But then the little boy, the four-year-old, fell into an REM state, and his dreams had blown away the others. It was as if the others’ dreams were on small TVs while the little boy’s dream was on an IMAX movie screen with surround sound.

Images of terrible menace.

Images of staggering beauty.

Things that were somehow both beautiful and terrifying.

None of it was logical. None of it made sense. But there was no looking away, no chance of hiding from the cascade of pictures, sounds, feelings. It was as if Orsay had tried to stand in front of a tornado.

The boy, Little Pete, had seen her. Dreamers often did, although they usually weren’t sure who she was or why she was there. They usually ignored her as just another nonsensical element of a random dream.

But Little Pete had stepped into his own dream and he had come to her. He had stared right at her.

“Be careful,” Little Pete said. “There’s a monster.”

And that was when Orsay had sensed a dark presence, looming up behind her. A presence that was like a black hole, eating the light of Little Pete’s dream.

There was a name for the dark thing. A word Orsay couldn’t make sense of. A word she had never heard. In the dream she had turned away from Little Pete to face the darkness, to ask it its name. To ask it what “gaiaphage” meant.

But Little Pete had smiled, just a little. He shook his head no, as if chiding a foolish child who’d been about to touch a hot stove.

And she had awakened, expelled from the dream like an unwelcomed guest at a party.

Hunger, Chapter 8