyes. Through the doorway, he could see Matilda, standing in the wind before her own doorway, surrounded by ever-increasing wisps of darkness. The mass of black cloud still surged forward. He saw her pull back her arm, the bloody coin in her hand. As she threw it at her opening, Keagan’s doorway splintered apart. The view into his own world shattered.

The way home was gone.

A surge of dread welled up within him. What do I do now? Keagan thought.

Opening his hand, Keagan saw that the computer chip had also disappeared. Without another key, was he trapped?

And where was he?

His unease mounted.

Keagan looked around. A corridor with white walls stretched a long way to either side of him, a white floor beneath, a white ceiling above. He took a few steps, his sneakers squeaking across the shiny surface. He touched a wall. It felt like plastic.

Keagan wasn’t sure what he had expected from this other world, but a boring corridor was not it. It was like being in a hospital with all that white, and there was even a subtle antiseptic smell. At least there was no immediate danger.

Anxiety now gnawed at the pit of his stomach. He realised that the burning desire, which had led him here, had faded. He didn’t know what to do.

But he couldn’t just stand there. He had to do something. Deciding that the corridor must lead somewhere, he started walking. A little way along, he reached a junction and discovered that the corridor didn’t go very far at all – it was just a trick of all that white.

More corridors awaited him and he kept walking, until he turned a corner into an open space and saw …

People. Kids, actually. Probably about seven or eight years old. All of them wearing white jumpsuits. It was like a scene out of a bad old sci-fi film. One cliché leading to another, he thought. And then he noticed something else. All the kids were the same.

Not just the same in terms of their dreadful fashion sense and blonde bob hair-styles – but they all looked like they were siblings. They all had the same delicate, defined facial features, all of them were slim. And he couldn’t quite tell which were boys and which were girls. Weird!

The thought suddenly struck him. Clones! Keagan had watched enough sci-fi – too much, his mum would say – to know that identical people all dressed in white were always clones; fake people grown in vats of bubbling green liquid or something like that.

‘Excuse me.’

Keagan did a double take as he was pulled out of his thoughts. There were five young children approaching, staring at him. Now that they were closer he could tell they weren’t just similar … they were identical. Quintuplets?

‘You are wrong,’ they said in unison, staring at him with bright blue, unblinking eyes.

The way they spoke was unnerving.

‘Wrong?’ asked Keagan, a little taken aback. ‘What am I wrong about?’

The five children then spoke in turn, one word each.

‘Wrong.’

‘You.’

‘Are.’

‘Not.’

‘Perfect.’

‘Um … oookay.’ Keagan took a step back, feeling creeped out by the quintuplets.

‘You should not be here.’ They were speaking in unison again. Keagan wasn’t sure what was stranger – saying one word each, or talking all together.

Keagan started as an alarm blared. He saw people running towards him. They were in black uniforms, they were grown-ups and they did not appear happy.