(A/N):
Drop a meme here that you find funny. Or reflects your mood.
Guys I hope you put more comments and power stones... Which will encourage me...
Guys If You are Interested in Marvel Fic then I hope to present you my new fic...
Marvel: Starting as Ghost Rider!!!
Hope to receive your support...
....
Wednesday stepped out of the room without another word, her footsteps gradually disappearing down the corridor as she headed toward the stairs.
Pugsley remained behind for a moment, mostly because he wanted to make absolutely certain that Wednesday was not going to turn around and suddenly remember that she had forgotten to demonstrate her new game on him.
Once he was certain she was gone, he let out a quiet breath and glanced toward Thing.
Thing was still standing beside the desk, staring at the blueprint with an expression that somehow conveyed several different forms of concern despite being nothing more than a disembodied hand.
Pugsley was about to leave when something caught his attention.
The pillow doll.
It was still hanging upside down from the ceiling, its body crudely stitched together from several pillows and pieces of fabric. But what made Pugsley stop was the face.
Someone had drawn a face on it.
Not just any face.
Jojo's face.
Pugsley's eyes widened as he slowly stepped closer.
For years, he had assumed the strange man Wednesday kept drawing, stabbing, dissecting in diagrams and occasionally turning into the subject of one of her particularly disturbing sketches was simply an imaginary person.
Wednesday had never explained who he was, and whenever Pugsley asked, she had either ignored him or given him some cryptic answer that made even less sense than the original question.
So when the family had encountered Jojo at the restaurant, Pugsley had been genuinely stunned.
The face was the same.
At first, he had convinced himself it was merely a coincidence.
There were billions of people in the world.
Wednesday could have drawn a face that happened to resemble someone they eventually met.
Strange coincidences happened, especially in their family.
But now...
Pugsley slowly looked at the freshly drawn face on the pillow.
Then he looked toward the doorway through which Wednesday had disappeared.
Then back at the doll.
His expression changed.
"Wait."
Thing turned toward him.
Pugsley pointed at the doll.
"You knew about this?"
Thing shrugged with his fingers.
Pugsley stared at him suspiciously.
Thing quickly shook his hand.
"No?"
Thing nodded.
Pugsley folded his arms and looked at the doll again.
"She really drew his face before we ever met him."
Thing nodded.
"And then she deliberately sent her scorpion toward him at the restaurant."
Another nod.
"And she kept staring at him."
Thing gave an even more enthusiastic nod.
Pugsley's mouth slowly fell open.
"She's into him."
Thing froze.
For several seconds, neither of them moved.
Pugsley looked at the doll again, then at the elaborate torture-machine blueprint lying on the desk.
His expression became increasingly uncertain.
"I don't know if that's a good thing."
Thing slowly pointed toward the blueprint.
Pugsley followed his finger.
Then he looked back at the doll.
"Actually, I'm pretty sure that's a very bad thing."
Thing gave him a firm thumbs-up.
Pugsley rubbed his chin, genuinely trying to process the situation.
Wednesday Addams having an interest in someone was already difficult enough to imagine.
Wednesday Addams having an interest in someone she had apparently been drawing for years without ever meeting him was even stranger.
But the real question was what that meant for Jojo.
Pugsley had seen the way Wednesday had looked at him in the restaurant.
It had not been her usual expression of curiosity toward something strange or dangerous.
There had been something else behind it, something Pugsley couldn't quite put into words.
And now, standing alone in her room, surrounded by drawings and inventions centered around the same man, he was beginning to understand.
"She likes him," Pugsley muttered.
Thing slowly nodded.
Pugsley glanced at the blueprint again.
"Or she wants to torture him."
Thing raised one finger.
Pugsley waited.
Thing raised another.
Then he pointed toward the doll.
Pugsley stared at him.
"You think it's both?"
Thing nodded.
Pugsley sighed.
"Poor guy."
He looked toward the doorway again, imagining Jojo completely unaware that somewhere inside the Addams mansion, his face had apparently been living a second life as Wednesday's favourite experimental subject.
"I don't know whether this is the best thing that could happen to him or the worst thing that could happen to him."
Thing slowly shook his hand.
Pugsley frowned.
"What?"
Thing pointed toward the corridor.
Then toward the doll.
Then made a gesture resembling someone digging their own grave.
Pugsley's face went pale.
"Right."
He nodded solemnly.
"Definitely the worst."
With one final glance at the hanging doll, Pugsley hurried out of the room to catch up with Wednesday, suddenly feeling a strong need to warn Jojo about something.
Unfortunately, he had absolutely no idea how one politely tells a supernatural hunter that his sister has apparently developed an unusual romantic interest in him.
Especially when that sister's definition of romance appeared to include designing elaborate torture machines.
Forks...
Meanwhile, back in Forks, the strange events surrounding Jojo showed no signs of slowing down.
While the rest of the town continued with its ordinary routines, Jojo sat alone in one of the quieter rooms of his mansion, staring at the object that had been brought to him earlier that evening.
It was an old pocket watch.
The watch looked as though it had survived several generations.
Its silver casing was heavily scratched, the surface dulled with age, and intricate patterns had almost completely faded from the back.
The glass covering the clock face had a thin crack running from one edge to the other, yet the hands continued moving with unnerving precision.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Jojo leaned closer, his expression becoming increasingly serious.
There was something wrong with it.
Not the ordinary kind of curse that could be broken by removing an object from a haunted house or burning whatever possessed it.
This was something far more complicated.
When Jojo used his supernatural sight, the interior of the watch revealed an intricate network of spiritual energy wrapped tightly around the mechanism.
And at the center of it was a soul.
A man's soul.
Jojo could see the spirit trapped within the watch as clearly as though the old casing were transparent.
The man appeared to be somewhere in his forties, dressed in clothing that belonged to another era.
His spiritual form looked exhausted, confused and frightened, as though he had spent an unimaginably long time searching for a door that simply did not exist.
Jojo slowly exhaled.
"You've been trapped in there for a long time, haven't you?"
The spirit immediately turned toward him.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the man's expression changed.
Hope.
It was such a simple emotion, yet Jojo could see how powerful it was in the spirit's eyes.
The man moved toward the invisible boundary surrounding his soul and pressed his hand against it.
Jojo frowned.
He could understand what was happening now.
The man wasn't possessing the watch.
He was bound to it.
There was a difference.
The watch had effectively become the anchor for his soul. Whatever had happened to him in life, his spirit had been attached to the object at the moment of death, and over the years the connection had become so deeply embedded that even the spirit himself no longer understood how to sever it.
Jojo carefully picked up the watch.
The moment his fingers touched the casing, the temperature in the room dropped.
The flame of a nearby candle flickered violently.
The second hand stopped.
The spirit looked directly at Jojo.
Then the watch began ticking again.
Jojo's eyes narrowed.
"You don't know how to leave, do you?"
The spirit shook his head.
Jojo turned the watch over in his hand, studying every scratch and marking on the casing.
There were no obvious runes, no demonic symbols and no conventional binding sigils that he could identify.
Whatever had created the bond had either been extraordinarily powerful or had occurred through circumstances that were not magical in the traditional sense.
Jojo's gaze became thoughtful.
"And I can't simply destroy the watch."
The spirit immediately shook his head.
Jojo already knew.
That was the problem.
The watch wasn't merely a prison.
It was the man's spiritual lifeline.
If Jojo smashed it, burned it, melted it or destroyed it through hellfire, the connection between the object and the soul would collapse at the same time.
The spirit would not be released.
He would die.
For someone who had already died once, that distinction might sound meaningless, but Jojo knew better.
A bound spirit could potentially be released, purified, reincarnated or moved beyond the natural boundary between life and death.
But if the anchor holding the soul together was destroyed while the soul remained bound to it, there might be nothing left to save.
Jojo placed the watch carefully on the table.
"Don't worry. I'm not destroying you."
The spirit stared at him.
"I'll figure out what happened to you first."
The man's expression remained uncertain.
Jojo understood why.
Promises meant very little to someone who had spent years, perhaps decades, trapped inside a small piece of metal while watching the world continue without him.
Jojo leaned back in his chair and examined the watch again.
There had to be a reason.
Objects did not simply bind souls without a cause.
Someone had created the connection.
Someone had died while holding it.
Or perhaps the watch itself had been part of something much older.
The possibilities were numerous, and Jojo did not like any of them.
Then, without warning, the watch began ticking faster.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Jojo's eyes immediately sharpened.
The spirit suddenly turned toward something behind him.
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(Author's POV)
(A/N):
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