Mr. Witson zipped around the corner with the grace of a gazelle on fire.
"There!" Raven gasped, pointing wildly. "I saw him moonwalk around that corner!"
We stumbled after him—less like hunters and more like toddlers chasing a greased pig—only to grind to a breathless halt.
Empty street. Not even a lab coat thread in sight.
"Ack! We lost him!" Raven flailed like a wet towel in a hurricane. "Did he teleport?!"
I squinted down the street, heart still thudding in my ears. "Or maybe he dissolved into steam. The man's 50% hot air anyway."
I lifted my nose, sniffed once, then twice, eyes narrowing like a hound catching a scent.
"I smell…" I murmured, "soldering iron, lavender shampoo, and the faint aroma of maniacal obsession."
Raven blinked at me. "How does maniacal obsession smell like?"
I ignored him, still sniffing like a dramatic detective in an amateur soap opera. "He's near. Probably building something stupid and dangerous that reeks of rejection and aluminum."
Raven glanced around nervously. The neighborhood stretched before us—row after row of old, creaking houses. Some boasted cheerful garden gnomes, others wind chimes or pink flamingos, all standing like sleepy sentinels in front yards that reeked of innocent suburbia. All of them suspiciously, terrifyingly normal.
"But…" Raven began hesitantly, "there's so many houses. How do we even know which one he's in?"
I turned to him slowly, dramatically, and pointed to my nose. "Raven. I have a gift. A sixth sense."
He squinted at me. "Isn't that just your sinus infection acting up again?"
I ignored the insult, turned away, and surveyed the street like a dramatic detective in a soap opera finale. 'Identical mailboxes. Identical hedges. Identical, shifty-eyed gnomes. No signs of unhinged inventors setting up murder machines.'
Then—like divine inspiration smacked me across the face—it hit me.
'Of course!'
"I have an idea," I whispered, eyes glinting with the dangerous shine of someone who absolutely should not be trusted with ideas.
Raven leaned in warily. "What is it? It's not something dangerous, right?"
Without answering, I tore open the canvas bag I'd snatched from Mr. Witson's house earlier. From its depths, I pulled out a half-eaten sandwich, a feather duster, a toy compass, and—most importantly—an old pair of Mr. Witson's socks I had 'borrowed' in case of emergency. (Don't ask.)
Raven blinked, his voice flat. "What is all that?"
"A genius-level homemade Witson-finding spell," I declared, confidently stuffing the sock into the sandwich like it was a sacred offering.
"I feel like I should stop you," Raven muttered, "but I'm also morbidly curious."
I sprinkled a dash of pepper onto the sockwich, waved the feather duster over it three times, spun in a full circle, and chanted with the solemnity of a lunatic monk:
"Witson, Witson, man of speed,
Show us now your strange misdeeds!"
Raven just stared, unmoving, his soul halfway out the window.
Then, without warning, I hurled the sandwich-sock into the air. It rose like a greasy phoenix—then plummeted straight down and splatted onto the pavement in glorious, messy defiance of gravity.
We both stared.
Then—the toy compass began to spin.
Faster.
Faster.
Its tiny plastic needle whirled with manic determination, blades slicing the air like it had just glimpsed the future… and immediately regretted it.
Raven instinctively took a few cautious steps back. "That doesn't look safe."
"Shh!" I hissed, holding out a hand like I was taming a wild animal—or possibly the fabric of reality itself.
Then, with a final judder and a click that felt far too dramatic for a child's toy, the compass stopped.
Dead still.
Pointing.
Silence fell over us like a curtain before disaster.
Its needle aimed squarely at a bright blue house three houses down… the one with a yard covered in mirrored disco balls and—most importantly—smoke rising steadily from a cracked basement window.
I thrust my finger toward it, triumphant.
"There. The Witson lair."
Raven looked from the house to the mess on the sidewalk. "You got that… from a sandwich?"
"Sandwiches never lie," I said gravely.
And we ran.
We crept toward the blue house, hearts pounding like we were infiltrating a villain's lair—or at least a really aggressive yoga studio. I pressed my back against the peeling wall, motioning for Raven to do the same, and we peeked through the foggy basement window.
The smoke was real.
But it wasn't madness.
It was… sourdough.
Inside, wearing a frilly apron and humming to classical music, stood a middle-aged man with kind eyes and forearms of dough-rolling steel. He expertly kneaded a lump of dough, flour blooming in the air like an angelic mist. A tray of golden bread sat cooling by the oven. He dusted it with love. Actual love. The man was a baking saint.
Raven and I looked at each other, unimpressed.
"Nope," we said in perfect unison.
I stood up with a sigh and rubbed my temples. "False alarm. Witson is not in a bread cult… yet."
Raven nodded solemnly. "Though I'd respect that more than his usual hobbies."
Not one to give up, I pulled the crushed sandwich-sock out of my bag with renewed determination. "We try again."
And try again I did.
The second spell led us to a garage where an old woman was hosting a knitting circle with terrifying intensity. They were speed-knitting battle scarves while sipping chamomile tea and chanting war songs. Not Witson.
"Abort," I whispered. "They'll eat us alive."
The third spell took us to a suspicious-looking shed. It was covered in vines and had skulls painted on the door. We burst in with full heroic energy—only to find a teen group practicing dark rituals with glowsticks.
"Sorry," I said as we backed out. "Continue your dark… rave."
By the fourth try, the sock sandwich was starting to smell like a war crime, and Raven's patience was unraveling faster than a cheap sweater.
"I'm beginning to think," he said, breathing through his shirt, "that your spell isn't working."
"Nonsense," I said, eyes wild. "Magic takes time. And sandwich."
Then, just as I raised the disgusting artifact for one final throw, the compass spun violently—so violently it flew off into a bush and exploded.
Raven and I stood in stunned silence, side by side, watching the last wisps of smoke curl from the bush where the compass had violently self-destructed.
"…"
"…"
Slowly, we turned to each other, dread and shared stupidity reflected in our eyes.
"Plan B," I said grimly, brushing ash from my shoulder.
"We have one?" Raven asked, voice teetering on the edge of panic.
"It's time to think of one."
Raven swallowed hard. "All I can come up with is… search one by one?"
"Inefficient," I admitted, "but we don't have a choice."
And so, with the reluctant resignation of two souls bound to fate—or at least to a deeply regrettable afternoon—we began our descent into madness.
Door by door.
Hedge by suspicious hedge.
Mailbox by mailbox that may or may not have been watching us.
The suburban silence mocked us with every creak of a wind chime and every flamingo staring blankly from its plastic perch. Still, we pressed on.
The mission: locate one emotionally unstable inventor before he could reinvent the concept of romantic vengeance… with lasers.
And possibly glitter bombs.
We weren't sure yet.
But we knew one thing for certain.
'If we failed—'
'We were toast.'
Possibly literally.
There were many false starts.
An old man sunbathing in a kiddie pool full of yogurt.
A toddler launching food off a spoon with sniper-like precision and a look of generational vengeance in his eyes.
Another old man furiously boxing a training dummy in his driveway like it owed him child support.
But still, we pressed on—Raven whimpering at every suspicious rustle, and me, marching forward with the misplaced confidence of a general who had lost the map, the army, and possibly their grip on reality.
Hours passed—though it felt like centuries. Our patience frayed like overcooked spaghetti. No clues. No Witson. Just escalating weirdness, increasingly suspicious neighbors, and the gnawing realization that somewhere, probably in a basement filled with emotionally unstable blueprints, Mr. Witson was assembling a love-powered death machine.
And the worst part?
We were beginning to suspect the unthinkable.
That maybe—just maybe—we were the sane ones.
A truly terrifying notion.
"This is taking forever," I grumbled, dragging my feet like a cursed soul doomed to wander the suburbs.
"The worst part is…" Raven sniffled, glancing around at the suburban oddities populating every yard, "none of them looked sane."
"At this rate, Mr. Witson might've already finished one or two weapons," I muttered. "Or worse—started monologuing."
Raven paled. "What do we do then?"
I rubbed my chin thoughtfully, like a villain-in-training. "Well… we could burn a few houses. Or flood the place. Or fake a gas leak. Maybe plant a tiny bomb—just a little one. Controlled explosion."
Before I could continue listing increasingly horrifying options, Raven whipped around with a horrified squeak. "Are you crazy?! You might endanger someone's life!"
I shrugged with the apathy of someone who had truly run out of legal ideas. "Got any better plan?"
Raven opened his mouth… then closed it.
"…That's what I thought," I said, hands on my hips like a general whose only strategy was chaos.