Tess heard the news 10 minutes before homeroom.

Hannah and Jenny had found her by her locker, trying to find her Chemistry notes. Hannah nudged her, clearly excited about something. Although, that wasn't anything new. "So have you heard?"

"Heard what?" She replied, not really paying attention. Goddammit, if Isaac hadn't put her chem-notes back-

Hannah raised an beautifully maintained eyebrow, the disbelief evident in her voice. "About the body?"

That caught Tess's attention. She looked between them. "Body? What body? There's a dead body?"

"Yeah, they found it last night."

Holy shit. Like holy actual shit. "Well who's? Where?" A thought occurred to her. "Wait, is this legit or is it just like the time someone spread that rumour that Daisy Sykes had got crushed to death by a bus when really she was just in a minor car accident and her arm was broken? Cause people friggin' cried when she walked into homeroom. This school cannot handle another incident, Hannah."

"Nope, it's legit, couple of joggers found her." Jenny chipped in, not looking up from her phone. The Beacon Hills Police Department still hadn't released an 'official' statement, but word had already spread pretty quickly. She was currently informing Lydia of what they knew so far, which wasn't much.

Tess pointed to silence her, not that it would make a difference. "We can discuss the gritty details later." She pointed back to Hannah and then turned back to her locker. "You, keep talking."

It was as this exact moment a couple of teachers walked by, causing the three girls to act as nonchalant as possible, which quite frankly wasn't very. Hannah lowered her voice, this wasn't exactly a school-appropriate conversation they were having here. "Some girl in the woods. Grisly too."

"How grisly?" Ah, there were her notes, Isaac Lahey's testicles would live to see another lonely day of not knowing the touch of a woman.

The blonde grimaced, disgusted yet excited at the same time. "'They're still looking for parts of her' grisly."

"God." Tess closed the locker-door and turned to lean against it. "How do you even know about this?"

"Pat, he heard it off of Stiles."

"Stilinski?"

"No, Stiles Smith." Hannah leaned against the locker beside her as she smacked her arm. "Of course Stilinski."

Tess raised a hand in mock-surrender. "Sorry, just surprised his dad's let him know so much." Ouch, that kinda hurt.

"Kids hear shit." Hannah shrugged.

Well, she was right about that. God knows she knew way too much about the human body. Hell, Jackson had probably heard enough from his dad that he could hold his own when (and it was only a matter of when) he found himself in a police cell. Seriously, he had nearly hit so many people with that goddamn Porshce. How he had gotten a license escaped her. Tess tucked a strand of brow hair behind her ear. "Still, you'd never think something like that could happen here. I always thought Beacon Hills was pretty quiet." Well, there was what happened with the Hale family a few years back, but stuff like that was one-off kind of tragedy.

Hannah sighed. "Yeah well, I guess you never know your neighbours."

They stood there quietly, the atmosphere suddenly somber. Finding out there may very well be a murderer on the loose in your town will often do that to you. That is until Jenny piped up.

"So." She put her phone in her pocket. "Homeroom?"

"Can't, I'm showing the new girl around." Tess shrugged apologetically as she picked up her bag. "You know taking her to classes and stuff."

Jenny beamed, her sarcasm tangible as she cooed. "Aw, our Theresa, the model citizen." She squeezed her cheek.

"I know, I'm wonderful." Tess deadpanned as she removed her hand. Goddammit Jenny had strong fingers, she'd be feeling that one for days. Damn violinists.

She shrugged. "Maybe we could invite her to come on Friday, you know, make her feel welcome."

"And that, Jennifer Chang, is why you're the nice one." She saluted just as the bell rang. "See ya."

Here are some things you might like to know about our, and I'm using the term loosely here, heroine.

First of all, she and her parents lived in Beacon Hills, a town in which pretty much fuck-all happened. Which is why the gruesome murder of some girl was such hot gossip. It was pretty deal to a town like their's.

Second, in less than two painstakingly slow months, she'd finally have her braces off. At long last she could eat apples, chew gum and drink soda in copious quantities. Yep, living the dream.

And lastly, Theresa doesn't know this, but she's named after her mother's first girlfriend. Though that last one isn't at all relevant to the plot, more of a fun fact really.

Now you may be asking yourself why this little snippet of this random teenager's life is of such importance. And if you stop asking questions about and let me get to establishing the plot, I'll tell you.

For you see, in the months to follow our motley crew of protagonists will look back on this seemingly average Monday and realise that this was in fact their last 'normal day'. Sure events were already in motion before this, and some wouldn't be dragged into the fray until further down the line, but it was this moment, this insignificant Monday morning. That was when the world changed for Beacon Hills. And they knew, that from this day on, they were fucked.