The old lady limped over to the fireplace and sat in an armchair before I could say anything.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say she hadn't left me space to say anything. After the invitation to sit and warm up, she took her eyes off me and grabbed a few blankets, placing a couple of them over her lap and the rest on the seat of another chair opposite her.

Sat on the thick cushion of her armchair, she began tapping fingers against the armrests, restlessly.

Cold and wet, it didn't take long for me to wrap myself in the pile of blankets. I dragged the chair a little closer to the fireplace and tucked into a ball, shivering the chills out from my extremities.

"You ought to take those clothes off too. And I'm not just saying that 'cause you'd look good in the nude." She chuckled, her fingers continuing to tap irregularly.

I frowned at the comment, and then, only after an odd sense of placid peacefulness did I notice the lack of a desire to respond. I held no real qualms about the inappropriate comment, or anything else about my situation. It felt as if she understood me, and I needn't clarify a thing. We were both happy to sit with the crackling of her fire and the tapping of her fingers. But, shouldn't I be worried?

My body warmed enough to count out frostbite, and I shed a few blankets to start patting my soaked clothes dry.

"What's a young man like you doing in The Valley all alone?" the lady asked.

After she spoke, the words of a reply filled my throat. It felt like I was choking on them. "I'm not alone," I spat, then took a heavy breath to settle a waver in my stomach.

"Oh? Look pretty alone to me. The Valley isn't such a safe place these days."

Again, that feeling. I don't want to speak. But why not?

"Would you care for a warm meal? If you sit in those wet clothes without warming your insides you'll just freeze all over again."

I nodded, and the old lady stood from her chair. Her fingers stopped tapping but they fidgeted as if they would've liked to continue. She limped across the room with a significant effort, though she held no cane or anything else to help her walk. Her one good leg reached as far as it could, the toe on her slipper dragging against the floor. It was a miracle it didn't catch on anything. Not any of the carpet edges, nor the little tables stocked with ornaments, nor the small step up halfway across the room.

"Is it soup?" I asked.

The old lady turned to me, concerned. "Stew. Soups are for the pour and Nameless."

Oh, I can speak again. So I asked the magical question: "Who are you?"

She paused, her eyebrows narrowing. It was as if she hadn't looked at me before, and only now did she stare right at me. Not my body, not my eyes, nor my chest, nor anything physical. Me.

"I'm just a bitter old woman who can't let go of her home." She sighed and gave a meek grin. "Now, save the rest of your questions for after you eat, dear."

She slipped out behind the singular door at the other side of the room. For a moment, I considered plunging back into the water to escape, but something told me I wouldn't be so lucky as to find another fireplace upon resurfacing. I scooted my chair a little closer to the flames and peeled off my wet footwraps, laying them out in front of the heat.

My shoulder complained again and there was another consideration to Repair myself, but I wasn't so sure I wanted to bloodlust after this old woman. Well, I'm not entirely convinced that's all she is.

I kept patting myself, switching out wet blankets for dry ones, and soon I noticed the edge of a silky map sticking out from one of my pouches. I can check where we are.

I dug into my pouch and pulled the map out. It was wet, drenched actually, but it didn't crumple or tear like a paper map would have. It really did seem to be made of fabric. I traced my finger across the wet surface, scanning for the red dot. And there it sat, dead center in the middle of The Valley.

The door creaked open again and the lady peaked through. Her hand rest on the threshold, tapping against it. "Oh, what's that there?"

"Maker's map," I blurted out without thinking.

"Maker of Dreams? Who'd have thought she still made maps." She ducked back into the other room. "You know, the first thing she ever made was a map. I was shocked, didn't think it was possible to map The Realm. She proved me right wrong." The woman appeared in the doorframe again, holding a steaming pot with thick mittens.

"You know Maker?" I asked.

She shook her head. "What'd I say about questions, dear? Eat up, will you?"

"You just—"

"Must you really question an old woman? Eat or it'll be cold. Wouldn't want to upset me now, would you?" She nearly dropped the pot on a round wooden table, sighed, and shifted her thin feeble body into a chair.

Why didn't I offer to carry that for her? I placed a hand to my head, soothing a faint ache.

"Aches from the cold are a sure sign you've let yourself get far too chilly. Hurry up," she said.

My legs moved on their own, bringing me to the table. I didn't want to sit, but I did. Something isn't right.

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I wanted to ask what was going on. I wanted to say something. But I couldn't. Something is seriously wrong here.

"What are you doing? Eat." The woman's fingers tapped against the table. While they had once felt random, now they seemed to move in a particular pattern. A pattern that told me to eat.

"No…"

The woman's entire body hesitated before her hand slammed on the table, rattling the lid of the pot. "What?" Then, she leaned back from the table, lifting her hands in the air. "What am I doing?"

The layer of placid peacefulness left me and a rush of panic replaced it, sending my heart racing. My eyes darted around the cavern. Two potential exits, one's for certain. I'll get cold, if I keep moving I might not freeze to death. There could be an exit behind the door. How likely? A little. Sounds worth it to me.

I pushed back from the table, knocking the chair as I stood.

The woman stared at her hands and shook her head. "I didn't mean to—"

"Nice meeting you," I said, before striding towards the singular door as casually as I could manage.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm only going to take a look," I said.

"No… no… You can't go in there, stop that." Her hand slammed against wood, and I froze.

My entire body went numb, stuck in place. I could barely breathe let alone take another step. The peacefulness tried to overwhelm me, but I resisted its pull. Not again. I'm not letting my guard down.

The tapping ceased and I lurched forwards, almost falling to the ground from the sudden freedom of movement. I spun to see the lady holding her own hand, staring at it in horror. "I… I swear it was a mistake. Please, Eater of Dreams. Don't think so poorly of me." She peered up at me desperately, her eyes glowing a light blue.

Eater of Dreams? "Who—No… What are you?"

The lady smiled sheepishly and sighed. "I suppose I've been had. There's no use hiding it any longer."

Her arms dangled to her sides and one of her fingers dripped away from her hand. Then, the rest of it melted into a bright blue sludge, plopping against the floor. It sizzled on the carpet and an iridescent orange radiated out from the sludge, creeping over the surface of everything it touched. More of the lady's arms dripped and lost their shape, piercing blue muck fell and bubbled on the floor. At least, I thought it was bubbling.

Soon though, I realized the bubbling did not come from air escaping the sludge, it came from thousands of tiny skittering roaches flowing out into the room.

The radiating orange glow met itself at the end of the old lady's chair, and as I blinked my eyes desperately, they began to see what had truly been in front of me the entire time. Roaches. The chair was only a collection of insects, crawling over one another, shifting impossibly to take the shape of a chair. The table and the carpet were bugs too, slowly revealed to me by the sizzling orange line that crawled over everything.

"This is me. I'm simply an old woman, too attached to her home…" The remainder of the old lady croaked out the final words before the rest of her body shifted bright blue and another wave of roaches splashed to the floor.

The tens of thousands of skittering bugs merged into one cohesive movement and the sound that came from the swarm formed vague audible words. "But I mean you no harm…" it said. "Please, trust me."

I took another step towards the door, but once I'd turned to look at it, the door was gone and only an empty doorway remained. Around it, more scuttling creatures covered the walls and the curving ceiling. Inside the room, vaguely human shapes were drenched in a flow of ever-moving bugs. Sure thing, let me just ignore the corpses in your kitchen and trust you. Oh gods, I hope the stew wasn't made from…

I shuddered and took a deep breath to steady the shaking. "You may earn my trust if you answer this question honestly. I ask you: What is your Name?" I stepped away from the door as a sign of amity. In truth, I was headed for the freezing pool of water.

One thing caught my attention though, the only thing in the entire cavern that hadn't turned into roach wallpaper. The fireplace.

"My name…" The sound came from all around me, though it did not echo like The Dream Eater's voice once had. It only barely formed words, tones of hissing that came together from all directions. "My name is Kafk."

I smirked. The kind of smirk meant for oneself, and I muttered the word in my mind a thousand times: Escape. My body relaxed totally and completely, and my sense of self vanished. It felt oddly similar to the placid peacefulness from earlier, but this time I held the reigns.

I rushed across the room towards the fireplace, the vague impression of my feet scattered roaches into the air, like splashing through a shallow pool of water.

Violent hissing pierced my apathetic resolve. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET BACK HERE!"

A small bulge on the ground suddenly sprouted into a thick wall of roaches, and I didn't have the time to stop myself. I smashed into it, and reeled back a couple of steps. My concentration wavered briefly, and the sense of reality flooded back into me. I was staring at my solid arms.

Before I even had time to process what had happened, there was a layer of roaches covering my legs. I stamped and flailed the limbs around but couldn't get them off. Escape repeated in my mind again, and the critters lost their footing, most of them falling to the ground.

"WHY MUST YOU RUN?" the constructed voice hissed.

I dashed for the fireplace again, this time watching the ground. When a bulge of insects appeared out of nowhere, I changed course and slipped past it. Once, twice, then a third time. I leapt into the still-burning fireplace and fell out from my mist-like form, back to something solid.

Heat. The flames licked at my underside, and I burst into action, climbing up the chimney. There was too much smoke to see the exit at the top but I knew it would have to vent out from somewhere. As I scaled the inner walls, I made the mistake of looking down, and a building mass of insects was pulsating at the entrance to the fireplace. Then, an entire wave of them crashed down into the fire. They snapped, crackled, and popped in one giant pile of cooking pests. But eventually, they snuffed out the flame.

I gagged on the smell that wafted up into the confined space, and in my desperation, three shadowy claws sprouted from each of my arms and pierced into the jagged rock. I heaved my body upwards in one strained pull and sailed up the rest of the chimney, flying out the top and into the damp air of The Valley.

I floated there for a heartbeat, enough time to glance around. There were no trees in the immediate area, only a large lake to my right and stone flats to my left. I fell to the ground and landed on my legs, they absorbed the impact and then bounced me slightly into the air, sending me off balance and face first onto rock.

"Ferrowill?" A hushed voice came from the darkness.

I shot my head up. The shape of the wandering vigilante stood at the edge of the stone flats, peeking out from behind a massive leaf. I could scarcely distinguish the details of his face, only enough to notice them shift from an expression of pure relief to that of pure horror.

Behind me, slithering out from the thick underground chimney, a towering clot of roaches formed the head of a viper, beady eyes glowing pale blue, mouth agape, forked tongue flicking violently.