My parents, due to repeated insomnia, had decided to move me to another room, much more spacious, which had served as a storage room in the past, as far back as I could remember... I was only 11 years old, mind you, by that time... I could no longer close my eyes and large purplish bags appeared under my little doe-like childish eyes. So much so that my parents had in fact come to the conclusion that I suffered from claustrophobia, after numerous sessions with the psychiatrist, them for whom I had always been their darling only son, their little protégé...

It was because I had developed an aversion to the night, the meaning of which I did not quite understand, and which, for lack of being able to put words to it, my parents had called by this name, “claustrophobia”. Exept that in fact, it wasn't with the night that I had a problem, but with the dark, the obscurity. Besides, even when I left the light on (which my parents used to let me do) I couldn't bring myself to close my eyes and felt like a mute pressure, coming from outside my island of light, this space lit by a tiny lamp, which left many parts of my room beyond any control, and subject to this force which reigned there, flooding my room with a kind of hostility from which I tried to protect myself with my lamp...

It's as if the darkness had intentions of its own and was waiting for the moment when I gave in to fatigue or common sense which wanted the light to be turned off at some point to take me and absorb me entirely into something similar to chaos. In fact, I felt an oppressive presence distilling in all the areas that my lamp did not illuminate or little, like an entity but one would have neither arms, nor legs, nor body... Something that I felt and which stirred in the shadows, with a sort of dull fury, without me being able to rationally understand what was going on. I didn't understand what it wanted, but it wanted something and not something good, that was for sure.

In this new room that my parents had allocated to me, I managed to bring only the bare minimum of furniture and toys. I pretended that I had grown up and I no longer needed it. I told myself that this way, when night falls, when my little lamp lit up the place, I would have a better chance of keeping an eye on what was happening in the less lit areas of this huge room. Actually, its size probably seemed disproportionate to me due to my age...

I was also careful not to tell my parents that I would have liked a more powerful lamp to illuminate, so to speak, every corner of this new place... I did not want to bother them with my childhood stories, them, who were always very caring and understanding. Besides, I had agreed to go to this room so as not to disappoint my parents, who had gone out of their way to help me fight against my insomnia... I had not dared to refuse the solution they found for me. I also told myself that if I changed location, I might be able to sleep... Even if the size of the room still scared me.

Yet one day, something unusual happened. A power outage occurred in the middle of the night. In 2015, in a big city, no need to say that the thing was more than unlikely... I was in my bed, quite relaxed that evening, reading to kill the time and perhaps end up, at some point, falling asleep, when the light of my little lamp, my dear fellow, went out for no reason. My parents, knowing very well that I would panic without light, were quick to come to my room to reassure me. Yet they didn't find me there. Indeed, when they came, 10 minutes later, I was already no longer in this world.