Surprising Samarth, the rich aroma of cooking spices had wafted from the Blue Roofed House. The house was left unoccupied for years with the 'For Sale' sign hanging lopsided around the house. Samarth was curious, and wondered what was going on.

He went across the road, and knocked on the door. It swung open, revealing a warm and cozy looking house. The fireplace was lit, and there was a beanbag in front of it. On the beanbag was a book. The house was awfully welcoming, and he felt an unexplainable urge to go in and sit in front of the fireplace. But more welcoming than the fireplace and room, was the aroma of cooking. Whatever was cooking had a smell which made him tingle in a most pleasant manner. Before he could enter, he heard a voice saying, "Come in!"

Without thinking straight, he went in. He advanced toward the kitchen and came across a man cooking. The food smelled heavenly. The man stood still as a rod, his back facing Samarth, but his head turned a full 360° and stared at Samarth, his eyes piercing right into Samarth like blades, and asked, "Would you like some? It's my specialty!"

Samarth screamed and ran out of the house. He glanced back and saw that the man was crawling all over the walls. An absolutely horrifying sight. Samarth ran back to his house and slammed the door shut, and then locked it. But on turning around, he made a shocking realisation. It wasn't his house!

This house had the interiors of the Blue Roofed House, but this time, everything was blue. All the furniture, the walls, everything! They were different shades of blue. This version of the house wasn't cozy looking despite being the same, but it was off-putting. The very nature of the house shook him to the core. It made him tremble, not physically but psychologically. The very sight of the colour blue tormented him. Just as he turned to open the door and get out of the creepy house, the house stretched, growing unnervingly taller and longer. The door was too tall for Samarth to even reach the knob, and the hallway was as long as a football field. However it didn't feel like a football field, but rather a graveyard strewn with unburied corpses.

Samarth felt like an ant. Suddenly, from the ground, emerged the man, from the Blue Roofed House, looking scarier than ever. The man looked like an angry caricature gone wrong. His body was severely stretched and twisted like an inhuman contortionist. Samarth thought that the house seemed to shift and distort everything, including its own dimensions. "You're in my world now!" roared the man, his voice echoing through the corridors like a bell being tolled. The echo hit Samarth like fingernails on a blackboard, and pierced his soul. Samarth ran as fast as he could across the long hallway, taking long strides while thinking to himself, "I'm only fifteen! Why is this happening to me?"

The man chased after him, running on the floor, walls and even ceiling, all the while taunting Samarth, saying that escape was futile. No matter what the man said, Samarth knew that he had to try.

Samarth finally reached the end of the hallway, in what felt like hours, and came to a blue backyard. He jumped right in, relieved at the possibility of an exit. But alas, he was mistaken, as this was no ordinary backyard, but a labyrinth! He ran into the dreadful maze out of fear, as he heard the sound of scurrying, from behind. Left, right, right, left, Samarth kept going, taking turns without thinking, leaving his life to chance. Eventually he ran out of luck and suddenly reached a dead end. When he turned around, he saw the man crawling toward him. Samarth was petrified. There was nothing he could do. It seemed his time was up. Samarth let out an anguished scream.

Samarth woke up in a cold sweat. He was in a blue room. He looked around. It wasn't his room, and the very fact that it was blue made him shudder. There was a creak, and the door opened, revealing the man. Samarth burst into frightened tears, seeing the man's dreadful smile. The tears felt like acid pouring down his face, and just as the man was nearing closer and closer, Samarth woke up. That too, was a dream. All of a sudden, Samarth woke up again and again, from dreams within dreams. Something was seriously wrong.

***

Mr Jones looked at his flip book, as he sat on his blue sofa. Mr Jones was an aspiring artist, and had just made a flipbook. It was about a boy getting lost in a strange house. Jones flipped the pages again and watched, pleased with his latest piece of art. He reached the end of his flipbook, in which a boy kept waking up from dreams within dreams.

But all of a sudden, the pages continued to flip past the end, past where Jones had drawn till. He reached a part of the flipbook which he hadn't drawn! He dropped the book in fearful surprise, onto his blue table, but it continued to flip the pages. It showed the boy suddenly, with a jolt, stop waking up from dreams. The boy was in a cold sweat. As the pages continued to flip, the boy in the flipbook looked at Mr Jones, horrified. And then, from within the pages, the boy cried out, "Help me!"

***