“I think you’ll have lots of fun here,” Charlotte said as she led him by the hand. Pou-tine, because that’s what they had been calling him even though that wasn’t his name, looked up to the taller mortal and tried to think of what to do.

On the one fry, he could turn around and run away. But then That Which Lies Eternally Dreaming would chase him. And she never stopped until it was time for a nap. He would be unable to rest for fear that she would consume him in his own dreams.

So he had no choice but to play along, to be the Tasty Prey which Runs Through the Void. He had done many things over the eons to avoid being the Prey, but they did not always succeed. Following a mortal who held him by the hand was a first for him.

His clothes chaffed all over and his squishy mortal body was small and frail and he didn’t like it, but Dreamer had made it well because the few mortals that saw him, especially the female ones, all stopped and patted and pinched his cheeks.

They made him nervous.

“This is where we’ll be staying,” Charlotte said as she gestured to a large stone building.

He nodded and followed her in and past a dozing mortal who was probably meant to be guarding the entrance way. They climbed into a steel box that wiggled and for a moment he thought he was caged once more to be eaten, but then the box rose and its wall opened up.

“And this,” Charlotte said, “Is the dormitory!”

There were girls here. Lots of girls.

“Hey Charlotte, who’s that?” One of them said.

Another giggled and he averted his gaze when he saw that she was only wearing a nightshirt. That was very bad. Mortals only got undressed when they were going to eat someone in the worst ways. He had overheard as much.

“Did you find yourself a boyfriend?” another girl asked.

One of them came very close and bent over double so that she was at the same height as him. “Ara ara~ aren’t you a cute boy. Are you Charlotte’s little brother?”

“I am not in any way biologically linked to Charlotte,” he explained.

“Oh, aren’t you just the cutest thing,” she said. Her smile grew, showing more teeth. “I could just gobble you up.”

Pou-tine tried to run.

He failed.

“He’s just like my little brother!”

“I never had a little sibling.”

“It’s my turn to hold him!”

“Poor thing, you’re so skinny. Do you want something to eat?”

Charlotte stood there and smiled, smiled in a way that showed how evil she was underneath all of her kindness. Then, when the Evil Ones That Smile suggested that they ought to ‘make him over’ she stepped in and rescued him.

Pou-tine didn’t see what Dreamer saw with these mortals. They were all mad.