[Wednesday POV]
The older me leaned closer, her voice soft as a whisper but sharp as a blade.
"So tell me, Wednesday Addams… do you feel despair?"
I met her eyes without blinking, tilting my head ever so slightly. "Despair? Why should I?"
For the first time, she hesitated. Her gaze flicked to the room around us, which was dissolving into void, walls collapsing into dust, the floor unraveling into nothingness — as though my very soul were being stripped thread by thread.
She turned back to me, her voice calm but brittle.
"Don't you feel it? The slow fading? Do you truly believe there is anything that can change this?"
Instead of answering, I let the silence stretch. The void gnawed at the edges of the world, a black tide creeping closer, eager to devour us both. She wanted me to flinch. To crack. To give her despair the dignity of acknowledgment. I refused.
My lips parted, the words cold, unshaken.
"Yes. Perseus."
She tilted her head, lips curling in mock sympathy.
"I admire your confidence. But through the ritual, he knows now that your love is void. So, tell me, why would he try to save someone like you?"
I did not flinch.
"Because he knows, since we were children, an absolute truth: he is the only man I will ever allow near me. So no, I do not believe that the boy who bested me at every turn, the one I consider on par with the greatest minds to ever exist, would bow to petty lies and fail to see the truth hidden beneath them."
Her smile thinned, brittle as glass.
"The fool convinces herself she is chosen, yet dies forgotten. Accept your death, Wednesday Addams."
My lips curved upward, the faintest suggestion of amusement. I watched her as though she had spoken the most ridiculous nonsense.
"And who decided that?"
The voice was not mine.
It came from everywhere.
A deep resonance that filled the cracks of existence, vibrating through marrow and shadow alike.
The unraveling of the room stopped. The void froze. And then, as though reality itself had been overturned, a gray fog surged in, spilling across the nothingness like ink poured into water.
The ground rumbled. From below, pillars of stone erupted, tearing their way upward. They sprouted at unnatural speed, grotesque and elegant, climbing toward a sky that no longer existed. More stones rose from the ground, drifting like feathers only to slam together, piece by piece, forming a colossal dome that sealed us inside.
The sound was thunderous, yet eerily ordered — like a cathedral being built in fast motion by invisible hands.
And then, before me, a throne emerged. Not carved, not built, but grown out of stone.
A figure manifested upon it, lounging with careless ease, head propped on one hand.
"Did you miss me, Darkling?" Perseus's tone was low, unhurried, almost bored — yet it silenced everything.
My older self stiffened, her mask faltering for the first time. "Why are you here? Didn't you succumb by the whispers?"
He tilted his head, eyes glinting faintly with amusement. "Which one?" His lips curved. "Isn't it normal to hear voices in your head saying strange things?"
He stood. With a laugh, he stepped down from the throne, striding forward with unnerving ease, as though this place bent to him and not the other way around.
"Yes, I heard it. But tell me — who in their right mind trusts a whisper?" His laugh was sharp, unkind, reverberating through the dome. "The Magician writes the script, and the world performs it."
He stopped in front of us, his presence heavy, unshaken.
"And as for Wednesday's love…"
His voice lowered, his smile infuriatingly calm.
"Your whisper told me: Because you would sacrifice the world for her. She would not do the same for you. A clever trick, buried in the ritual. The test isn't love. It's annihilation. If she truly loved me, she would slaughter everyone else for my sake. Friends. Family."
He turned to me, and that damned smile softened, warm where it should not be.
"But you wouldn't, Wednesday. You love them too much. You'd never burn your family just to keep me."
My breath stilled.
So that was it. I didn't fail because my love faltered. I failed because the game itself was twisted. A loophole — and who else would know more about that than the one in front of me?
If one more person ever dares offer me a "deal," I'll pluck out their eyes and bury them alive.
Still, I had not expected this. That he would truly sacrifice the world… for me, sounds almost romantic.
I looked at him, at that maddeningly gentle smile, and the dome collapsed.
The pillars cracked, stone rained down like meteors, and all of it dissolved into blackness. When the dust cleared, I was in his arms. His chest shook against mine. Blood streaked his cheeks, trailing from his eyes in crimson rivulets.
I pushed him down and positioned above him, sitting on his stomach. With my palm I lifted his chin until his gaze met mine. "The blood," I said flatly, though my fingers lingered. "Explain."
His voice was steady.
"A side effect. When a psychic pushes too far."
My eyes narrowed.
"And the price?"
He smiled faintly, dismissively.
"Tiredness. Nothing more. Perhaps a few days' rest."
I studied him in silence. Does the price of dragging someone back from death amount only to tiredness?
How much are you willing to sacrifice for me, Perseus?
How much am I willing to sacrifice for you?
Images from the visions flickered through my mind like a slideshow of damnation — the boy in the snow, the years, the dances beneath the crypt moon, the kiss among ruins. My mother's voice threaded through them, and I remembered the conversation I should have listened to long ago.
[Flashback]
I stood at the tower window, watching as my parents said their goodbyes to Perseus and his grandmother. They entered the car bound for Nevermore Academy. Just before stepping inside, Perseus paused, turning as though pulled by an unseen string. He looked up. His eyes found mine in the tower window. He smiled. Not annoyed, not hurt that I hadn't come down — but simply smiling, as though my absence was exactly what he expected of me. Then he entered the car.
I stayed there longer than I care to admit, watching until the car disappeared beyond the horizon.
A while later, Mother entered the room. She moved to the window beside me, her reflection merging with mine against the glass.
"My little viper," she said softly. "Already mourning him before he's gone?"
"No." The denial slid from my tongue like poison.
She ignored it, her reflection lingering beside mine in the glass. "It's easy to find someone who will admire your beauty. Easier still to find someone foolish enough to worship your cruelty. But someone who will embrace the silence in you, the graveyard stillness, the part that others mistake for emptiness…" Her lips curved. "That is rare. I found it in your father. You, somehow, found it even earlier."
I turned, caught by the sharp glint in her eyes.
"You think love is weakness. But love, properly chosen, is a weapon. And when you finally accept that, querida, you may carve his name into the family book — in ink, or in blood."
Her words lingered. They still linger.
[Perseus POV]
Wednesday stared down at me with that cutting, merciless intensity of hers while sitting on my stomach… couldn't she sit a bit lower?
As for the "price" she demanded? I wasn't lying, at least not entirely.
I guess she got this ritual from her mother, but didn't notice that Morticia had slipped a backdoor into it.
It's just that her mother set the threshold for using it too high! Probably so Wednesday herself would never stumble upon it. But still, I forced my gift beyond its limits, broke through the wall, and became the master of the ritual.
As for how did I find the back door? Please, it's called plot armor.
Jokes aside, when I tried to override the ritual by flooding it with psychic power, I found it. And I stopped it.
And still… I wonder. Was this a test, too? Did her mother want to see what I would do if I passed and Wednesday failed? Or was it aimed at her — to see if, in an extreme case, she would try to save me if I failed, or learn that I would save her if she did?
And if I had faltered, overcome by emotion, what then? Was Morticia truly confident enough in my cleverness to entrust Wednesday's life to me, without sending anyone to watch over us?
Wouldn't she fear that even if I succeeded, I would hate her for failing the ritual? Or did she know I would understand Wednesday?
Truth is, I can't blame her. If I'd grown up with parents who loved me like hers love her, I'd have failed too. The only reason I passed was because my only hesitation was my grandmother — and she's ninety. She would've chosen Wednesday herself.
It's easy to forget that while the Addams are eccentric, they are not fools. They calculate. For her. For me. Sometimes even I can't understand their games.
My lips twitched just thinking about it. I should be furious at this ritual, at the little manipulations behind my back. But I'm not. Because I got the best out of it. Wednesday knows I love her. Morticia knows, or at least thinks she knows, that even when I'm pushed to the edge, I'll still save her daughter.
I'll never tell Wednesday about the backdoor, or her mother's little betrayal. Let her believe I paid a heavy price… it will teach her not to toy with rituals.
As those thoughts coiled through my mind, I caught movement. Wednesday was leaning close
Her hair brushing across my face. Her tongue rolls out slowly, glistening with saliva. I freeze as she lowers her head, the tip of her tongue dragging across the path of my bloodied tears.
The sensation was maddening — hot, wet, sharp. She traced from my cheekbone to the corner of my eye, lapping at the metallic streak as though tasting proof of my devotion. She did it again. And again. My skin grows slick, flushed, every nerve sparking.
She pulled back, her face inches from mine. The most dangerously beautiful sight I had ever seen: dark hair curtaining her pale face, lips stained red from my blood, eyes like obsidian blades.
"And your surname?" she asked quietly. Her breath ghosts across my lips, cold and electric.
For once, my focus falters.
"You know I don't have one." It's true — adopted by my grandmother, she forbade me from taking her name, insisting it should come from either my parents or a future wife.
Her hand clamped around my jaw, locking me in place. Her eyes burn into mine, unblinking. Her voice dropped into a whisper, dark and resolute.
"You do now. It's Addams."
And then she kisses me.
Not softly. Not kindly. But with the force of ownership, of inevitability. Fierce, consuming, final.
************
Author's Note:
Honestly, I don't understand all the panic and drama from the previous chapter… heheheh.
Jokes aside, I usually like to hide a lot of meanings in my chapters. Some of them foreshadow how future chapters will unfold, like the blood tears or the loophole in what the Whisper said, while others are just little things I add for myself.
For example, the endings of both chapters: "…do you feel despair?" and "So be it." They refer not only to the story, but also to the readers.
There are many more. Some readers have already picked up on them, like this line:
"Your genius mind gave you wax wings, Perseus, but you flew too close to the sun. Now you will fall."
Comment by Anselius: From what I'm seeing, she was unsatisfied with the proof of her obsession, or wanted more of it. Her wings (Ritual) failed her, for she flew too close to the Sun (MC) in pride and wrath.
There are plenty of others, and I usually write them so that readers who enjoy reading between the lines can find them and hopefully enjoy them as much as I do.
Also, I'll be posting new chapters every two days from now on. I honestly thought that if I stockpiled chapters, I could finally chill… but nope, some readers throw in great ideas and completely wreck my plan. Like this chapter? I whipped it up in just two days, and I'll be making another new one soon!
At first, I was going to skip all of this and jump straight to the start of the next school year… but not anymore.
So, let me cook! Cook with the eldritch being that whispers in my ear as I write this so-called masterpiece. Hahaha! (He wants Powerstone as payment hehehe)
And no, I'm not a psycho… why does everyone keep asking me that? :)