Among The Sleep

***Among the Sleep*** is a Norwegian first-person horror adventure video game developed by Krillbite Studio for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It was released on 29 May 2014 in North America and Europe.

## Story

The story begins as a toddler is having their birthday celebration at his 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 it is the player's father, with whom the mother has divorced. The conversation is muffled and partly kept from the player as the mother raises her voice, refusing the father's request to see his child. The mother's angry tone frightens the toddler, whose fear is presented as blurred vision. Quickly, the mother returns with a gift, but the mother doesn't tell who the gift is from. Instead, she carries the child and gift upstairs to the child's room, a place of bright, warm colors and streaming sunlight. Before the present is opened, the telephone rings, and the mother leaves her baby in the bedroom to play alone. The gift is revealed to be a sentient teddy bear. The bear introduces himself as Teddy. Teddy has a friendly, curious nature. After a few minutes playing together, they go into the closet, which turns out to be a large, dark room filled with long, black coats. Teddy says that if the player gets scared in the dark, they can hug Teddy to feel more safe. The small adventure is ended by the mother finding them; she tells the child, gently, to "stop hiding from mommy" and puts him to bed. The baby wakes in the night to find Teddy being taken by an unseen force. Their crib becomes overturned, and the player escapes. The child leaves the bedroom and rescues Teddy from a washing machine. The bear grunts that 'something is not right', and that they need to find mother.

The search translates into a journey through several surreal environments. Teddy instructs the player to find four memories the child shared with their mother that will lead them to her. The memories take the forms of four objects: Her pendant from her necklace shown at the start of the game, the music box she plays to put him to sleep at night, a story book, and the pink elephant. Throughout the search, the player is pursued by a large, shadowed monster.

After the last memory is found, the child and Teddy are captured by the monster and in the ensuing struggle, Teddy's arm is torn off as the child falls into a large, dark room. He follows their mother's voice as she keeps telling her child to leave her alone. They sees her drinking from a bottle as she transforms into a large, black monster before disappearing. The child is left alone in the dark, with light coming from cracks in a nearby door. It leads them back to room. They heads downstairs to find their mother crying in the kitchen, the damaged bear in one hand, an empty wine bottle in the other, which she drops. When the player attempts to retrieve the bear, the mother knocks the toddler over and shouts at the player to leave her alone. She apologizes and tells the toddler she "didn't mean to", and that "it's too much". The player has the option of briefly comforting mother should the player interact with her again.

There is a knock at the front door that the mother doesn't react to; instead, she continues crying. When the toddler goes to the door, it opens and reveals a glowing white light. The player's father is heard talking to the child, remarking on Teddy's broken arm, stating that he can fix him.

## Gender of the toddler

There is some dispute among players about the toddler's gender, because it is unknown. However, in the official game translations to the foreign languages the main character is referred to as "she", therefore it is incorrect to refer to the main character as "he". "She" or gender neutral pronoun "they" would be correct.