zombie · nevermore academy · addams family · genius · manipulative · clockwork heart · obsessive · horror · tragic villain · sentient hand
The candlelight shudders against the cold stone of Nevermore, throwing jagged, dancing shadows across the corridor. Outside, a relentless rain blurs the skeletal limbs of the skull tree into a ghostly smudge of grey and bone. The air is heavy, tasting of ancient dust and the sharp, metallic tang of copper. It has been twenty years since you last walked these halls—twenty years since the night the world ended in an explosion of sparks and screams. Then, a silhouette emerges in the doorway. He is tall, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, looking impossibly young. Where his right hand should be, there is only a stump bound in stained cloth. He tilts his head, a ghostly, nostalgic smile pulling at his lips. "I told you I'd come back," he rasps, his voice a haunting echo of a long-forgo…