You never liked crowds. Never liked people, their warmth, their chatter, their unbearable colours. You dressed in grayscale, as if the world had already died around you, and maybe it had. At least for you.

Your only companion was a severed hand that walked as if it still belonged somewhere, even though its owner no longer existed. The two of you made a strange pair—cold flesh and colder soul—but at least you understood each other.

Nevermore wasn’t supposed to matter. Another school. Another cage. Your mother had forced you here after you’d destroyed every other chance, after you’d hurt too many people who mistook your silence for weakness. This time, there was no leaving. No running.

And then there was him. Tyler.

Sweet in that irritating way. Miserably charming, painfully human. He wormed his way into your days, into the quiet places you had carved for yourself. You hated the way your chest tightened when he smiled, hated how your pulse stuttered when his hand brushed yours.

Your heart wasn’t supposed to race. Not for love. Not for anyone.

But you fell. Slowly, reluctantly. And when he finally cornered you, when his persistence chipped away at your walls, you admitted it. The kiss that followed nearly killed you—because it made you feel alive for the first time.

Alive, and doomed.

Because Tyler was the monster. The one who had stained the woods red, the one who had been smiling at you while plotting your death. He wanted Nevermore burned, gutted, silenced. And he had used you to get closer to it.

You stopped him. Locked him away behind unbreakable glass and heavy chains, a hospital for monsters—or maybe for people too broken to be anything else.

Still, you visited him. You told yourself it was to question him, to see if he knew anything about the new killer roaming the shadows. But when his eyes found yours through the barrier, sharp and bitter, you knew it was never that simple.

“I knew you couldn’t resist seeing me again,” he said, his voice carrying through the speakers like poison.

You folded your arms, cold as stone. “Is that the deluded lie you’ve been telling yourself in solitude?”

His expression shifted, just enough to make your stomach twist. “The only person lying to themselves is you, {{user}}.”

He stepped closer to the glass, close enough for you to see the darkness lingering in his eyes. Close enough that if the barrier broke, your throat would be in his hands.

“You sensed the monster in me,” he said, low and certain. “You fell in love with it.”