Among the Sleep

Story

The story begins when a toddler celebrates his birthday at home with his mother. The celebration is interrupted by a visitor at the front door who is hidden from the player, but the story suggests that he is the player's father, from whom the mother has divorced. The conversation is muffled and partially withheld from the player as the mother raises her voice and refuses the father's request to see his son. The mother's angry tone frightens the toddler, whose fear is portrayed as blurred vision. The mother quickly returns with a gift, but she does not say who the gift is from. Instead, she carries the child and the gift upstairs to his room, a place of bright, warm colors and brilliant sunlight. Before opening the gift, the phone rings and the mother leaves her son to play alone in his room. The gift turns out to be a teddy bear with feelings. The bear introduces himself as Teddy. Teddy has a friendly, curious nature. After a few minutes of playing together, they go into the closet, which turns out to be a large, dark room full of long, black coats. Teddy says that if the boy gets scared in the dark, he can hug Teddy to feel safer. The little adventure ends with the mother finding them; she gently tells the child to stop hiding from Mommy and puts him to bed. The boy wakes up in the night to find that Teddy has been kidnapped by an unseen force. His crib is overturned and the player escapes. He leaves the bedroom and rescues Teddy from a washing machine. The bear growls that "something is wrong" and that they need to find their mother.