Dark night, dark clothes, dark wall, small window overhead open just a crack. he found the handholds, footholds, enjoying the climb, taking pleasure in his silent skill.

At the window he braced himself enough to free one hand and nudge the frame. It swung open a bit further without a sound. Perfect.

Grasping the frame, he pulled himself up, looked inside. A store-room of some kind with shelves along the walls. His dark-adapted eyes could make out no threatening shapes, so he nudged the window further open and slipped through into the house.

They would be at home, all asleep now, just the way he liked it. Padding softly about the house, Jase would lift all the small valuables, even right from their bedside tables. They never woke. it was his great talent. No breaking, no vandalism, just a quiet, professional job.

Jars. Rows of them. Shading his pencil torch, he turned it on, and started back in surprise.

Tentacles. Jar upon jar of tentacles, with pink or blue or pale white suckers, suspended in clear fluid, each jar labelled in what he supposed must be Latin, though he did not really know.

Turning off the torch, he stood a while in the dark, trying to shake off the mild shock, listening to the house for any hint of danger.

As he always did, Jase spent some days watching the property. No-one ever came out, and a lot of things were delivered. Old people or invalids lived here, he concluded, and a carer who opened the door to deliveries and the occasional visitor. Rich old people, since the house was so large and very well-kept. Now he could add strange old people. Maybe one of them used to be a biologist or something.

He glanced back at the window, a faint rectangle of less intense darkness, his means of escape should anything go wrong. Turning away to look for a door out of this storeroom, he became aware that in all the jars, the tentacles were emitting a faint glow. Had they been doing that before? Perhaps he just had not noticed.

With a soft, cautious tread, he moved along the shelves towards the far wall where a door ought to be located. The room proved to be much bigger than expected. Unreasonably so.

After five minutes, Jase started to breathe faster. Years of life as a professional intruder — his own definition of his work — gave him the ability to stay calm in very challenging circumstances, but now some ripples appeared on the surface of that calm — an awareness that something was not right.

He stopped. He did not want to throw away so many days’ careful preparation, but what kept him out of jail was a willingness to recognise when a situation was too hazardous.

True, nothing had happened, The house was silent, but all his instincts told him that there was considerable risk in going any further. the darkness was deep around him, in spite of the glow from the jars. He took two more steps forward, his arms stretched out in front of him, and touched something soft and warm, something that moved gently under his fingers, as if it was breathing.

He pulled away and backed off a few steps, stopping to listen. Nothing. No sound at all. Even the quietest, most empty house still makes small noises — the creak of cooling masonry, the wind whistling through windows or across chimneys. Here, it was as silent as a soundproofed room.

Jase backed away further, then turned and retraced his path towards the window as fast as he could while still being cautious. He wanted to run, but that would have been stupid.

Ten minutes later, he still had not reached the window, and his customary calm was nearly gone. he clung to the shreds of it, reasoning that he must have got lost — but how could he be lost when the path he took from the window was straight and the path he took back was also straight? He must, he thought, have somehow turned a corner in the dark without realising, and at that moment he saw an opening between the shelves and their glowing jars.

After only a moment’s pause he turned between the shelves. A few paces later, he knew that it was a mistake. The glow was gone and he was in complete darkness. He turned to go back, but the way he came in was no longer there.

The torch — he got out his torch and turned it on, not bothering to shade it. He was in a corridor, narrow enough that he could touch both walls at once with this outstretched hands. In both directions, he could see no end to it. On either side there were doors at regular intervals, all closed. The floor was of bare wooden boards, shiny in the torchlight as if they were very old and well-used.

Doors were hopeful. There might be good pickings behind them or, more importantly, a way out.

He listened at the nearest door. There was a faint rumbling sound. He turned the handle and opened it. Moist stone steps led down and down. The rumbling was louder. Wisely, he thought, he chose not to go there, and closed the door.

Behind the next door was silence, but it opened onto a corridor just like the one he was in. No.

Behind the third door there was nothing. It was a blank black space which swallowed up the small light of his torch and reflected no light back. He closed the door slowly and looked up and down the corridor. So many, many doors. Perhaps he should have gone down the stairs behind the first one. At least stairs were normal. He walked back to that door and tried to open it again, but it was locked.

The house was playing with him, and he started to understand that here, you could never go back to where you’d already been. Everything changed behind you.

Choose a door at random and go through, he decided. One, two, three, this one. A set of stairs going up this time, wooden stairs. Afraid of the noise, he climbed shifting his weight gradually step by step, only making the quietest of creaks. The stairs turned and twelve steps further up he came to a door. He opened it a crack, not daring to shine his torch through, and listened. Nothing. He stepped through and the door closed behind him.

Now he used the torch, turning it on and then off again when he saw where he was. He didn’t want to see that.

A room full of shelves, and on the shelves, jars, and in the jars, eyes.

He stood with his back against the closed door, pulling on the handle, willing it to open, but it was locked.

The jars began to glow, and all the eyes were looking at him. He screamed and ran, and ran and screamed, not caring if anyone heard him, wanting to be heard. No-one was listening, and the room went on forever.