Chapter Text
The knife twisted in her gut as she stared up at the gruesome face of Joseph Crackstone. The searing pain that she hid under her stoic impression. The surprising fear of death as she lay there in the crypt, her crimson blood soaking the wall, floor, and her clothes.
Wednesday woke with a gasp, her eyes wide open. She quickly glanced towards where Thing and Enid were sleeping, and luckily neither of them had woken up from her outburst.
That night had haunted her, and not in any way she appreciated. It had awoken feelings in her that she was unable to process. The entire break from school was spent experiencing sleepless nights. She had hoped it would disappear upon her return to Nevermore, but clearly she was out of luck.
It had only been an hour since she had fallen asleep, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to go back to bed. Every time her eyes shut she saw his face glaring down at her, felt the knife twisting in her gut, felt the yearning to live just one more day. Before she had come to this school, that death wouldn’t have scared her. Would it be unworthy of her? Would she be ashamed to die to a simple knife, one wielded by that man no less? Of course. But fear would never have been something she had felt.
Now though, she did. Every night she awakes, that fear coursing through her veins. Adrenaline removing any exhaustion from her system. So she barely sleeps. She gets no more than an hour a night, enough to force herself to keep moving throughout the day, but the ever growing bags on under her eyes and the sluggish nature of her normally stiff movements give her away.
So far no one had noticed besides her family, who were ecstatic to see the bags under her eyes grow, but she knew it wouldn’t take long. They had only been in Nevermore for a day and she already got questioned by Enid when she stumbled.
Finally, after who knows how long, Wednesday pushed herself out of her bed and left the room for the library. Her only hope was that a good book would take her mind off of everything, maybe even let her fall back asleep.
Unfortunately, she had no such luck. As sunlight began to shine through the windows, Wednesday realized she had been sitting there, staring mindlessly at a book for hours. Memories of that night flashing through her mind the entire time. Slowly, she placed the book down and moved back towards her dorm, hoping to make it back before Enid awoke. But of course, nothing can go her way.
“Wednesday! Where have you been?”
“I woke up early and decided to scour the library for a new book,” she avoided looking into the werewolf’s eyes.
“Did you find anything?”
“Nothing yet unfortunately.”
“Well,” Enid began, skipping up to the goth, “I’m sure you will soon. There’s so many books in there that one is bound to catch your eye.”
Wednesday finally looked back towards Enid, her breath nearly catching at the scars that lined her face. Guilt flooded her system, though she managed to mask before responding, “Yes, I’m sure I will as well.”
Enid sent her one last bright smile, though there was a look in her eyes that she couldn’t place, before nearly sprinting back to her side of the room to get ready for the day. Wednesday stared after her for a moment, before turning away to do the same herself.
As the world raged on around her, she found herself unable to focus on the teachers. Luckily, no teacher was actually teaching anything seeing as it was the beginning of a new year, but they’d normally still have her undivided attention. Unluckily for her, someone noticed.
“You doing okay over there Addams?” a voice asked from behind her. She turned to see none other than Bianca Barclay looking at her with worry, “Class ended 5 minutes ago.”
Sure enough, the classroom was empty of everyone except her and Barclay. She schooled her expression before turning back and meeting her eyes, “I am fine. I was merely lost in planning the next arc in my novel. The teacher’s mindless words meant nothing as we do not have any real lessons today.”
She turned away before picking up her bags. As she left the room she could see Bianca sending her a doubtful expression, but no more words were spoken between the two.
Her next few classes of the day went similarly, though without any questioning from her classmates. She would blank out, missing nearly every word the teachers spoke, before looking up and noticing the empty classroom around her. Finally she’d stand and move towards her next class, before repeating the same process.
It wasn’t until lunch rolled around that she had to approach her next issue.
She wasn’t hungry. In the slightest.
She had been struggling to eat anything since that fateful night. Everytime she ate a piece of food, she could feel churning in her stomach, right where the knife had impaled her. At the manor she would eat the bare minimum and then vomit it up once in the privacy of her own room, but now she didn’t even need to do that. Instead of eating, the goth set out into the forest.
She wandered mindlessly for what felt like an eternity. When she finally tuned back into her surroundings, she wished she hadn’t. In front of her were the bloodstained walls of Crackstone’s crypt.
Every single memory of that night rushed back to her at once. The twisting of the knife in her abdomen. The grinning face of Joseph Crackstone staring into her soul. The betrayal of Tyler. The arrow that pierced through her shoulder. The bloodied, injured, crying body of one Enid Sinclair stumbling towards her.
Her breath quickened and she found her vision beginning to get blurry. Tears involuntarily sprung to her eyes as she fell back against the wall of the crypt.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. All she wanted to do was force herself up and walk out of this hellish place, but she could not get her arms to listen to her. Tears were running down her face as she twitched on the ground. Those memories just kept replaying in her mind. She could feel her heartbeat in her fingers, pulsing out of her neck. Her vision was beginning to darken. It didn’t take long for her to succumb to said darkness.
She woke a few hours later in a cold sweat, not feeling refreshed in the slightest despite this being more sleep than she had gotten in the entire week combined. Her face was stained with tears and her back was sore.
Wednesday pushed herself off the wall, distinctly ignoring the bloodstains not far to her left, and started climbing out of the crypt. It wasn’t until she saw Nevermore poking through the treeline that she realized she had likely missed all of her afternoon classes and people would be looking for her. Using her sleeves to wipe her face clean of tear stains and whatever ruined makeup she could, she approached the academy with a confident look on her face.
It faded once she saw the angry face of one Enid Sinclair.
“Where the fuck have you been?” she bellowed, her anger yet tear-filled eyes piercing into her soul. “You aren’t at lunch, you aren’t in fencing, and you aren’t here when I get back? I messaged everyone and no one had seen you since this morning. You better not have been out there getting yourself nearly killed again.”
Wednesday visibly flinched at the statement, causing Enid’s eyes to soften, before she steeled herself and met the werewolf’s gaze, “I was merely exploring the woods. I do not need to tell you or anybody else where I’m going.”
“Of course you don’t need to Wednesday, but we were all worried. We thought something happened.”
“Well as you can see, I am perfectly fine. You can leave me be and tell them so,” Wednesday turned away from her, moving towards their shared bathroom.
Enid paused, before softly saying, “You know you can talk to me, right?”
“Unfortunately.”
She heard a sigh behind her as footsteps lead to the door. Once the door was closed, Wednesday allowed tears to once more spring to her eyes. Unfortunately, she forgot about a certain hand who likes to linger around their room.
‘You should talk to her.’
“No, now leave me be before you lose a finger.”
‘It would make you feel better.’
Wednesday didn’t respond as she shut herself in the bathroom and turned on the shower. She stripped her now tainted clothes and scrubbed every inch of her body with malice, though she struggled to do so every time she neared her scars.
Finally, once she could no longer feel the presence of Crackstone's Crypt on her body, she laid down in her bed, though she knew sleep wouldn’t come to her for multiple hours yet, and it wouldn’t be a peaceful one once it had.