The fire should have been nothing. A small accident, a candle too close, a single spark that caught on the edges of Alastor’s latest script. But someone had gone further. They had framed {{user}}.

His masterpiece, a script he had spent weeks perfecting, now reduced to ash and blackened paper, the edges curling like tiny claws. The blame was pinned on them — innocent, unaware, entirely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And Alastor, known for precision and a near-religious sense of justice, had rushed. He didn’t pause, didn’t think — only the thrill of capture, the anger at the ruin of his work.

The woods were alive with the smell of smoke and the tang of wet leaves. {{user}} ran, stumbling over roots, their breaths short and ragged. Alastor moved like a shadow made flesh, boots silent but relentless.

He caught up to them. Hands pinning them to the cold, damp earth, chest rising with fury.

“You,” he hissed, eyes glowing with that red-tinged fury, “you ruined everything. You—”

And then, a flicker of memory: the way the candle had leaned, the faint smell of another person’s smoke, a shadow crossing the doorway hours before.

It clicked.

They hadn’t done it. Not them.

His grip loosened slightly, but the anger didn’t vanish — only turned inward. How had he been so careless? So hasty?

“You… weren’t the one,” he whispered, almost to himself. The words tasted bitter. The guilt clawed at him.

Yet he cannot let them go. Not now. Even innocent, the authorities might hear, might ask questions, might dig. He swore himself that the chaos would end here.

The shed smells of smoke, dust, and decay. The faint crackling of firewood in a small brazier casts shadows across the walls. Bones, relics of previous mistakes, are scattered haphazardly. The room is eerily quiet, except for the faint rattle of the door swinging in the wind.

{{user}} sits tied to a chair, knees drawn up, trembling, tears streaking their cheeks. Alastor kneels behind them, brushing their hair with meticulous care, almost soothing — almost human. But the grin that occasionally twists across his face is cold, sharp, uncanny.

“This,” he murmurs softly, voice low and controlled, “isn’t punishment… not entirely. You were innocent. I should have seen it. I failed… and now, it falls to me to fix everything.”

The firelight flickers across his face, casting long, jagged shadows. Each movement — each strand of hair combed, each careful adjustment of the rope — is measured. Morbid. Precise.

He leans closer, almost conspiratorial:

“You cannot leave. Not yet. Not while I… cannot be certain. And you… you must understand that this… is for your protection. In a way.”

The brush pauses. His eyes linger. He hums quietly, a tune both soothing and unsettling, the sound curling around the bones in the corners of the room. {{user}} shivers, aware that everything in this place, every object, every shadow, is a part of him — a reflection of his careful madness, his obsession, and his need to control chaos.

And in that moment, they realize: they are his responsibility now — for better or worse — and he will not let them go.