Episode 1: Wilde Nights

Scene 1 – The Slow Demise of Romance

Outside, London hums with contradictions.  Gas lamps flicker along fog-drenched streets, casting halos over horse-drawn carriages and the occasional bicycle rattling past.  The city is swelling—its population nearing six million—and the air carries the scent of coal smoke, damp stone and the distant tang of the Thames.  Decorated theatres and glittering department stores cater to the rising middle class in the West End, while the East End groans under the weight of overcrowded tenements and the cries of street hawkers.  Electric trams and the newly opened underground railway promise modernity, yet the city remains tethered to its past—its alleys thick with history, its skyline punctuated by church spires and chimney stacks.  Somewhere beyond the walls of Oscar Wilde and Frank Miles’s apartment, suffragettes rally, artists debate at the Café Royal and the Empire’s pulse beats steadily beneath the cobblestones.

Within these walls, Wilde and Miles savor a quieter decadence, untouched—for now—by the city’s unrest.  The fire’s lazy glow causes shadows to stretch across the walls.  Papers lie scattered, undisturbed except for the occasional rustle as Oscar flicks through the pages of the Illustrated London News.  A match flares and illuminates Oscar’s smirk as he lights his cigar.  Across the room, Frank Miles lounges with a sketchbook balanced on his knee as he begins the initial outline of a female figure, posed in a long, flowing dress.  Like most nights, he is absorbed in his own world of painting, sketching and enjoying the life of a moderately successful artist.  After several minutes of comfortable silence, Frank finally looks up from his sketch with mild curiosity.

FRANK You’ve been staring at that paper far too long, Oscar.  You’re not thinking again, are you?  I’ve told you that’s a dangerous habit.

OSCAR Thinking suggests effort, Frank and this…utter nonsense…this requires no effort at all.

Also like most nights, Oscar is fussing over articles written by men he either knows or wishes he hadn’t.  Frank barely glances at the paper.  He’s more interested in his drawing than whatever Oscar is upset about tonight, but he decides to humor him.

FRANK Another scandal?  Did one of your misaligned critics publicly challenge you to a pistol duel? 

OSCAR Far worse—This article is a blatant offense to reason itself.  Just listen to this absurdity.

Oscar clears his throat and begins reading the article with a mocking tenor of artificial bravado.

OSCAR [clears throat], [reading aloud] "Few recent inventions are more remarkable than M. Gramme’s electric light.  Frequently, during the past Session of Parliament, its wonderful beam has been seen in mid-air, cast from the noble clock-tower of the New Palace at Westminster.  This beautiful light, which shone conspicuously from 260 feet above the streets, illuminating them far and wide, was supplied by the electric current from a small machine requiring only two and a half horsepower to drive it... It is possible that all our streets, in a few years hence, may be nightly bathed in the glorious light of electricity, and the thousands of gaslights may then be replaced by two or three magneto-electric points set high above the housetops of London."

He lowers the paper, shaking his head with exasperation.

OSCAR [disgusted] Progress?!  It is a mere illusion, Frank.  A trick of perception.  We replaced the sun with the gas lamp and now—now we replace the gas lamp with electricity.  We continue marching forward while extinguishing the last flickering romance of the city itself.

FRANK [chuckles] Progress marches on, Oscar.  Even your quick wit can’t outrun it.

Wilde leans back, contemplating.  The glow of the lamp outside wavers, brief but perceptible.  He exhales sharply, his gaze lingering on the discarded paper.  He takes one long puff from his cigar and extinguishes it.
OSCAR If civilization insists on tearing down all that is poetic in this world, I suppose there remains only one cure—

With a sudden burst of energy, Oscar rises and sweeps his coat from the chair with calculated elegance.

OSCAR [enthusiastic] [shouts] The theater!  If I must endure the absurdities of progress, I shall do so beneath velvet curtains and candlelight.
Frank doesn’t look up from his sketch.  Being all too familiar with Oscars dramatic poise, he speaks playfully through a smirk.

FRANK Ah, your usual remedy.  Well do try to enjoy yourself Oscar…Oh and try not to critique the stage lighting too harshly.

Wilde ignores the teasing while fastening his coat.  Outside, the fog thickens—just a little heavier than before…

Scene 2 – A Woman’s Terror

The streets of London are unnaturally quiet.  Mist clings to the air, swallowing sound and smothering the usual hum of late-night city life.  Oscar steps out of the theater, his coat draped effortlessly over one shoulder.  He moves with a practiced ease, the afterglow of the performance settling into his bones.  As he strolls away from the exiting crowd into the night, the stillness of the city weighs slightly heavier.  The gaslamps flicker, their flames uneasy.

Then suddenly—a rush.

She barrels toward him, her pace frantic, her breath uneven.  Wilde barely has time to register her presence before she crashes into him.  Her fingers clutch his arms with desperation.  Her eyes—wild and afraid—lock onto his.

WOMAN: [frantic] He’s watching—he’s still watching!  Please, he’s watching!

Her coat hangs crookedly off one shoulder, a threadbare thing once meant for warmth but now soaked and mottled from too much time in the rain.  The hem is torn, catching on her boot as she stumbles forward—Beneath the coat, a faded cotton dress clings to her frame, its floral pattern almost ghosted with wear.  One sleeve is safety-pinned at the shoulder, the other torn at the seam, exposing a freckled arm marked by cold.  Her hair—tangled and damp—falls around her face like a storm left unchecked, and the only hint of adornment is a tarnished brooch at her collar, depicting a cracked mirror.

Her voice is ragged, torn from her throat like a plea.  Then, just as quickly, she rips herself away and disappears into the fog.

Wilde is startled, yet still.  His hands lingering where her grip had held them.  He turns slowly toward the alley where she had fled from.  The street beyond is silent.

The gaslamp trembles.  The fog shifts but there is nothing there.  Oscar squints hard into the darkness but sees nothing.

As he turns back around, he watches the woman disappear into the mist, her form swallowed by the depths of the alley.  The echo of her footsteps lingers, uneven and desperate, before fading into silence.  He remains where he stands, the night pressing in, thick with unnatural silence.
For a moment, the city holds its breath.

Then, as if nothing had happened, the world gradually resumes its slow, inevitable rhythm.  A window slams shut.  Ho rses from a carriage clop in the distance.  Piano music can be heard from a pub nearby.  The city returns as Oscar reluctantly makes his way into the night.

An hour later, Wilde steps into his apartment with effortless theatricality, shrugging off his coat and tossing it onto a chair—an artful dismissal of the evening's weight.  The room is warm, the last bit of kindling burning low with quiet sizzling in celebration of his return.  By the hearth, Frank lounges in a state of perfect ease, sprawled in the same position Wilde left him in—utterly untroubled by the world beyond these walls.  His gaze remains fixed on his drawing, which has nearly reached completion.  With delicate precision, he adds the final touches to the female figure.  Now, a fully rendered woman wearing a sundress, its fabric alive with painted blossoms.

FRANK: Another triumph, I assume?

Wilde exhales as he sinks into his chair, crossing one leg over the other and reaches for his cigar box.

OSCAR: [exhales] If by triumph, you mean an audience as insufferable as ever.  But the true spectacle wasn’t the play—it was London itself.
Frank tilts his head, intrigued but not overly invested.  He sets down his pencil, studying Wilde with mild amusement.

FRANK: Ah yes of course!  Another philosophical rambling about progress tragically snuffing out the romantic gas lamp?

Wilde leans forward and strikes the match to the butt of his cigar, waves the match out in the air and blows a small stream of smoke as he sits upright, eyes sharp despite his relaxed demeanor.

OSCAR: Not progress, dear boy.  Fear.  A woman quite literally ran into me—panicked, wild-eyed—swearing someone was watching her.  She was terrified of something or someone, I suppose.  The look in her eyes, the panic in her voice… she was quite distressed.  Hope is the only thing stronger than fear, Frank—and she appeared to have run fresh out of hope.

Frank snorts dismissively, picks up his pencil again, and returns to his sketch.

FRANK: Sounds dramatic.  Perhaps she just finished reading your latest review.

Wilde exhales sharply—not laughter, but something close to frustration.

OSCAR: She wasn’t running from words, Frank.  I’ve never seen such terror before in a person’s eyes.  She was clearly in some sort of danger, however I saw nothing but swirling fog and darkness.

A silence settles.  The fire crackles.  Wilde’s gaze drifts to the window—the fog beyond curls unnaturally slow and deliberate.  His eyes distant with recollection.  Frank looks up.  His expression remains casual, but something in Wilde’s stillness gives him pause.  It’s not like Oscar to be this quiet, especially after visiting the theater.

FRANK: You always do love a good performance, Oscar.

Wilde’s fingers tap absently against the arm of his chair—not in thought, but in calculation.  Something is shifting.

OSCAR: Night does not merely fall—it descends with a lover’s embrace, veiling the world in hazy dread.  It is a master of illusions, turning shadows into specters and whispers into warnings.  How splendidly terrifying…

Scene 3 – Enter The Ripper

She does not flee.  She cannot.

Her footsteps stumble across the cobblestones, slipping in terror, swallowed by the mist that thickens—not like fog, but like a demon’s breath, drawn inward, inhaled by something unseen.  She clutches at the empty air with trembling fingers, seeking solidity where there is none.  A sob rips from her throat, strangled and desperate.  The flickering light shudders, bending unnaturally and casts jagged shadows that stretch toward her like grasping fingers.

She was always meant to end here.  The first cut is made, and London exhales.

A gloved hand—precise and deliberate—guides the scalpel along her skin.  It does not tremble.  It does not hesitate.  The skin parts in clean lines, the wound is not an act of violence, but a message.  Her throat opens and her body goes limp.  Blood spills thick and slow, pooling into the cracks of the stone, drawn downward, as if the city itself thirsts for it.

The figure of a man stands over her, unmoved.  His silhouette cuts sharp against the trembling glow of the lamp light above.  His trench coat settles around him, unmoving despite the night breeze.  The top hat casts his face into shadow, obscuring everything except the glint of his blade and the suggestion of something …wrong…beneath the folds of fabric.

Her scream never reaches the air.  It is devoured before it can form, absorbed by the city itself, pulled into the shifting dark.  A feint gurgling exhale as the remaining moments of her life are extinguished.  The mist does not swirl aimlessly.  It coils…tightening, watching.

The blade moves with precision—not hurried or clumsy, but knowing.  The wound is not a violation, but an offering.  Blood continues to pool, thick and sluggish as if eager to escape the confines of her body.  Cuts become patterns, patterns become symbols.  Crimson sigils and runes that are older than the city.  Older than names.  Older than understanding.

A large black tentacle unfurls from his sleeve, slick with something that should not exist, stretching into the cold air.  It writhes under his coat, flowing like the arm of a jet-black kraken, curling and twisting out into the night.  It hesitates—not in uncertainty, but in anticipation.  It gently rolls across the dead woman’s face as it retreats, curling back beneath the fabric where it waits.

Something beyond watches—not him, but the act.

It does not hunger.  It does not wish.  It expects.  This is no mere killing.  It does not hide itself behind madness nor frenzy.  It is ritual.

And it has begun.

Scene 4 – Ink and Cobblestone

London wakes uneasy.  The city moves as it always does—carts rattling against the stones, merchants calling out wares—but beneath it all, something has shifted.  The weight of whispered rumors presses against the morning air, thick with the scent of rain-damp streets and secrets best left unspoken.

The body is found in the early hours, laid out with eerie precision, placed rather than discarded.  Blood does not simply pool—it flows, drawn along the cracks between cobblestones as if pulled by some unseen hand.  It does not seep outward in chaos, but traces deliberate pathways, dark veins threading through the streets, absorbed rather than spilled.

Witnesses mutter to one another in low tones. The details twist with each retelling—some claim the lamps faltered, their light paling at the moment of discovery.  Others swear the air shimmered above the corpse, a distortion barely seen but impossible to ignore, as if the city itself recoiled from what it had been forced to reveal.

Oscar Wilde sits in his apartment, the morning stillness settling around him.  The newspaper rests against his fingertips, its pages creased from his tight grasp.  He has read the article twice and does not need to read it a third time.  He already knows the terrible  truth it holds.

OSCAR She ran into me that night.  This poor girl pleaded for my assistance and now she’s dead.

Frank Miles, still in his silken pajamas is pouring a cup of coffee.  His hair disheveled, eyes groggy.  He takes a seat at the table next to Oscar.

FRANK You think it’s the same woman?

Wilde does not answer immediately.  His gaze remains fixed on the text, scanning the words, though he already knows what they say.  He is not searching for confirmation.  He is searching for a way to be wrong.

OSCAR I know it is.

Frank exhales, shaking his head as he leans over to read the article.

FRANK Odd coincidence, Oscar.  Nothing more.  Don’t let the news ruin your breakfast.

Wilde’s lips press together, the line of his jaw tightening.

OSCAR Coincidence implies chance, my dear boy.  This was inevitability.  She knew she was in danger.  One can only hope her killer is found swiftly and brought to justice, although it doesn’t sound as if Scotland Yard has any leads [sighs].  Murder is always a mistake.  One should never do anything that one cannot discuss after dinner.

Frank has heard Oscar’s wit a million times over, yet it still manages to make him smile.

FRANK Well if the woman you ran into and this woman are in fact the same, what exactly do you plan to do?

Wilde folds the newspaper, smoothing the edges with slow, deliberate movements before setting it aside.  The weight of it lingers against the table, heavier than mere ink on paper.

OSCAR It seems as though I need to talk to someone who knows more than I do, which shouldn’t be too difficult.

Frank watches him for a long moment, searching Wilde’s expression for something unspoken.

FRANK And what if you don’t like what they tell you?

Wilde exhales, not with frustration but with something deeper—acceptance.

OSCAR Well that has never stopped me before.

The conversation settles into silence, but neither man moves to break it.  Some horrors demand pursuit.  Others demand distance.  Wilde has made his choice.

Scene 5 – Of Secrets, Sigils and Madness 

The office of William Melville is cramped with the weight of knowledge—papers stacked in careful disarray, maps pinned with annotations, intelligence reports splayed across his desk like relics of unfinished wars.  The air is thick with the scent of ink, tobacco, and the faint bitterness of damp London mornings.  Though still unofficial in name, British Intelligence was beginning to take shape—an intricate web of surveillance, counter-espionage, and quiet diplomacy.  At its center stood William Melville, one of the first spymasters of the modern age, tasked with protecting the Empire from threats both foreign and domestic.

Oscar Wilde enters without ceremony, his steps measured but lacking their usual theatrical flourish.  He does not wait for an invitation to speak.

OSCAR Tell me, Melville, do you entertain discussions of the bizarre?

William Melville does not look up immediately.  His fingers tap against the edge of a document, a silent calculation before he speaks.

MELVILLE Only when the bizarre proves to be useful.

Wilde removes his gloves with slow deliberation.  He takes a seat in front of Melville’s desk.

OSCAR Then let us hope utility is in abundance.

Melville had known Wilde for years—not through parties or plays, but through the peculiar nexus where politics brushed against performance.  What began as casual observations of Wilde’s social orbit had evolved into something more calculated.  The playwright’s wit disguised a mind attuned to nuance, and Melville, ever suspicious of charm, kept him within reach.  There were whispers, favored introductions, covert favors exchanged behind closed doors.  Their association was unofficial, like much of Melville’s work—useful, unpredictable, and laced with unspoken rules.

Oscar recounts the encounter—the woman’s terror, the unseen watcher.  He does not embellish, does not sharpen his words for effect.  Afterall, he doesn’t need to.  The weight and gruesome nature of the murder speaks plainly enough.

Melville listens without interruption, his expression carefully neutral.  When Wilde finishes, there is a pause—brief, but deliberate.  Then, without a word, Melville opens a drawer in his desk and reaches for a stack of papers.  He spreads the papers out across the desk, a series of aged sketches.  The ink is faded but the shapes remain distinct.  Symbols, intricate and unfamiliar, drawn with precise intention.

Wilde scans them, his fingers tracing over the designs as unease coils in his stomach.

OSCAR And what, pray tell, are these?

Melville leans back, arms crossed, gaze steady.

MELVILLE Ancient sigils.  Intelligence reports have traced them across certain incidents—unexplained deaths, disappearances.  And now, murder.
He taps the page, drawing Wilde’s attention to one particular marking.

MELVILLE This one was found near the body.  We have no idea what they mean.  Ancient symbology and magic falls out of the purview of British Intelligence and even further from the expertise of our friends at Scotland Yard.

Wilde’s breath stills for a moment.  He adjusts his cravat, bemused. 

OSCAR Well these are either the fever dreams of a calligrapher gone mad or the marginalia of the universe itself having a nervous breakdown.

His eyes settle on one sign—a twisted spiral entombed in a triangle of thorns.

OSCAR This one reminds me of a particularly biting epigram—difficult to write, impossible to forget, and likely to summon one’s critics from beyond the veil.

Another symbol—a spidery glyph that seems to shift shape when glanced at from the corner of one's eye—elicits a chuckle.

OSCAR [chuckles] I daresay this resembles my publisher’s handwriting, though perhaps with more malice and fewer lawsuits.

He trails a finger along the curve of a snake-like sigil wrought like a flame devouring its own tail.  He pauses, and his voice lowers.

OSCAR I wonder, is it the madness of the signs that unsettles, or the recognition that some part of me understands the madness.

A smile flickers as Oscar leans back in the chair and addresses Melville.

OSCAR No matter. I shall not go mad.  That would be vulgar.  I shall be strange instead.  That, at least, has taste.

MELVILLE My sources tell me they contain magic, or at least may be pieces of some occult ritual.

OSCAR Good heavens, William—do you take me for a spiritualist?  These sigils are as meaningless to me as silence at a dinner party.  I am, by profession, a playwright and a conversationalist—though whether I excel at either is best judged by those patient enough to endure both.  What I am not is a scholar, nor a believer—and I rather doubt the poor victim gives a damn either way.

Melville shakes his head.

MELVILLE You may not believe, Oscar, but someone surely does.  Someone willing to kill for it.

Silence fills the space between them.  Wilde presses two fingers against his temple, contemplating.  It is no longer a matter of curiosity.  It is a matter of inevitability.

OSCAR I have always believed that one should avoid unnecessary entanglements—yet here I stand, hopelessly entangled, proving once again that belief and behavior are seldom acquainted.  Good afternoon, Inspector Melville.  I’ll be in touch.

Scene 6 – Visions and Nightmares

Standing at his window, Wilde watches the fog twist through the streets.  Frank stirs, murmuring in his sleep, oblivious to Wilde’s shifting stare outside his window.

OSCAR: If this is a performance, it’s a dreadful one…Perhaps we ought to rewrite the ending.

That night, his dreams churn like a restless tide, dragging him through a relentless waltz of shadow and memory.  Figures emerge—some yet to cross his path, others long buried by time—twisting in a macabre procession that knows neither beginning nor end.  The past and future blur, merging into a whispered omen that refuses to be ignored.

Dust settling in forgotten corners of a library.  A man walks its aisles, fingertips brushing over ancient spines.  He fancies himself an adventurer, not merely a writer but also a believer—one who knows the veil between worlds is thin, who has seen too much to doubt.  He is the voice of the master detective, the mind that unravels mysteries both seen and unseen.  He is heard across séance tables and lecture halls alike, shaping legends and whispering truths that others dare not acknowledge.

The dream shifts.

A prison cell dissolves into a circus tent, red and gold flickering in unnatural light.  The escape artist stands center stage, bound in locks and chains, surrounded by silent figures in the crowd.  He is less man than myth, a conjured whisper in the dark corners of empire and intrigue.  He understands the weight of the unseen.  He hears the whispers in darkened halls, the rituals masked as performances.  He always has a way out, and more often than not…a way in.  The artist moves like rumor—silent, swift, and impossible to pin down.  No lock or chain can bind him, no cell can hold him, and no eye can fully catch him in the act.

The dream darkens.

Figures robed in secrecy gather, their footsteps lost to the ritual.  The air trembles, chanting filling the silence where voices should not exist.  A lone figure’s silhouette rises, top hat and trench coat black as night, born from darkness.  Behind him, an unspeakable, unknowable horror writhes in the obscurity, swirling like black tendrils looming from beyond, yet lurching forward from beyond.

Ice.  An ancient silence buried beneath a frozen tomb, stretching endlessly beneath glassy stillness.  Emerald veins pulse like forgotten memories, threading through glacier walls.  Far below, locked within a city entombed in frost, the creatures of a long-extinct civilization stand frozen in mid-motion—statues of another age, eyes wide with interrupted prophecy. 

At the center lies an altar, slick and blue as arctic waters, its surface carved from unmelting ice older than time.  Embedded in its crown is a jagged stone, green as firelight filtered through algae—glimmering with something not quite alive, not quite inert.  It waits, patient and ageless.  Then a hand reaches through the hush and pries the stone loose.  The wind rises.  The ice cracks.  And the world remembers how to end.

The vision swells as the dream collapses.  Oscar Wilde wakes with a sharp breath, his mind grasping at the edges of the dream before it vanishes.  He sits up slowly, running a hand over his face, exhaling through parted lips.

OSCAR I do hate when the universe insists on being cryptic.

He glances toward the window.  London sprawls beyond, waiting.

OSCAR But if this is a game, I suppose I’ll have to play.

He rises, stretching as the lingering weight of the dream settles somewhere deep beyond his recollection.

Something is coming.

And time is running out.