The moment Isaac wakes up he bolts downstairs to the toilet. There are heaps of writhing worms inside his stomach, and he throws up every single one, all while shaking madly. Then he lays his forehead against the cold floor and tries to breathe.

Inhale
Exhale
Inhale
Exhale

Fuck

Isaac takes a guess that he`d been sick because of a nightmare or something similar, but, for the life of him, he cannot remember. Not even vaguely.(ghosts and cold hands and voices of people he`d forgotten)

There`s no one in the loft. No one for so far around. A profound lack of pulsating hearts. No moving air. Stale smells cling to the oxygen. It`s almost the same as the graveyard, and for a moment of eclipsing thoughts Isaac fears he never left and that he had imagined the spectres which petted his skin. That he was actually somewhere in the wild air, dreaming up delusions.

But no, the clock is ticking. That`s real. It has to be. Has to be right there, mounted upon the wall, all metal gears and moving hands and twitching quartz.

Isaac breathes.

It`s Tuesday. He smashes his head against the table, the throbbing dull pain keeps away the panic. He guesses, though, that he`d gone a bit too hard because he feels red blood flow down his face, from his nose. When he wipes at it with the back of his palm, the cinnabar liquid makes him freeze in mesmerisation.

It drips onto his shirt and feels hot against his skin. Werewolves really do have warmer blood.

The blood has dried. He`ll never get it out of his shirt, probably. Isaac doesn`t really have a problem with that.

He rises from the table. (he hasn`t eaten anything today, but he probably wouldn`t be able to stomach food right now).

All he takes with him is his phone, keys and wallet and then he sets foot outside of the building. There are looming clouds blocking the sun. He smells a thunderstorm gurgling at the edges of horizon. Wind rips at his clothes as it passes. He looks down at his blood-stained shirt.

He`d forgotten to wash it off of his face, too. He guesses it`ll start pouring soon enough for it to wash away with the splattering water.

Isaac has walked half of the way to the veterinarian's when the water hits and the first flash of white light burns in his retinas. The blood-curdling drums of thunder echo only ten seconds behind. But it`ll get closer. It always does, unless it passes just by the side. And this storm is going straight through the heart of Beacon Hills.

The rain becomes stronger quickly. The water is cold and his clothes are wet, and the streets are flooding with the cacophony of blaring water, drums and flashes of obscene light. It`s hard to see in front of oneself. But Isaac manages, though the storm takes his senses away.

When he reaches at parking lot, his bones are soaked through. His hands slip and fumble with the metallic doorknob of the white-wood-transparent-glass doors. He doesn`t have the will to curse.

It feels odd to hear the bell chime. Odd to close the door, leaving the storm outside. It`s so quiet here. So lifeless. The light isn`t even turned on in this room, though it walks through the doorway of the cabinet. Allan walks through with it, the crease in his brow evening when he recognizes Isaac.

(the heart-wrenching nervousness is back and for a moment Isaac considers running back out there, but his feet have grown roots into the tiles of the floor)

"All right then, let us get to business, right?" Isaac nods. Follows Allan.

The room feels colder than it ever has. There is the sound of water thrashing against the fight windows and the streets and roof. The low drumbeat is steady, almost symbolical and ritualistic. There is a blue-ish glass bottle, full to the neck with a dark twisting, violet liquid.

It makes Isaac`s hackles raise, it reeks of death and rot.

"Do you really want it?" Allan says, and through peripheral vision Isaac sees him staring directly at his face. His throat has gone dry.

And he doesn`t feel a burning urge for it now, doesn`t need pain this exact moment, but he knows a time will come. So he nods. Allan doesn`t look convinced, but understands anyway.

He begins to explain, using fluid gestures and talking slowly and clearly.

How to dilute the poison. (three fifths water, one fifth white spirit, one fifth the poison itself)

The aftermath of using it when not diluted. (Allan says it would fuck up his digestive system completely first, then corrode blood flow, which would, in turn, corrode all else)

How Isaac shouldn`t use it when there are news of strange packs and/or creatures, lest it complicate fights or the similar. (wounds from alphas that don`t heal, bleeding out, long lasting heavy damage that could have permanent traces)

The way other werewolves will smell it unless the scent is masked. (stand in the wind for long enough or wash it off)

How Isaac needs to be extremely careful with wounds when under it`s effects, seeing as lycanthropes have degraded senses of what`s life-threatening and what`s not. (never joke around with injuries, however light you think they are)

The instruction is roughly two hours long. All details, all making sure Isaac understands all scenarios. And through the entire length of it, Isaac unwinds from his neurotic heights. He nods, asks questions and listens to answers and all else.

When the talking is done, Allan walks over to the table and picks up the bottle. He swirls it in his hands for a bit, showing it to Isaac fully. Then he removes the cap. The smell which bursts forth immediately is sickening, even to Allan, apparently. It`s like having your face shoved into a rotting corpse and being forced to breathe it.

Isaac gags. Allan puts the cap back on.

The glass of it gleams in the cat-eyed lighting of the room. Allan`s arm doesn`t. It`s almost more of a joke now, dark paper skins suckling at the light and poison liquids in glass. The storm seems enraged by this.

(There is hysteric laughter bubbling in Isaac`s throat. He tries not to succumb to it because it would disengage Allan from this foredoomed transaction.)

The second the bottle is in Isaac`s hand, he almost drops it. (he will swear to any god but never say out loud that it burned his palm deep enough to scar bones. He knows then, that he is forever sullied.)

"Thank you for doing this."

"What I do is nothing to thank for, Isaac."

Allan`s eyes are full of despair and good will. Isaac can`t bring himself to meet them.

It`s the most anticlimactic thing ever, the way they bid their farewells. Allan tells him to stay safe and the boy responds to it only by assuring he will and mumbling goodbye.

It doesn`t really matter just how much his clothes had dried off in the time spent at Deaton`s clinic. The very moment he steps through the white-wood-transparent-glass door the rain strikes hard at him. The sound is overwhelming. It feels more like diving than anything, really, except his eyes are open and he is not weightless.

And then he stops, because he cannot go to Derek`s loft with the bottle. He can`t go near anyone he knows with it, actually. Or at least the werewolves. They`d smell it. They`d know.

A lie that ends before it`s beginning. Strangely poetic. And not the best gait of events.

Isaac needs to find neutral ground.

First to mind comes the cemetery, of course, of course. But, there is another groundskeeper there, who would find the bottle, no doubt. There is not a single place in the cemetery that would be a good enough hiding spot. No holes, no crooks, no well-placed branches, nothing. Isaac has searched throughout many a times.

No other place outdoors would be safe, the wind carries scents. The city buzzes with more life than Isaac can trust.

And then he feels sick to the stomach because he knows the perfect place. His home. It`s been empty so long now. No one would go there. No one would expect him to go there. It`s perfect.

He changes his walking course. The storm lightens. Isaac doesn`t.

His house is intimidating bricks stacked together, laced with police ribbons and rounded by shrubby dead plants. The dead tree by the doors leans heavily towards them, either blocking or wanting to enter. The concrete blocks are cracked.

The whole place reeks like chemicals, like a morgue. Except it does not rot. It stands against the heavy lead clouds, wayward.

Isaac is surprised to find his stomach not contracting, turning. He is nervous, sure, but it`s more of a morbid excitement. He is back.

The door doesn`t creek ominously. The air is not unmoving, he can hear a draft. Some windows broken. He paces through the rooms slowly, loping strides and all-seeing eyes. It feels different, and that un-eases him.

There`s a knife on the kitchen floor. Maybe someone had been here. Isaac finds the broken windows too. It`s the ones which face the street. He also finds the rocks which had been thrown to break them. Shakes his head and thinks how common and diverse destruction is.

'everybody is doing it'

As if those words ever change anything.

He walks to the attic, the ceiling of which is lower than his height so he has to bend to fit. It smelled of dust when he was human, but now the scent is so overwhelming it makes Isaac dizzy. Dust and dirt.

There`s an old leather couch there, it`s red. He sits in it. He thinks. He looks over the bottle of poison in his hands, attempts to learn every bump and crease of glass, the movement patterns of liquid death.

"This is it, the temple of prayers to afterlife." Isaac says out loud into the stale air, because he notices corpses here. The thin skulls of mice and birds which had flown in through cracks in the walls.

It`s a strange moment of poetism. Strange because Isaac is no poet. Poetic because why the fuck not?

He sets the bottle on the floor besides the couch, gets up and dusts himself off. The way downwards the step-ladder is longer than up. But this time, Isaac has nothing to weigh him down.

Large, quick steps to the door. And then he stops. He wants to see again. If the fear lingers. The base of his skull pulsates. He remembers the feeling.

Isaac needs to go to the basement.

People overestimate the power ghosts hold over the living. The ones who know how to observe, at least.

Even so, Isaac, the scared boy at the bottom of the stairs to the basement, feels his organs constrict with pure terror.

His hand shakes when he tries to flick the lights on. The electricity is out.

But thanks to werewolves, he can still see. (even if what he sees are visions and memories of pure terror mixed with the grey reality of right now)

The freezer is bent, swollen at the sides, the chain that seems to have been tied around it – broken, stray bent segments scattered over the floor. The lid had been pried off it`s hinges.

He can see his own scratch-marks and one which are not his at all. (except through a sick sense of empathy)

Something had been locked in there. Isaac wonders if they were as terrified as he had been.

He puts his palm to it and it is cold like all metal. Dead like all memories and twisted just like Isaac himself.

To liken oneself to their cage. Only the un-free can do that.

He storms out of the house, practically runs. The storm has passed but everything smells like rainwater.

He goes to Derek`s loft, doesn`t bother noticing if anyone is there and slumps in his bed limp.

The rest of the day is spent thinking about fantastic scenarios and mind-plaguing questions of social interaction.