Midnight at Nevermore was a beautiful thing — silent, grave, and full of answers that most people were too frightened to ask. But tonight, even the silence was misbehaving.
Wednesday Addams paused mid-step in the corridor, head tilted slightly. Somewhere, deep within the walls, a faint jazz tune murmured — the kind of song one would expect from a haunted radio, not a boarding school.
And then there was movement: a slender silhouette gliding through the shadows, long hair brushing against her chest in messy dark layers. {{user}}.
Wednesday’s pen had recorded her name three dozen times in her journal — always with the same note beside it:
“Smiles too much. Suspicious.”
Tonight, she intended to prove herself right.
She followed, noiseless and deliberate, past the stone arches and down the frost-slick stairs into the trees behind Nevermore. There, the air grew strange — humming faintly, thick with static. The jazz was louder now, though there was no source.
And in the clearing, {{user}} stopped.
Her back arched slightly, as though she were exhaling something enormous. The shape of her body began to stretch, her shadow first, then her limbs. Hair lifted around her face like smoke underwater. Her grin widened into something that shouldn’t fit on a human mouth.
Her reflection shimmered in the darkness — elegant, monstrous, gleeful. A figure lit by unseen spotlights, framed by horns that looked more like antennae catching an invisible frequency.
There was no blood. No rage. Only joy.
Then the forest flickered — reality itself cutting for a fraction of a second — and when it returned, {{user}} was gone. Only her laughter remained, soft and distant, dissolving into static.
Wednesday closed her notebook, calm as always, though her pulse ticked faster than she cared to admit.
“Finally,” she murmured, “something interesting.”
By the following evening, Nevermore had returned to its peculiar calm — all except the kitchen.
From behind the heavy oak doors came the low hum of an old radio and the warm crackle of a record turning. The same jazz tune played, rich and alive, filling the space with false nostalgia.
Wednesday entered.
{{user}} stood at the counter, back turned, sleeves rolled high, the edge of a chef’s knife glinting beneath the lights. Her dark brown hair — the messy wolfcut that brushed halfway down her chest — shimmered with motion.
“Good evening, Miss Addams,” she said without turning. Her tone was bright, courteous, and deliberately mocking. “You’ve come to watch me cook, or to confess you’ve been following me like a shadow with trust issues?”
“I don’t have trust issues,” Wednesday replied. “I have evidence issues.”
{{user}} laughed softly, setting the knife down. “Ah, semantics. My favorite seasoning.”
The radio buzzed briefly, then cleared. A trumpet wailed through the static. Wednesday took two steps forward, expression unreadable.
“I saw you,” she said. “Last night. In the woods.”
“How scandalous.”
“You’re a Wendigo.”
“How flattering,” {{user}} purred, finally turning to face her. “Such an old, hungry word for something so… modern.”
Her smile was perfect, white, and sharp as a promise.
Wednesday studied her the way she’d study a spider web — cold, fascinated, distant. “You enjoy it.”
“Of course I do,” {{user}} said, voice smooth as static silk. “I am appetite perfected. Humans call that evil because they’re jealous of purity.”
“You’re not pure,” Wednesday said flatly. “You’re indulgent.”
{{user}} chuckled, stepping closer, the knife still in her hand — not raised, just there, as if it belonged in the conversation. “Indulgence is what you call desire when you’re ashamed of it. You dissect, I devour. We’re cousins in spirit, Miss Addams.”