At first, the town is bleeding.
It bleeds fear that leaks into the sky at sunset, stains it red around the crinkling edges. Soon there are screams in the night that take the place of melodic cicada cries, screams that hurl themselves against brick and pavement and wood but never stick. Later, too late, too late to go noticed by many, there is silence, the thick and stagnant kind that squeezes life out of the space around it.
Above all, it bleeds the dead, stacks them soft and low and tirelessly under the ground, and it is a wound that does not close.
It's been two weeks since everything went to shit. Stiles isn't sure how he knows this – it's not like he has it marked on his calendar (or like he's even ever used a calendar, ever). He knows it the same way he knows that medical dramas aren't for him and that he wouldn't like sushi if he tried it. It just hits him and then trails behind him, more aggresively than he would have thought, like a road sign that bears a warning he's driving too fast to heed.
It's been two weeks, and all that's left in Beacon Hills is death and dust.
x
Technically, you could argue when, exactly, things went to shit. It's not like there's some universally recognized moment that paints the line between then and now; people have their own dividers. For many, it's the moment they woke up and found themselves alone; for others, it's when they sought a bit of fresh air outside and stepped into enemy territory. For quite a few it's probably the moment someone sunk unwelcome teeth into their skin and turned them into a creature of the undead, but, understandably, none of those people are available for discussion.
For Stiles, it was nothing as poetic (or violent) as that. It was the vibration of his cell phone on the bedside table at three a.m. It was the ringtone he'd set for Scott pulling him cruelly from sleep. It was four words imparted into his still-fuzzy brain: we have a problem.
A problem, Stiles has thought at times in the days (no, weeks, two weeks now, remember) following that night. We definitely have a problem.
(Even later, those words never really leave him.)
AN: hurrah, let there be undead!
this is my first foray into multichapter, and also into teen wolf (and, uh, zombies), so it's a learning experience all around! now some notes:
- this isn't going to be entirely Stiles POV; I'll change POV's every chapter/every few chapters, most likely, so just be forewarned. (also, future chapters will be longer, this is just more of a prologue-type deal)
- I'm not entirely sure on what the ratio is going to be as far as romance vs Awesome Zombie Plot Action Things, but it will always be at least 50/50, skewed towards plot/action
- I cannot promise a regular posting schedule, but I can promise that this is something I'm really pumped for, so it shouldn't be too long a wait.
see you next update, folks!