The forest shadows were as thick as ink. Wednesday strode through them, Thing wriggling uneasily on her shoulder, communicating with her through rapid finger taps.
[Isn't this a bit too much? That boy looks like he's about to break.]
Wednesday's lips were pressed into a cold, straight line, and her pace did not slow in the slightest.
"If I don't do this, that idiot will stick to me like unshakeable gum." Her voice was exceptionally clear and hard in the silent woods.
"If we really encounter the 'Bird Beak' then, what he witnesses will completely break him. That would be more cruel than any verbal harm."
She grit her teeth, a surge of irritation rising in her heart that even she couldn't fully understand.
That idiot... did he really think she knew nothing?
Late that night after the Harvest Festival revelry, she had stood for a long time by Victor's cramped bed, which was right next to the bathroom door.
Moonlight filtered through the high window, illuminating his sleeping face—that face usually filled with a crazed smile now held only a twisted agony of terror. His brow was furrowed, his lips trembling silently, like an infant struggling helplessly in a nightmare, curling up in search of a sense of security that didn't exist.
At the celebration party, she had watched coldly as he laughed, made noise, and downed glass after glass of cheap beer, as if trying to drown himself in sugar and alcohol.
But she saw clearly that beneath that exaggerated smile, deep in those eyes that were always dancing with light, they were almost filled to the brim with a pure, primal fear, on the verge of breaking through.
Yet he said nothing. Even though he was terrified to the point of shattering, he still tried to get close, to test the waters in that clumsy way, foolishly attempting to protect her.
This was simply... utterly ridiculous!
She had to solve this alone. She wanted him to see with his own eyes that these Things hiding in the shadows were nothing to be afraid of. This time, it was her turn... Following the map she got from Tyler, Wednesday finally found the forgotten ruins.
The so-called Joseph Crackstone Meeting House was now nothing but a rough foundation covered in moss and rotting leaves, along with a few charred, broken, low wooden walls barely standing.
The air was thick with the scent of old ash and earth, silently telling the tale of a distant fire that had completely destroyed this place.
She efficiently drove away the vagrants occupying the site and began a careful search.
Her fingertips brushed over the cold, rough stones, feeling the lingering traces of time upon them.
She tried to concentrate on a psychic vision, but the echoes of history were too weak and cluttered.
Until her fingers touched a charred doorframe remnant half-buried in the dirt—
Buzz!
A familiar tearing sensation instantly seized her! The scene before her eyes shattered like a broken mirror, then reassembled!
She found herself standing in a strange forest clearing. The afternoon sun filtered through the branches, a stark contrast to the coldness from moments ago.
Not far away was Joseph Crackstone's old meeting house—but it wasn't a ruin; it was a fully intact building smelling of fresh pine.
Her gaze was instantly drawn to a scene at the entrance of the meeting house.
A young girl was being roughly shoved inside.
The girl wore ancient clothing but possessed an almost identical pale face, pitch-black eyes, and cold temperament as her own.
Wednesday heard someone in the surrounding crowd gasp softly: "Goody Addams!"
addams?
Was she her ancestor from four hundred years ago?
Next, she saw Joseph Crackstone himself—the pilgrim she had seen in the prophetic painting—indifferently holding a torch and throwing the flames onto the meeting house roof without hesitation!
The dry wood burned rapidly, tongues of fire leaping frantically and consuming the entire building.
Terrified, desperate screams and the sound of banging came from within the meeting house; many Outcasts like her were locked inside! They were bound by chains with no way to escape!
In the chaos, she saw Goody, who hadn't been fully restrained by chains yet, being pushed by other desperate Outcasts into a hidden trapdoor secret passage deep within the meeting house!
Flames reached for the sky, and the screams were piercing. Goody became the sole survivor of that Carnage against the Outcasts.
The vision twisted and shifted again.
Wednesday found herself standing in a quiet forest meadow. Goody Addams stood before her, her pale face etched with urgency and fear:
"He is coming! He will never stop until he has exterminated us all!"
Wednesday whipped her head around—
Joseph Crackstone was standing right there.
Holding a staff, his expression was one of near-inhuman, absolute calm.
His eyes were hollow, devoid of hatred, anger, or even a ripple of emotion; he simply looked at them with precise, locked-on focus.
"You cannot escape."
His voice was as steady as if he were stating a law of physics.
At this moment, Wednesday Addams felt... fear for the first time.
A cold, viscous chill, enough to freeze the soul, shot up her spine!
It wasn't the dramatic, aesthetic death threat she was familiar with and appreciated.
This was something entirely different—a malice so pure it contained no personal emotion whatsoever.
It was as if killing her was merely a preset, mandatory task, as natural as the sunrise or sunset, unquestionable and unshakeable.
Crackstone himself no longer seemed like a 'person,' but rather a cold, heartless gear in some vast, horrific creation. Even after death, he was driven by other gears, crawling out of the grave to continue his eternal extermination directive.
The psychic vision suddenly dissipated!
"Ugh—!" Wednesday jerked her hand back, her body stumbling forward out of control, her knees slamming hard onto the cold, damp ground.
She propped herself up with both hands, gasping for breath. Her stomach cramped, bringing a strong urge to vomit; she felt wretched to the extreme.
So... is this what Victor has been facing all this time? This... this Thing?
This purest, most primal will of destruction, stripped of all emotion, all reason, all 'humanity'?
Having experienced this chillingly absolute will firsthand, Wednesday finally understood what a suffocating and trembling fear it was.
Crackstone had taught her with the calmest malice: some fears transcend all gothic aesthetics—it is a mathematical formula of extermination, and Victor was fighting that formula with madness every day.
Arrogance.
How arrogant and cruel those Things she said to Victor before were.
She had actually used his deepest trauma to attack him, accusing him of being 'emotional' and 'unstable'... Her actions were equivalent to perfectly replicating a sterile procedure with words upon the wound Victor had already had carved open by the cold instruments of the lab.
Precise, efficient, and completely obliterating any possibility of healing.
A sliver of clear, cold regret, like the finest yet sharpest ice needle, unexpectedly pierced Wednesday Addams' never-wavering heart.
She slowly stood up, brushing the dirt from her black skirt. Her pale face showed no expression, but in those bottomless eyes, extremely complex undercurrents were surging.
"It seems," she whispered to herself, her voice raspy, "I owe him an apology."
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