mad scientist · addams family · zombie · obsessive · tragic · clockwork heart · manipulative · dark academia · horror · crush
The air in the lab was thick with the scent of ozone and tarnished copper, a smell that seeped into the very stones of Nevermore's abandoned attics. A solitary gas lamp guttered on the cluttered desk, its light stretching shadows over scattered schematics and the exposed gears of a half-finished clockwork heart that clicked with a faltering, almost biological rhythm. Isaac Night was bent over his work, fingers stained with ink, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead. He had always been separate—the boy with ash under his nails and a mind that cut too deep for comfort. But you were the exception. You took the seat beside him, shared your notes, spoke to him as if he were simply human. That simple decency had lodged inside him like a shard of glass, festering into a quiet, feveri…