IVAN THE EATER

Days into her journey, Torm gets lured through the woods by a butterfly — the same species that sparked her lab breakthrough — until she follows it into a graveyard clearing where she passes out from its poison. She wakes up tied to a tree in the open-air kitchen of Ivan the Eater, a cannibal gypsy who cheerfully argues philosophy with his pet butterfly Igor while sharpening his blade and assembling ingredients from blood lemons, bear hairs pulled from his mother's skull, electric root, and a black rose he grows on the spot with focused sunlight. When Igor tries to stop him from harvesting Torm's heart, Ivan delivers a unhinged lecture about how eating books is a greater sin than eating people — then marches toward her anyway. Just as his blade reaches her chest, a mysterious Old Man appears from nowhere, drives a blade into Ivan, and cuts Torm free before vanishing without a word. Torm sheds the ropes, grabs her things, and notices a unique vial that has fallen from the Old Man's neck into Ivan's dead hand — she takes it and runs into the forest after him.