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SCRAPING OUT ANYTHING EVEN REMOTELY COLORFUL, Wednesday internally gagged each time his pale fingers brushed up against a sticky flower or glittery paw print. The pinks. The blues. The sequins. The cartoon cloud with glittery sunglasses.

This wasn't just an aesthetic offense.

This was psychological warfare.

By the time he'd removed the final sticker from the window, he was genuinely considering whether jumping off the balcony and breaking a couple of bones would've been less painful.

He'd dissected a partially decomposed corpse with Uncle Fester when he was four. That had been fun. Educational, even. But this?

This was a horror story.

A very vivid one.

He peeled a neon butterfly off the lamp shade and flicked it disdainfully to the floor. It landed near a heap of unicorn decals he had already removed. His tape line—an exact division running across the room like a geopolitical boundary—stood proud and unbending between the war zones.

His side: desaturated, clean, clinical.

Her side: chaos in sherbet.

And just as he was wrestling a particularly stubborn rainbow off the window pane—the door swung open.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO MY ROOM?" came the yell.

The raven-haired boy didn't flinch.

Enid Sinclair strode in, her sneakers slapping the floor with real fury now as she crossed to the window.

Her mouth fell open as she surveyed the crime scene—stickers peeled, throw pillows relocated, her sequin-covered calendar now lying face-down on the bed. Everything cheerful, anything warm or pastel, now either pushed aside or desecrated.

She looked like she might cry. Or explode.

"Dividing our room equally," Wednesday replied without turning, peeling another sticker and flicking it into the pile with surgical precision. "Fifty percent desaturated. Fifty percent delusional."

He kicked the pile of rejected stickers toward her side. Perfectly over the tape line.

Enid's jaw dropped. "You're only here for one night! You're not even my real roommate!"

Wednesday finally turned.

"Which is exactly why I'm doing your real roommate a public service by cleansing this side of its interior design sins," he said coolly. "And, judging by the locked door, I can only assume she ran screaming into the woods the moment she saw your decor. Understandable."

Enid let out an exaggerated gasp. "This is my room!"

"Correction: This is our room—for the next eight hours." He paused. Tilted his head. "Looks like a rainbow vomited on your side."

He turned and walked to the old-fashioned desk stationed firmly in his half of the room. Sat down with eerie calm, placed his fingers on the keys of his portable typewriter, and began typing.

The sound of clacking keys echoed through the room like the ticking of a death clock.

Enid stood in stunned silence, her mouth still open.

War had officially begun.

And Wednesday had drawn first blood...

The typing, however, was rather soothing. A click. A clack. A rhythm he could control.

Unlike... this room.

Or its tenant.

He had tried to focus — truly. But between the scent of bubblegum lotion and the lingering trauma of sparkles, his creativity had begun to rot.

"I--" Enid started behind him.

He didn't even glance her way.

"Silence would be appreciated," he said coolly. "This is my writing time."

He could hear her eyebrows rise from across the room.

"Your writing time?" she asked.

Click. Clack. "I devote an hour a day to my novel."

She scoffed. Loudly. In Technicolor.

He sighed inwardly. Predictable.

"Perhaps if you did the same, your vlog might be coherent," he added. "I've read serial killer diaries with better punctuation."

A pause.

He could practically feel the wounded gasp.

"I write in my voice," she snapped. "It's my truth."

Of course it was.

"It's what my followers love."

"Your followers are clearly imbeciles." He rose, slowly—not out of anger, but principle. Just enough to drift toward the tape line. He didn't cross it. He didn't have to.

"They respond to your stories with insipid little pictures."

"Uh, you mean emojis?" she said.

He blinked, as if the word itself hurt. "It's barbaric."

She was winding up now. He could feel it.

"It's how people express their feelings." she bit back. "You know, I realize that's a foreign concept for you."

He glared. "When I look at you, the following emojis come to mind: Rope. Shovel. Hole."

Silence.

Victory.

He returned to his desk, fingers re-placed gently on the keys.

Clack. Clack.

"By the way," he said without turning, "there are two D's in Addams. If you're going to gossip, at least be literate."

She didn't respond. Not with words.

Instead, she did the worst thing imaginable.

Music.

Peppy, high-pitched, soul-melting music.

He froze.

And for the second time that day, he questioned the ethics of self-defense laws in boarding schools.

She danced.

Oh, she danced.

"Turn that off." He stood. Slowly. 

No answer.

"This is your final warning." He marched up to her.

And then came out the claws. Literal claws.

He raised an eyebrow. She looked ready to kill him with a manicure.

"Don't mess with me," she growled. "This kitty's got claws, and I'm not afraid to use them."

The line delivery. The drama. The existence of that sentence.

He physically recoiled, face almost distorting with the cringiness he felt.

He'd never been closer to committing a felony.

She smirked. Proud.

He stared at her, blinking once, long and slow. But before Wednesday could react to any of the intrusive, glitter-induced thoughts still stabbing at his frontal lobe, the door swung open with a cheerful creak.

"Good evening, students!" came a sing-song voice.

Both he and Enid turned at once—Enid startled, Wednesday vaguely insulted.

"Oop- sorry about the mud," the woman said, stepping inside and nudging the door shut with her boot, shaking out a bit of forest debris from her hem. She seemed unbothered by the silence in the room, or the unmistakable tension thick enough to coat the walls.

"I wanted to check in. Make sure Wednesday was settling in alright."

The students didn't speak.

They just shifted slightly — subtly increasing the distance between them like two tectonic plates with a mutual restraining order.

The woman stopped mid-step.

She looked down.

Then at the walls.

Then at the room itself—the division so visually jarring it looked like an art installation about yet another world war.

And finally... she spotted the tape.

"Oh," she said. "Is this a bad time?"

Neither of them answered.

Because neither of them trusted the other not to twist their answer into something weaponized.

The woman stepped into Enid's side, then over the tape into Wednesday's, muddy boot and all. Her smile remained intact—but only just.

"I'm Miss Thornhill," she finally said, brightening again as she addressed them. "Your dorm mom."

A pause.

No response.

Undeterred, she held up a modest pot in her hands—a deep ceramic blue with smudged fingerprints and a small, morbid-looking flower tucked into its soil.

"Apologies I wasn't here to greet you when you arrived," she continued, voice lilting. "Principal Weems had me looking for a certain... adventurer."

Her eyes flicked toward the door. Clearly referring to the girl who resided on the other side.

Wednesday said nothing, but he filed the word away for later.

The ginger's attention shifted back to Enid with a fond smile.

"I trust Enid's given you the old Nevermore welcome?"

"She's been smothering me with hospitality," Wednesday replied without blinking. "I hope to return the favor... in her sleep."

Thornhill froze.

Enid blinked. Hard.

There was a long pause.

"...Right," the woman said finally, faltering just enough to betray her inner concern before switching lanes with professional speed.

"Well!" she said, raising the pot. "Here's a little welcome gift from my conservatory."

She stepped forward and offered it to Wednesday, who took it as if accepting evidence at a crime scene.

"I try to match the right flower to each of my girls. Or well, boy in this case," she said gently. "And when I read your personal statement on your application, I immediately thought of this one."

Wednesday examined the flower with sharp, forensic precision.

Long, dark petals. Crimson-centered bloom. A heavy, fragrant rot clinging to the soil.

"The black dahlia," he said.

Thornhill's eyes lit up, surprised and a little pleased. "Oh, you know it!"

"Of course." He looked at it again. "It's named after my favorite unsolved murder."

The silence that followed was more profound than usual.

Thornhill cleared her throat.

"...Well. I'm glad it found the right home."

Wednesday nodded, just once. "Thank you."

He held the pot like it was precious—or cursed. Possibly both.

Enid just stared at them like she was stuck in a horror movie she didn't audition for.

Miss Thornhill adjusted her cardigan sleeves and clasped her hands together with the gentle finality of someone about to recite the Ten Commandments... or a public school fire drill.

"Okey-dokey, before I leave," she began, tone light and motherly, "I wanted to go over a few house rules."

Neither student moved.

"Lights out at 10 PM," she continued. "No exceptions unless you have a written note from a faculty member, a medical emergency, or spontaneous combustion. No loud music. And no boys. Ever."

She paused.

Then gave Wednesday a brief glance and added, "Or girls."

A beat.

"Well... once you get to move into your own room, of course."

Wednesday said nothing, his expression carved from granite. Not a single rule presented even the faintest threat to his constitution.

He preferred the dark. Relished it, actually—a blanket of black silence was far more comforting than the pastel horror show his current roommate insisted on living in.

Music? Unless it involved a harpsichord, ghostly wailing, or a cursed symphony from a dead composer, he wasn't interested.

And romance? The last woman who attempted to caress his cheek had been a spirit in a dream—La Llorona, wailing and reaching from the riverside mist. She, at least, had the decency to disappear by sunrise.

"Passes to Jericho are a privilege," Thornhill went on, "not a right."

She glanced at them both, as if expecting objections.

None came.

"It's a brisk twenty-five-minute walk into town. Or there's a shuttle on weekends. Just know, the locals are..." she chose her words carefully, "a tad bit wary about Nevermore."

Enid rolled her eyes subtly. Wednesday simply stared at a shadow on the wall.

"So please, don't go making waves, or perpetuating any outcast stereotypes."

Her gaze swung to Enid. "That means keep your claws to yourself."

Then to Wednesday.

"And no smothering people in their sleep."

"Are we clear?" the woman asked brightly.

The silence that followed was... spectacularly bleak.

Wednesday stared like a corpse. Enid stared ahead like she'd dissociated.

Somewhere in the hallway outside, a door creaked. The sound was slow and deliberate, followed by a soft click of it shutting again.

Miss Thornhill tilted her head. Her smile twitched—just slightly.

"Well," she said, glancing back at the hallway, "that's my cue."

Her voice dropped just a note, a faint trace of exhaustion bleeding into her usual pep. "I may or may not have a... midnight appointment with our resident upstart. Bit of a rebel. Seems to think curfew is optional."

She gave a little shrug, the kind only teachers and therapists perfect. "Free spirits are charming. Until they start reprogramming your security doors."

Neither student said anything.

Thornhill chuckled lightly, clearing her throat.

"Great talk!" she added quickly, stepping back toward the door. "Sleep tight, both of you."

She gave Enid a quick, overly chipper nod, then spared Wednesday a fleeting glance—as if she wasn't quite sure whether he needed another flower or an exorcist.

The door closed behind her.

Silence reclaimed the room like fog rolling in over a battlefield.

Wednesday turned his gaze back to the pot on his desk.

Black Dahlia.

A gift for a murder.

Fitting.

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