The sound he hears comes before the sight - wet, dragging, the low rasp of a body moving in two places at once. He feels it like a pulse beneath the earth, something old and unnatural, wrong in a way that even hellspawn rarely achieve, hunger where a soul ought to be.

He sees Dream kneeling beside it, calm and waiting, and that alone nearly makes him draw his blade, although not out of malice.

No, if he draws his blade, it will be out of mercy, because as calm as it might currently be, creatures like this don’t stop - not without cost. And mercy...mercy sometimes has teeth in the shape of an angel.

"You think it remembers what it used to be?" He's not asking Dream, not really. It's muttered to himself.

"That it could be something else?"