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was an entity as ancient to the world as it was utterly alien to
it. The sound of the creature’s patience was bottomless and
beckoning. I could only guess at the quality—or quantity—
of death required to transmit life to something so far beyond
all this blowing dust. I immediately understood why the
White Gaia had pressed the thing so closely to her bosom,
for if life were to reach such a thing . . . .
As I drifted away from the timeless sleeper, a familiar
gaze burned into my dream, looking at me with equally
bottomless and beckoning impatience. I could feel the
scorching red hunger of countless wolves wash across me
like searing wind. My dream was melting from the mounting
heat, gazes and hungers collapsing into a single surging
stare. The dream was no longer my own. The new dreamer
crushed me into the shape of a wolf, and a cosmic starvation
overfilled my guts. I couldn’t contain the emptiness.

***

I sprang awake in a slick of sweat, my stomach gusting
red and bottomless. The dream still lingered the room,
fogging windows and mirrors with its hot breath. My mind
turned instantly to killing Mister Trill—not dressing him in
finest dream. I was lost to a vision that was little more than
a gaping maw. Instinctively, I collected my family—they
were aglow, nearly blinding, with the same blazing hunger.
They were particularly suspectable to such cravings, as even
in life they were never subtle creatures, always too eager
and willing when blood needed spilling.
The Red Dream was no longer new to me, but now it
had escaped from sleep, taking refuge within us all. My
family’s collective frenzy nearly threw me from the window
and down upon the twisting ivies that searched all sides
of the undead house. Once down the walls and across the
courtyards of unkept vegetation, I found my feet placed

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