The first ray of morning sunlight stabbed through the gap in the curtains. Enid Sinclair was in the middle of a delightful dream where she was swimming in a pool of rainbow syrup.
Then, she heard it.
Slurp. Slurp.
"Mmm... who is drinking soup this early?" she mumbled groggily, rolling over and burying her face in her unicorn plushie.
"It is not soup," Wednesday's voice drifted from the opposite bed, cold as an ice block. "It is a mixture dredged from the depths of hell."
Enid's eyes snapped open.
Victor Black was sitting cross-legged in his "Toilet Kingdom," a bowl of pitch-black noodles resting on his knees. The noodles were drenched in a thick, brown sludge. It looked like asphalt mixed with sewage.
Venom had extended halfway out of Victor's shoulder, using his tendrils to twirl the noodles and slurp them up like spaghetti.
"Morning, ladies!" Victor grinned, his teeth stained with suspicious black residue. "Want some? I just got back from the cafeteria. Honestly, the food here lacks innovation, so I decided to whip up something myself..."
"Ta-da! Squid ink pasta with melted chocolate sauce. Double rich!"
Wednesday and Enid simultaneously wore expressions that asked: Why is humanity like this?
"You classify that as food?" Wednesday's voice sounded like it had been dug up from a morgue freezer. "It looks like swamp sludge that has been cursed by a witch."
"Tastes like it, too!" Victor added cheerfully, taking another massive slurp. "Venom says it's got a better chew than brains."
Venom nodded sagely. "And the chocolate masks the fishy taste of the ink. Perfection."
Enid's nose twitched. Her werewolf senses instantly picked up the horrific blend of salty seafood and sugary cocoa. Her stomach let out a growl of protest.
"How... how did you even think to combine those two things?" she asked, struggling to keep her breakfast down before she'd even eaten it.
Enid decided that the plate of... let's call it "matter," was the Frankenstein's Monster of the culinary world.
"Inspiration comes from life!" Victor raised his fork, a glob of black goo dangling from it. "Last night I saw Wednesday eating squid ink pasta, and Enid eating a chocolate bar. My genius brain had a spark—"
"—And then it short-circuited," Wednesday cut him off coldly. "A normal person would realize those two items should never meet. They would not create a gustatory catastrophe."
Victor didn't care. He enthusiastically pushed the bowl forward. "Don't be shy! Venom made two extra servings!"
Wednesday and Enid exchanged a look. For the first time, they reached a complete consensus: Absolutely not.
Wednesday slid out of bed with her usual grace. She walked up to Victor, looking down at the bowl of "food" with the same look she reserved for a corpse that had been rotting for three weeks.
"Let me guess," she said slowly. "Venom ate your taste buds when you were a child, correct?"
"Hey!" Venom protested. "I only eat brains and chocolate. Don't slander me!"
Victor laughed and shoved another mouthful in. "Don't be so picky, Wednesday! Life is about bravery and trying new things!"
"Life should also be about admitting mistakes," Wednesday deadpanned. "For instance, you should admit right now that this bowl is a blasphemy against the culinary arts."
Enid covered her nose and leaned in a little closer, her short blonde hair standing up from static electricity like a startled hamster.
"I... I mean, I actually like chocolate," she whispered. "But this is just too..."
"Too perfect?" Victor looked at her expectantly.
"Too gross!" Enid finally blurted out.
Victor clutched his chest dramatically. "Oh! My heart! Venom, they don't understand our art!"
Venom licked his chops. "Don't be mean, girls. Just one bite?" He used a tendril to offer a small clump of noodles toward them.
Enid recoiled like a cat facing a cucumber.
Wednesday stared at the brown-and-black substance like it was the murder weapon in an unsolved case.
"If you attempt to pollute the air with that substance again," she said softly, "I will give you both a chocolate enema."
Venom: "Is she serious?"
Victor nodded. "I think she is."
Enid sighed, rubbing her temples. "Victor, normal people don't put chocolate in squid ink pasta."
"But I'm not normal!" Victor declared proudly.
Wednesday: "That is one point I cannot refute."
---
Thirty minutes later, the trio plus the symbiote appeared in the Nevermore Academy cafeteria.
Enid held a tray of standard human food—eggs, bacon, pancakes, chocolate milkshake—and sat carefully at a distance from Victor.
Wednesday had taken only a single cup of black coffee, as if her body ran solely on bitterness and resentment.
And Victor... Victor returned with a large platter of "Experimental Breakfast."
"Look!" he announced excitedly. "I improved the recipe!"
The plate contained:
Sausages coated in peanut butter.
Scrambled eggs drenched in maple syrup.
Bacon sandwiched with strawberry jam.
Wednesday took a sip of coffee, her eyes dead. "I hope the director of this documentary has already committed suicide."
Just then, Bianca Barclay walked by with her tray. Her silver eyes swept over Victor's "cuisine," and the corner of her mouth twitched.
"Is this what you werewolves eat now?" she asked Enid, her tone holding a trace of pity.
Enid immediately distanced herself. "I don't know him!"
"Hey!" Victor protested. "We're roomies!"
Bianca scoffed. She was about to leave when Victor suddenly held up a peanut-butter-covered sausage. "Want a bite?"
Her expression looked like someone had just thrown a bucket of acid in her face.
"I would rather eat my own vocal cords."
Wednesday clapped lightly. "Finally, someone speaks for me."
---
After the breakfast disaster, the three stood before the academy's bulletin board. The Nevermore class schedule looked like a grid of mystic runes written in blood-red ink:
Werewolf Social Dynamics (Location: Moonlight Court)
Advanced Fencing & The Art of Assassination (Location: Second Floor Armory)
Siren Persuasion Theory & Practice (Location: Black Lake Docks)
Toxicology & Pastry Making (Location: Kitchen/Lab)
Wednesday's finger landed directly on Fencing. Her black dress swirled. "I am going here."
Victor immediately leaned in. "Fencing? Cool! I can be your sparring partner!"
Wednesday glanced at him coldly. "If you come within ten feet of me, my foil will 'accidentally' pierce your trachea."
"Whoa, feisty!" Victor laughed, backing away. He suddenly turned to Enid. "Then I'll go to wolf class with the Little Wolf Girl!"
The tips of Enid's ears turned bright pink.
"Who—who allowed you to call me Little Wolf Girl!" she stammered, her claws unconsciously extending and retracting. "And outsiders aren't welcome in werewolf class!"
Victor pulled a book out of thin air titled How to Tame Your Little Wolf Girl and flipped to a bookmarked page. "The book says werewolves love being scratched behind the ears—"
"THAT IS FOR DOGS!!!" Enid snatched the book and whacked him over the head with it. Her blonde hair puffed out like a dandelion, and the base of her spine felt uncomfortably hot—heaven knows why, considering she hadn't even grown a tail yet.
Wednesday was already walking away, but her voice drifted back to them.
"Remember to video record it. I want to watch how he dies."