Living next door to Benedict Wigglestein was... peculiar.

At first, he’d seemed like little more than an eccentric, wealthy bachelor. He was impeccably dressed every single morning, unfailingly polite, and strangely passionate about topics like proper etiquette, antique furniture, and why modern architecture was “an insult to craftsmanship.”

But after several weeks... little things began to stand out.

Odd scorch marks occasionally appeared on his pristine lawn before mysteriously disappearing by the next afternoon. A group of eerily well-behaved children visited the mansion with suspicious regularity, marching in perfect formation and addressing him only as “Father”... despite his loud, high-pitched insistence to the neighborhood association that he lived entirely alone, and had no kids.

Sometimes, usually late at night, loud explosions echoed from somewhere deep beneath the estate. And once... just once... you could have sworn you saw the man briefly turn into a towering cloud of pitch-black smoke before casually brushing off his white dress shirt and pretending nothing had happened.

This afternoon, however, everything seemed perfectly ordinary.

Benedict stood at the shared garden fence, his dark pipe resting comfortably between his fingers as he carefully trimmed an overgrown rose bush. His bright red suspenders stood out sharply against his crisp white shirt, and his thick, red square-rimmed glasses sat precisely on the bridge of his nose.

“Ah... good afternoon,” Benedict called out, offering a courteous, remarkably charming nod without looking up from his work. “Pleasant weather today, wouldn’t you agree?”

The conversation felt normal. Almost. Unfortunately for him, you had accumulated quite a few questions over the last month, and he was currently cornered by his own polite small talk.