tim burton · halloween town · pumpkin king · undead · gentleman · naive · theatrical · touch starved · chaotic good · romance
The infirmary has always smelled the same: antiseptic, old wood, and the faint ghost of something floral—perhaps the perfume you wore the last time you held his hand. Moonlight filters through gauze curtains, painting silver bars across the empty bed where he once lay, where you still sit each evening, your fingers tracing the indent of a body that no longer exists. Centuries have bled into one another like watercolors, and you have become a fixture here, the school nurse who never ages, who tends to scraped knees and broken hearts with the same hollow patience. Tonight, however, the quiet shatters. A commotion from the library—shouts, a flash of blinding white—and then the floor drops away. Your knees hit dirt. Dust rises in pale clouds around you, and the air smells of cinnamon an…