Every dream is the same.
He's running, scrabbling through the woods with a desperation that he doesn't fully understand clawing at him to hurry forth. A steady mantra of awayawayaway pounds through his head as his feet slip through mud. He's naked and lost, distinctly wounded in his left shoulder, blood streaming out behind him like ribbons of macabre moonlight.
Something is following him, but he can't make out what it is. He never stops long enough, but its breathing is all he can hear, each exhale rattling the very earth under his feet stripped raw. He catches himself on a tree root run astray and he's upended. He falls and he never stops. There's nothing but a distant howl as he plummets, the wolf's cry echoing through him as he falls and falls and –
This time, when he wakes up, his father is dead.
He sits on the edge of the bed with the note crinkled in his hand, slanted handwriting deceptively inculpable, feeling sick beyond all belief.
Your father is dead. Your father is dead.
The words run on an endless loop in his head, unfathomable. His body is frozen into place there, still to the very core and, distantly, he thinks this is what shock must be like.
He hasn't seen Jo – his father, goddammit – in two years, twenty-four fucking months, hasn't heard his voice since –
And just like that, he's spiralling across the room with panic setting in like the motherfucker it is, crashing to his knees in the shower with his heart a mad rabble in his throat.
"Stiles? Stiles, please just call me back. I just need to know that you're –"
He runs the shower ice cold, pelting his skin until he's blue all over, until he's shaking so hard his teeth are bursting with pain, his whole fucking life unravelling around him.
He tells himself the distant howling is only his imagination, but he can't even tell anymore.
A super short prologue, I know. I promise the chapters get longer.
/drama