Being tied up inside a creepy basement was not what Theo expected to be doing when he woke up that morning.

It was really weird for him to be randomly called to the aged Headmistress's office when he arrived at his morning classes, but nothing too out of the boundary of normality.

Realistically, when she abruptly started cackling like the parody of a stereotypical witch, he should’ve just stood up and left, consequences be damned.

But now he wasn’t sure if that would’ve helped him.

Right after she had finished with her deranged laughter, she immediately chanted some random gibberish causing a weight around Theo’s mind to grow as he suddenly felt very sleepy.

When he came to, he was already tied up with maddeningly itchy ropes, which painfully bit into his wrists and caused his hands to swell. All he could see was a flight of stairs leading to the inside of a classic basement door.

After what felt like an eternity, he finally heard a sound and saw some light creep in from the door. Amidst his growing dread, Theo started to rethink all the life choices that led him to the basement of a creepy old hag, who was planning on doing God knows what with him.

If anyone were asked to describe him, most people would say Theo was a creep.

No one ever saw him do anything bad per se. It was just his loner status, adeptness at going around unseen, and inability to coax any sort of conversation out of him for more than a few minutes at a time that made people wary of him.

However, the truth was more complicated.

Although not a scion from old wealth, he was born into a well-off family, though his father was mostly absent from his life, and his mother was nothing more than a self-obsessed trophy wife for him to show off.

Neither cared much about him. Not even playing at being a problem child ever got any reaction other than disinterest from both. They paid for his schooling and put food on the table. The rest was up to him to figure out.

Hence, it wasn't surprising that a child raised like this would have problems occurring in his life. Talking with people outside of those he was comfortable with often resulted in him freezing up. So while he could normally interact with teachers …