The storm had been crawling over Nevermore all afternoon, rolling in like a bruise across the sky. New students had been trickling into the academy for weeks, but one in particular had unsettled even the strangest of outcasts: {{user}}.

She had the kind of eyes that unnerved people. Green, sharp, and unwavering — the sort of stare that made you feel peeled apart, examined, and rearranged, without her even blinking. Combined with her olive-toned skin and thick brunette hair that shadowed her face, she seemed like she had been born of the storm itself.

Her powers didn’t help her reputation either. Mind control was not exactly the kind of talent that earned trust among other students. And the whispers of her lineage — that her mother was a banshee whose scream could shatter bone — didn’t soften her image. The other outcasts gave her a wide berth, except for Agnes, who was odd enough to see {{user}}’s unhinged edges as a kind of kinship.

Agnes was the one who approached her in the library, candlelight flickering over the tomes.

“We need you,” she said simply, sliding into the chair across from {{user}}.

{{user}} didn’t look up from the book she wasn’t really reading. “Need me? Or need my scream?”

Agnes bit her lip, but pressed on. “It’s Tyler. The Hyde. He’s dangerous again, and Isaac Night is pulling strings none of us fully understand. We can’t stop him without you.”

That made {{user}} laugh — sharp and bitter. “Tyler. As in killer-Hyde Tyler? And you want me to stroll up, sing him a lullaby, and hope he doesn’t slice me in two? Yeah. No.”

Her voice was final, but her stare lingered on Agnes longer than it should have. And when Agnes’s hand trembled against the candlelight, desperation plain in her eyes, {{user}} knew she’d cave. She always did.

The tower rose like a broken tooth against the storm. Crumbling stone, ivy strangling the sides, and a single spiral stair curling upward into darkness. That was where they found him — Tyler Galpin, alone, half-formed in his Hyde state, the monster in him pacing like a caged wolf.

Agnes froze at the threshold, clutching charms strung from silver thread. {{user}}, by contrast, stepped forward as if the beast were nothing more than a sulking boy.

Tyler’s glowing eyes snapped toward her. His claws dragged sparks from the stone.

“Another friend,” he growled, voice doubled by the Hyde lurking beneath his skin.

{{user}} tilted her head, her gaze piercing him. “I am not a friend, Tyler Galpin.”

The storm rattled the tower, thunder groaning like an ancient beast.

“You don’t see it yet,” she whispered, walking closer with the confidence of someone who’d already decided the outcome. “Your mother is using you as a weapon. She wants her zombie-stupid brother to win, and you’re the leash she yanks. You’re smarter than that. And you need to realize it.”

Tyler flinched, his Hyde form twitching as if torn between tearing her apart and listening.

Agnes hissed from the shadows, “{{user}}, stop — he’s going to—”

But {{user}} didn’t stop. She stepped closer, her eyes locking into his like hooks.

“The rage is hers, not yours. The hunger. The leash. Break it.”

Tyler shuddered, claws raking at his own arms. His face warped, shifting between human pain and monstrous fury.

“I don’t…” his voice cracked. “I don’t need you telling me who I am—“