A/N: Me again! Like I promised, I've only taken down the chapters that I already have for some polishing up. Because no-one thought to clue me in on my atrocious! Alright, now even I can hear my British coming out! Anyways, here you are!
Walking Through The Flames.
Chapter One: Radio Silence
Alone.
Definition:
Having no one else present,
Having no help or participation from others,
Isolated and lonely,
On one's own.
Solitary.
Deserted.
Abandoned.
Forsaken.
Friendless.
Hopeless.
The list goes on. But it's the best to was I can describe what I am feeling. Emotionally. Mentally and Physically. I've been cut off. From everything. Everyone.
My senses are useless. I feel weak. I'm vulnerable. And I'm suddenly reminded of my human side, of how defenseless I was before being bitten. Mentally and emotionally.
In a word, I feel numb.
And it probably doesn't help either that for however long I've sitting on this seat for my butt's starting to turn numb too. A sigh escapes me and I shift in my seat to relieve the pressure and try and get some sensation back down there. I'd stand up and walk around but I don't want to lose my seat, or miss any changes on the notice board for the train times and delays. I don't want to miss my train. I sit back, keeping watch of the board from out of the corner of my eye. It's stupid really, the entire time that I've been here, the damn board hasn't changed. And it's been hours. Or days maybe, maybe that's why the board looks so old. Huh. It's like a blast from the past compared to the display boards used with our modern day technology. It doesn't tell me a day or time, just destinations and the arrival and departure times. But you can't look away from it, it's like a beacon, it tricks you with a false sense of hope. Makes you think that if you look away from it long enough and then look back, the information will change.
And I'll begrudgingly admit that I was the idiot that did just that. It doesn't work.
My gaze flicks up to it unconsciously and I sigh in frustration again when I see the same words and numbers. I glance over to the ticket booth in hopes that an attendant will come back but the sign that says 5 minutes is still up.
Looks like it's been up for a while though, which is peculiar.
I have the feeling that its been that way for a long time and now that inspect it more the glass is a bit stained and there's a thick layering of dust gathered up on the ledge. That little spark of hope flickers for a bit as the pit of doubt grows in my stomach. I don't want to look at the board again, no matter how strong the urge is and resign myself to surveying my surroundings, again.
Maybe someone else has arrived! I glance around. But I feel like I'm looking but not really seeing anything. I blink a couple of times, to bring myself back to reality. I feel myself drifting away sometimes and I don't how long that I'm doing it for. I just hope its for a couple of seconds, maybe minutes even. I want to worry but something drags me away from it. Drags me away from the present again. Wait. What's that!?
My mind focuses, feeling less fuzzy and a noise echo's around the room, my ears perking up at this.
. . . .Tap
The noise continues and I move my gaze, searching my surroundings again for the origins of the source. To stupidly discover that its my right leg bouncing. I sigh in defeat, rub a hand over my face in annoyance before dropping it into my lap. I resort to staring at a door, my leg bouncing of it's own accord and I want to growl at it. Lily, what are doing?
Waiting.
"What are you waiting for?" A voice suddenly asks, scaring the living daylights out of me, like I physically jump in my seat, startled. I leap from my seat, suddenly anxious and wary, wanting to know who and where the voice came from. But there's no-one, I walk around the room, searching, looking behind every pillar, light fixture and bench but nothing. I spin around slowly, there's no-one here but me. But someone had spoken to me. Hadn't they? And then it hits me. IT'S MY BLOODY VOICE. I sigh in frustration.
"How long have I been here?" The voice, my voice asks. At least I think it's my voice, doesn't really sound like my voice though. But the again it's the first real thing I've heard, apart from my bouncing leg. My voice sounds harsh, rough and coarse. Like it hasn't been used for awhile.
Oh that's right I remember.
I haven't spoken a word since my meltdown after I arrived in this place! I was confused, disoriented and alone. I spent hours screaming, hoping for someone to hear me. I searched every nook and cranny in hopes of finding someone else here. But then I realized that I was utterly and truly alone, I panicked. I scoured every inch of this place, searching every tunnel, tried opening every door, to find anything, anyone, even a way out. To find a way home, to get back to my friends. And family. Or to find a way to let them know where I am, that I'm okay. That I'm as safe as I can be. I hoped
But as you can see, I'm still here. I've come to the conclusion that either no one can hear me because they aren't looking or listening for me. Or I was a lot further from home than what I thought I was. And that's why I figured it was no point in wasting my breath.
It would be best to save it for when I might need it the most. Like for when I get myself out of here. For sure.
Here being Christ knows where.
Here being a cold, dusty, lifeless, soundless, soul less empty pit of hell that looks like a train station.
...
I am the only one here.
I have been for a while. Beneath the haziness I can surely assume that it hasn't been for days. Its been longer, much, much longer. There's a bigger power here, it's making me sluggish. Making me human, making me forget myself. I walk back over to the benches, feeling more numb than before and utterly defeated. I sit back a bit, the wooden back of the bench bites into my skin a little. I'm back where I started, in the very same seat that I had vacated, though it doesn't matter because its clear that it'll never get taken by someone else anyway. Resigning myself to failure and my fate, I stare at the wall.
I sit like this for some time. Minutes, hours or days for all I know, just staring at the wall.
My hands shake minutely, from the vibration of the beat of my heart and on a certain beat, my hands moves a tad harsher than before and a small shimmer of light flickers on my left hand, sparkling for my attention and my eyes follow slowly, tiredly.
There's a ring on my finger, my wedding finger to be precise. But the ring isn't a wedding ring, or an engagement ring for that matter. Just a ring, the light glimmers along the band again as my hand twitches purposely, a small rainbow appears on the dusty, grey floor for a moment under the dull lights before disappearing.
I look back at the ring and study it. Did I buy this ring? I wonder.
Well seeing as I have nothing better else to do I might as well distract myself. And I now that I think about it, I can't remember ever seeing this ring before until now. How odd. Though I'm suspecting through the haze, I'm thinking this isn't the first time it's happened. I know that I'm having difficulty remembering things. Whatever this place, whatever it's doing to me, it's taking it's toll. The fact that I couldn't recognize my own voice, says and proves as much. And that scared the hell out of me, literally, makes me wonder how much of myself that I'm losing in here. I shake off of that dark train of thought for a moment and take off the ring to study it more.
Let's see if I can trigger a memory or something.
I must say, it's a beautiful piece of work. And I stare at it in wonder for a moment, admiring the precision before inspecting it more in finer detail. It's a stylishly thin custom-made, sterling silver band. Though it has what I believe looks like a ribbon of rose gold weaving out from the silver, the two colours crisscross over each other. It's very elegant. A smile forms across my face but the movement hurts my jaw and cheeks, further putting fuel to the fire of my thoughts; I have been here for some time.
My fingers move on there own accord, as I pinch the ring between my left thumb and forefinger. They know something. It's almost like they already know it's there, my right forefinger traces along the ribbon of silver and rose gold and I feel the smoothness of the metal before a slight roughness as I dip my finger into the underside of the hole of the ring. I squint my eyes and realise there's a pattern on the ring, more specifically on the part that is rose gold, it's engraved! It's a line that goes up and down a few times, it puzzles me for a moment, I recognise it but I can't quite put my finger on what it is. That coarse voice of mine suggests something at the back of my mind in a whisper. Knowingly?
"A heartbeat."
A heartbeat? Oh yes, a heartbeat. That's what the lines look like.
But, who's heartbeat. Mine?
"No." I whisper out loud and I suddenly realise that not only does my voice sound coarse and harsh but I have a very dry mouth, it's almost like having sand paper in it. Clearing my throat I ponder on just who's heartbeat it might be. I know I'm not that vain that I would engrave this beautiful ring with my own bloody heartbeat, so the question is: ho does it belong to?
"Look at the inscription." My minds voice whispers again to me, more demanding and an urge overcomes me, no, an emotion. Anger. I'm angry at myself. But for what for?
"Forgetting." Forgetting, what am I forgetting? Or is it, who am I forgetting? I feel as if my body and a certain part of my mind, that is being blocked by this unknown power, is trying it's best to help, by reaching out to me in frustration.
I shift in my seat and move the ring up so I can get better lighting, if that's even possible considering the seriously bad lighting that's in here and the lack of my enhightened senses. My gaze searches anxiously on the inside of the ring but this time on the bottom but my eyes are sore, dry and irritated and therefore can't focus properly. I sigh in frustration and drop my hand down, gently placing the ring into my palm. Which then kind of reminds me of Bilbo Baggins from the Hobbit Trilogy when he holds the One ring. Don't worry, I'm not going to say it. A pressure on my hands computes on my brain but it doesn't register in my mind properly as to what it could mean.
"Remember Lily."
Hearing the command, I look down at my hands again quickly but stare at them in confusion, I definitely felt someone touch my hands for a moment just then. Almost like someone had held my hands in there's. I clasp my hands together and sure enough they are warmer, warmer than what they were before, I'd had some sort of heat source transferred over to me.
"You have to remember Lily." A different voice echoes suddenly from out of the emptiness of the station and I jump in fright, clutching the ring to my chest protectively. I whip my head around, looking for the person who belongs to the voice. But there's no one, there's still no one here.
Just me.
After several heartbeats, of hoping and praying that it wasn't just my imagination playing tricks on my me. I await for the sound of the voice again. But the silence creeps back in, it begins creeping into my being as I anxiously wait for something else to happen again. Anything. Defeated, I shake it off and settle myself back down. Telling myself to study the ring again, I push for my mind to find a trigger, with my heartbeat going a mile a minute. Something clicks at the back of my mind; that voice. It sounded so real, it sounded so close. And so familiar. But I couldn't place who's it is.
The feeling of someone holding my hands alerts my senses again and I focus ferociously on that, not wanting to lose the connection. My hands open and the ring twinkles back at me, waiting patiently for me. And all of a sudden, my vision clears, my eyes adjust and focus on the inside, they follow the small dips carved into the ring, to the small grouping of letters, to the words that dance along the inside of the ring.
A voice echoes out into the emptiness;
"Forever and Always."
These words and the voice trigger something.
My mind becomes a battlefield as faces, voices and memories as they all fight their way from the far reaches of my mind to the front, the surge of recollection forces me to close my eyes and take a few deep breathes in the silence but then a voice cries out. A barrier unknown to me breaks around me, finally ending my period of isolation, letting me back into reality. Or one version of it anyways.
"Lily!" I snap my eyes open and gasp at the person kneeling down in front of me. My ring suddenly back on my finger as if it had never left in the first place. The person, kneeling in front of me, a face that I'd know anywhere, the face of my cousin. A smile breaks across my face as my eyes water with tears of happiness. A surge of warmth fills me as I search his face for any chance of my mind playing tricks on me, which prompts the question. How is he here? I look around the station again and low and behold there are people, actually people here. Loads of them sitting in the empty spaces on the benches that were vacant not too long ago. I look back to him and stutter my words, my mouth drier than the Sahara desert.
"Stiles?!" I whisper in disbelief; another person comes up from behind him and bends down to my eye level. "Peter?" I say somewhat confused and appalled at the sight of him. But then him being here registers with the rest of my brain. "Peter!" I growl as my fight instincts kick in and I launch myself out of my seat after him, fists ready to smash straight into his face. He leaps back stealthily and with precision before I can get any closer and he holds his hands up in surrender, looking apologetic and mildly terrified. Ah, that's why, I remember. He's anxious and terrified that I will follow through with the threat that I gave him when I saved Scott from him, back in Mexico.
Wait! I remember that! I bloody remembered!
But before I can celebrate that, my instincts still tell me to kick Peter's ass. And just as I move forward Stiles finally catches up and attempts to pull me back with him, by wrapping his arms around my waist and using his whole body to try and haul me back. Bless him, of course unfortunately for him, he hasn't got the strength to hold me back. But his presence is enough to calm me down.
"Okay, Lilly, take it easy. I know you promised him that you'd drain him of his powers if you ever saw him again but I promise you, until we figure everything out, I need you to put that whole thing on pause. So, calm down!" He gasps as he struggles to move me. But I haven't budged, not even an inch. My wolf abilities begin to creep back in and I begin to feel more at ease. "Because there is no way that I can stop a severely pissed off Alpha she-wolf on a good day, so that means I've got no chance on a bad day-" I cut his rambling off with a smile as I turn in his arms and wrap him up in mine. Because now I know he's real.
"Stiles." I cry, with joy and relief, as his warmth seeps through into me, his scent fills my nose and his touch soothes my soul. "God, you have no idea how good it is to see you. Even if it is here." He pulls back for a moment and observes me, smilingly sadly but looking greatful for finding me at the same time, before pulling me back into another heart warming hug. And I relish in it.
"Not that I'm all for a family reunion but we have a bigger problem at hand here." Peter sarcastically says, but his words has the hairs on the back of my neck standing on edge, I feel a growl work it's way up my throat but I swallow it back. Knowing that if I show that he's getting to me, he's winning. And I'll be easier to manipulate, so I just roll my eyes instead.
"I know I'm going to regret this later but Peter's right." Stiles agrees and pulls me to arms length and looks at me seriously. "What's the last thing that you can remember?" He questions me gently. "I mean, it might help us figure out why you, out of everyone else here, didn't run and hide when the Ghost Riders came in. If anything you acted like you never saw them. It was like you weren't even here, like you were gone." His voice cracks a little at that.
"Ghost Riders?" I ask, confused a little by that. But then a snippet of a memory pulls itself to the forefront and I catch a glimpse of a masked man and a flash of green. Stiles notices my stillness as I pause, caught up in my thoughts. I blink away the glimpse of the memory and reply. "You mean the Emo Cowboys?" I ask but then the memory comes back, pushing it's way to the front, demanding to be seen, I'm distracted by it. Seeing but not seeing, meaning I miss the amused smirk on Stiles' face and the disbelieving look on Peter's as he scoffs at my words.
"Ghost Riders, of the wild hunt. They ride the lightening." Peter corrects me.
"Yeah, them, I'll explain a bit more about them in a minute. What I need to know right now, is if can you remember anything else, anything at all?" He turns me around and sits me down gently, handling me like an expensive antique, like I'm going to break. As if sensing my vulnerability and instability he treats me the best way he can.
"No, not really." I sigh in frustration as I try to think. "But my lack of memory, it could be down to the fact that I was the first one here, I know that much." I say assuredly. "I remember." I close my eyes for a second, as if it can help control my chaotic thoughts. "When I first arrived here, I went ballistic. Full out screaming and shouting for the first couple of hours." I take a deep breath as I get a sense of fear in me from the memories. " I was panicking, as I searched for a way out, each door." I wave my hand around to them. "Has some sort of barrier, every time I got the damn things open, as soon as you try to step over the threshold an invisible force sends you half way over the room." I recall the several bumps and bruises from my many failed attempts. "And the tunnels, they're on a loop. You're basically running circles around this place, you can be walking for what feels like hours before you end up right back here. It's trippy as hell but that's what happens." I swallow the lump in my throat as I recall something else that I couldn't before. "And I know that if you head towards the tunnel that leads to the trains, something kind of comes over you and you like, get a gut feeling. To run the other way." I open my eyes to then motion towards said tunnel.
"What do you mean?" Peter questions as he too looks towards that tunnel and then back to me confused.
"I don't know, there's this force that's stopping you from walking through it." I pause as I look at him, and he too sees the vulnerability and fear in me and gulps slightly. Knowing that if there's something out there bad enough to scare even me, then the shit really has hit the fan. "I've tried and looked for anything. Anything that could possibly lead me home or let me get something out there, to signal where I am. But there's nothing. And I gave up fighting after awhile, just hoped and prayed that someone would find me. But then it became clear that it wouldn't be happening anytime soon. Wait!" I have an epiphany! "That's why, I gave up completely. That's why I was in the comatose state that I was in, I gave up and let whatever or whoever it is that has the control over this place, take over me." Both he and Peter listen closely to my every word, hoping for something good but both sigh in frustration at my revelation.
"Okay, okay, then let's try this." Stiles perks up and holds my forearms gently. "Take a deep breathe and clear your mind, don't focus on anything else." I do and chase the storm of scattered memories and thoughts to one side for now. "You good? Kay, keep your breathing steady. I'm going to ask a few questions and hopefully, you'll answer without having to really think on it. Your mind will answer for you, only if you don't push for it to happen. You said you were the first one here, how do you know that?"
"I couldn't sense anyone else here with me. At least no-one human or supernatural." I reply.
"So that can mean they took you out first, for a reason but what?"
"Maybe it has something to do with her abilities." Peter states as he eyes everyone and every corner of the room.
"Point." Stiles agrees. "You're the first female, True Alpha in history." He makes a point of punctuating that. Emphasizing his point. "You have an immunity to just about everything, every poison, weapon that's out there specifically made to hunt werewolves, has no effect on you. You've taken on pretty much every supernatural creature that's been written about in the Beastiary and you've come out on top. And that's saying something, because there are creature's older than time itself listed in that book and you've managed to kick there asses when they've come knocking on our door. I mean think about it, the Kanima. The Alpha's. Jennifer. The Oni, the Nokitsune. The Chimera's. They were all powerful in their own way but nothing really showed how powerful you were than our time spent in Mexico with the Berserkers. You remember?
"Oh yeah." I look purposely at Peter and he shudders and shies away slightly.
"Yes, you remember Peter, but can you remember what you did to the Berserkers?"
"I killed them." I say without thinking. "No matter what the others did, they couldn't stop them. But I could, the two that were outside fighting, had the upper hand. And as I watched Derek die, something came over me, I remember jumping up one and twisting around over it so I was sitting on it's shoulders, it's head between my legs in a choke hold. I grabs the sides of it's skull head thing and pulled with all my God damn might. I used every ounce of strength and power in me. It's skull split and then shattered in my hands, before the rest of it's body followed, shattering straight into dust and bones. I remember turning around just as the other Berserker. It appeared scared."
"It was terrified, Liam sensed it. Kate performed the ritual and that itself can only be done with someone who holds a lot of power, how else was she able to make them follow her orders? Even she was terrified, she'd have never believed it if she hadn't witnessed it. These creatures, mighty and powerful creature were scared of you. They were scared only a little by Scott but they still fought him. You actually managed to reduce them to the pile of bones that they are. You scared them enough for them to disobey Kate's demands and then you took Kate on, on your own. Not even Scott or those Calavera's, Chris or Parrish could stop her. That was the turning point for you." He pauses as he remembers something else and his face lights up again. "And don't get me started on the Beast because Holy shit, that thing was something else, even that damn thing was threatened and intimidated by you, it further prov- "He rambles one but I barely hear anything after that as one thing stands out to me in all of that nonsense. A name to be specific.
"Wait!" A memory bursts to life in my mind before I have a chance to stop it.
Annnnnnnd that's where I'm leaving this chapter! You know what to do!
