Clack. Clack. Clack.
The sound of the typewriter grew frantic and cold. Every keystroke felt like a nail being hammered into a coffin lid.
Wednesday stared at the slightly curled paper. Words like "butt," "mystery hand," and "livestream" lingered there, making her stomach churn.
This disaster—this vulgar, idiotic, aesthetically void farce—was the last straw. No, not a straw. It was the last rusty bar on a cage holding a raven in juvenile detention.
Nevermore Academy, a paradise for "outcasts" in her parents' eyes, was to her nothing more than a purgatory filled with rainbow-colored werewolves and that... that...
She refused to mentally replay the full bare-assed scene.
It was time. Operation Escape had to be initiated immediately.
Her gaze swept over the itinerary Principal Weems had delivered this morning: [Every Wednesday at 3:00 PM: Jericho Town, Counseling Session with Dr. Kinbott].
What was originally a nauseating routine was now her ticket to freedom.
The town was on the edge of the forest, sparsely populated, with an outdated surveillance system—the perfect surgical incision point.
She had already mapped the route: midway through the session, she would excuse herself to the restroom, then exit through the window or ventilation.
Based on her prior study of the town's layout, she could catch a cab to the train station quickly. After that? After that was the wide world.
The plan was simple, efficient, and elegant.
At 2:50 PM, Wednesday carried her black suitcase (containing essentials: one change of black clothes, a cipher book, three throwing knives, a bag of preservatives, and her diary) toward the Principal's car parked at the academy gate, walking as if heading to the gallows.
Principal Larissa Weems was already in the driver's seat, her towering figure and silver-grey bun immaculate. She nodded to Wednesday through the window, her expression a professional mix of concern and authority.
Wednesday opened the rear door, ready to stuff herself into this temporary cage for the final transport.
Then, she froze in the doorway.
Because the back seat was already occupied.
Victor Black.
He was wearing a black T-shirt that read "My Other Shirt Was Eaten By Venom," leaning sideways and engaged in a fierce, hushed argument with the symbiote on his shoulder.
"—It's all your fault! I said that old guy looking into copper smelting looked dry as a stick—definitely not tasty!"
Venom twisted into a large mouth, baring his teeth in rebuttal: "Bullshit! You pounced first! You said, 'He smells like expired communion wafers and sin.' How is that my fault?"
"That was a metaphor! A rhetorical device! Who knew you'd take it literally and take a bite?!"
"You were chewing more enthusiastically than I was! You even said 'Doing God's work'! And now the counseling is all my fault?!"
"If you didn't constantly chant 'Brains, brains, brains, chocolate-flavored brains' in my head, would I even have made that association?!"
Wednesday stood outside the car. The afternoon sun hit her back, yet she felt as if she had fallen into an ice cave.
Her escape plan—her precise, dark, elegant blueprint for freedom—had slammed headfirst into the biggest, most unpredictable, loudest variable imaginable the moment it began.
Seeing Wednesday frozen in the rearview mirror, Principal Weems explained, "This young man chewed off a priest's head last week. Dr. Kinbott suggested Victor start regular counseling as well. Since it's on the way, you'll ride together."
The Principal's tone was casual, as if she were simply saying, "The weather is nice today."
On the way? Wednesday felt her fingertips go cold.
It was like being on the way to the electric chair, only to have a circus clown with a cheap boombox and cheaper chocolate shoved into the transport vehicle with you.
Victor finally noticed Wednesday standing outside. He immediately stopped playing the blame game with Venom, and his face bloomed into a massive—and to Wednesday, utterly idiotic—smile.
"Wednesday! Whoa! You're going too? Awesome! We can team up! I heard Dr. Kinbott likes sandplay therapy. We can build a chocolate fountain—"
"—Or rebuild that priest's head," Venom added, before being frantically muffled by Victor's hand.
Wednesday's eyes went dead.
She looked at Victor's face, which screamed "Harmless Imbecile," and looked right through him to see the train in her plan speeding away into the distance. She saw herself, Victor, and Venom left behind in the dust, arguing over whose fault it was that the escape was ruined.
Her fingers tightened around the handle of her suitcase until her knuckles turned white.
The furthest distance in the world isn't between life and death. It's between an elegant escape plan and the unavoidable idiot teammate you're forced to drag along.
The plan had to change. Or... perhaps this variable could be eliminated entirely?
Her cold gaze swept over Victor's neck, calculating the feasibility of using a throwing knife to make him and Venom shut up temporarily (or permanently).
"Get in, Miss Addams. We're going to be late," Principal Weems urged, her tone leaving no room for argument.
Wednesday took a deep breath. The air already seemed saturated with Victor's stupidity virus and the smell of chocolate.
With a posture bordering on tragic, she bent down, climbed into the car, and slammed the door shut.
She sat in the corner furthest from Victor, body tense, staring straight ahead.
Her escape had morphed from a solitary, elegant stealth mission into a chaotic breakout dragging a dead weight—make that two dead weights.
This was Hell Mode difficulty.
Victor, apparently oblivious to the pressure drop in the car that was low enough to freeze a penguin, continued whispering excitedly to Venom: "See! I told you we're fate-bound! Even counseling is together!"
Venom: "Shut up, moron. She is calculating how to feed us into a woodchipper."
The corner of Wednesday's mouth twitched imperceptibly.
He's right.
---
The car, like a moving metal coffin, drove dully along the forest road toward the town of Jericho.
The only incongruous element was the hyperactive, chattering raven stuffed inside the coffin.
Victor's mouth hadn't stopped since she got in.
First, he tried to discuss the philosophical significance of the roadside vegetation with Principal Weems, a topic silently rejected by a cold glare in the rearview mirror.
Undeterred by the cold shoulder, Victor immediately turned his firepower on Wednesday.
"Wednesday! Look at that tree! Doesn't it look like a hanged fat man swaying in the wind?"
"Wednesday! Do you think the shrink can read minds? Can I reverse-read hers?"
"Wednesday! What's your favorite torture device? I bet it's the one with the little gears..."
"Wednesday!..."
Wednesday sat upright, hands folded on her lap, eyes fixed forward like a cold obsidian statue.
She was mimicking Principal Weems' defense of silence, attempting to build an invisible wall of absolute quiet to block out Victor's verbal noise.
But the wall was being steadily eroded by Victor's relentless, illogical nonsense.
"Speaking of which, noon was pretty thrilling, hahaha! Who knew Thing had such hobbies? But seriously, my butt still feels kind of weird. There's this heaviness of being chosen by history, don't you think..."
When Victor's topic drifted—drifting with precision back to the bare-assed farce—the string of Wednesday's patience, pulled taut all along, finally snapped.
In that instant, those pale, jiggly, idiotic images rushed uncontrollably into her brain.
Accompanying Victor's loud, shameless recap, a flood of shame (though she would never admit it), irritation, and ultimate loathing for this noise source crashed through the dam of her reason.
"Shut up!"
Wednesday lunged sideways. Her right hand moved like lightning, carrying a sharp killing intent, and slammed firmly over Victor's mouth—the mouth that never ceased generating sound waves!
The world was finally quiet.
Her palm felt the warm, soft touch of Victor's lips, and the breath he exhaled in surprise, carrying the lingering scent of chocolate.
And in that split second—
Her psychic vision triggered.