i - silver and crimson
prologue
silver and crimson
Beacon Hills, California. January 19, 2011.
01x01
The moon was full in the sky, preparing to illuminate the chaos that was going to ensue below.
The night was still and quiet, save for the chirping of the crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl. The moon's rays drifted downward, blanketing the forest of the Beacon Hills preserve in a silvery glow. The forest was peaceful, all of the animals minding their own as they continued on, the crickets kept chirping and the owls kept hooting.
And, slowly but surely, the animals fell silent. One by one, the animals hid away, tucking into the nooks and crannies in hopes that they would be left alone, that they would be spared.
In hopes that the monster would let them live another day.
It walked slowly through the underbrush, its eyes scanning the night and growling every so often. Blood stained its claws and teeth, making it far more intimidating than it already was. An animal, a rabbit by the sound of it, made the harrowing mistake of moving, dashing from its place in the tree's roots toward its burrow.
The monster growled, ready to pounce and give in to the chase before it stopped, its ears twitching.
A sound. Voices.
Someone was in the forest.
It growled again, its gaze narrowing at the direction the rabbit had gone, before it took off in the direction of the voices.
It had some work to do.
In the midst of the forest, a girl with blonde hair surveyed her surroundings.
She didn't dare make a sound, instead she looked up, watching as her breath became vapor in the chilled air. A sharp gust of air cut through the bare tree branches, making them rattle and she nearly gasped at the cold shock of the wind. The rain fell softly and slowly, hitting the ground with a gentle pitter-patter. She resisted the urge to move, the feeling of her clothes rubbing against her injuries was uncomfortable, but it was preferred over being caught.
Her black combat boots created the perfect grip on the soft soil, allowing her to stand comfortably against the tree without sliding to the ground. The rest of her outfit was slightly constricting, her black jeans rubbed the cuts on her legs and the five stitches she had on her thigh. The gauze that covered them rubbed against her jeans, creating a sharp stab of pain. She winced.
Her shirt underneath was black as well, but it couldn't be seen as her black leather jacket was zipped as high as it could go without making her look dorky. A black beanie was thrown haphazardly on her head in a poor attempt to hide her blonde hair.
If anyone were to see her, they would say she was dressed to become one with the shadows.
Her sky blue eyes were filled with caution and awareness, scanning the trees in search of what had sent her nerves on edge.
And, finally, she heard it.
"We're seriously doing this?"
"You're the one always bitchin' about how nothing ever happens in this town."
She froze, ceasing to breathe. Who were they? They sounded her age, but she couldn't be sure of their intentions. She stayed quiet.
"I was trying to get a good night's sleep before practice tomorrow."
"Right, cause sitting on the bench is such a grueling effort."
She held her breath, pressing her back further into the bark of the tree as she listened to the voices and footsteps getting closer.
"No, because I'm playing this year. In fact, I'm making first line"
"Hey! That's the spirit, everyone should have a dream. Even a pathetically unrealistic one."
She barely concealed her snort. God, that second boy was sassy.
"Just out of curiosity, which part of the body are we looking for?"
She tensed at the words. Body? There was a body in the woods? Since when?
"Huh," the sassy boy exclaimed, "I didn't even think about that."
"And, uh," she could hear the grin in the other boy's voice, "What if whoever killed the body is still out here?"
"Also something I didn't think about."
She inwardly groaned, the sassy one was a moron.
The footsteps began traveling up the sloped hill, if she poked her head out from behind the tree, she would be able to see them. She let loose a slow, steady exhale and peered out.
There wasn't much to see. One boy wore simple sneakers, blue jeans, and a red jacket with the hood pulled over his head, an eagle embroidered over his heart. The other boy was dressed similarly, besides the fact that his jacket was black and the hood was down. All she could see was that he had a buzz cut.
The boy in the black jacket scaled the slope easily. The boy in the red jacket struggled.
"Uhh," the boy panted, "It's… comforting to know you've... planned this out with your usual attention to detail."
"I know."
Ah, she thought, so the boy in black was the sassy one.
The boy in the red jacket slouched against one of the few trees on the slope and raised his head in an attempt to catch his breath. He pulled something out of pocket and began shaking it rapidly. She recognized it as an inhaler.
"Maybe the… severe asthmatic should be the one holding the flashlight, huh?"
He continued shaking it as he followed his friend and in a moment of poor decision making, she chose to follow them. Her footsteps were light and silent against the dead, fallen leaves and she seemed to dance from one shadow to the next. Neither of the two boys noticed her.
The boy in the black jacket suddenly threw himself to the ground, the boy in red followed after. She wanted for them to move, to get back up and start looking for the body again but they didn't. All they did was turn off the flashlight. She frowned but the sound of dogs barking cut through the silence. Her eyes widened and she stuck her head around the tree, finally seeing what they were panicking about.
Flashlights.
The cops were here.
"Okay, c'mon," the sassy boy said and she didn't even get a chance to process his words before the sassy boy leapt from the ground and he dashed through the trees.
"Stiles," the other boy hissed before taking a puff of his medication. He set off after him and she followed behind him, leaping from shadow to shadow quickly and silently.
"Wait up," he called feebly, "Stiles!"
What the hell is a Stiles, she wondered briefly, but didn't dwell on the question.
The sassy boy- Stiles as the other one says- did his best to dance around the group of cops. His body was turned to face them as he scurried over the dead leaves. His gaze occasionally shifted from the cops to where he was heading, holding a stranger resemblance to a crab as he did. She could help but silently chuckle.
The flashlights wove and bobbed through the air, the light was blocked by the low hanging branches. It provided the perfect cover for the kids as they wove under the little light that managed to slip through.
"Stiles," the other boy hissed again, slightly louder than the time before. One of the police dogs turned its head in the direction of the noise, its ears perking up. The girl froze for a moment before pressing herself into the tree's shadow, her eyes trained on the dog as she became one with the shadows.
Stiles, on the other hand, kept moving, shooting glances over his shoulder to ensure the boy in red was following him. He stopped, keeping his gaze focus solely behind him as he scanned the trees for his friend.
A flashlight finally landed on him and the dogs went haywire.
Stiles quickly spun on his heel and fell in shock at the cop standing behind him. The dog strained against its collar, paws flying through as it jumped and lunged for the boy. "Hold it right there!" A random cop shouted. More flashlights from the other cops swam in their direction and the boy in red ducked behind the nearest tree. Finally.
"Hang on, hang on!" A gruff voice called out and she stiffened. It was the Sheriff. "This little delinquent belongs to me."
The mad barking of dogs nearly muffled the crunching sound of the leaves as Stiles staggered to his feet. "Hey Dad, how are you doin'?"
The dog's barking ceased drastically and now she could hear the exasperation in the Sheriff's sign, "So, do you, uhh, listen in to all of my phone calls?"
"No! … Not the boring ones…"
The Sheriff scoffed breathily and she could see a flashlight scanning the tree line, "So where is your usual partner in crimes?"
"Who, Scott," Stiles asked and she could hear the bullshit dripping off of his words. "Scott's home. He said he wanted to get a good night sleep before first day of school tomorrow. There's just me... In the woods... Alone…"
She couldn't resist the urge to roll her eyes. Yeah, because that was believable.
The boy in red, who was peering at them from behind a tree, noisily threw himself back when the flashlight came dangerously close to spotting him. She hoped it did, just for the principle of the matter.
"Scott you're out there!? Scott!?" The Sheriff called out and the boy in red- Scott, she corrected herself- flinched as if hearing those words and ignoring them were causing him physical pain.
Silence continued to be the only thing greeting the Sheriff and the flashlight became pointed down at the forest floor. The sound of dead leaving crunching began momentarily before Stiles suddenly made a noise of discontentment. "Well young man," the Sheriff said, ignoring the noise from his son, "I'm gonna walk you back to your car, and you and I, we're gonna have a discussion about something called invasion of privacy."
The Sheriff continued to drag his son away, despite the sounds of protests his son was making. The sound of footsteps faded away, taking the flashlights and the danger with them. She released a breath she was involuntary holding, her muscles slowly losing their tense knots.
She could faintly hear the sound of thunder.
Scott staggered away from the tree, his eyes trained in the direction Stiles was taken. His footsteps were loud against the dead leaves, like he wasn't making an effort to conceal them.
Maybe he didn't know how.
The vapor from his breath danced around his head, cloaking his face from view. His hood fell, revealing the boy's dark brown hair before he reached back and pulled it into place. His head was rapidly turning and his eyes were scanning his surroundings. He was on edge, his muscles were tense and he was constantly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He was scanning the trees, looking for danger, while he ironically, couldn't seem to spot the girl standing a few yards away from him.
It seemed only then did the girl realize how peaceful her surroundings were. The night was now void of the chatter of cops and was soon replaced with an odd stillness and quiet, save for the chirping of the crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl. The moon's rays drifted downward, blanketing the forest of the Beacon Hills preserve in a silvery glow. It illuminated the path she had taken and was guiding her down a new path.
One she wouldn't return from.
Scott occasionally shot a paranoid look over his shoulder, walking aimlessly in hope that he would stumble across a road. She sighed silently, ready to take pity on him and point him in the right direction if she could and-
A tree branch snapped overhead.
The noise immediately brought the two teens to a halt. The boy stood stupidly out in the open, leaving himself exposed to an attack from any and all sides. The girl, however, forced herself to mold back into the shadows once more, concealing herself from view as she forced herself silent and strained her ears to find an oncoming threat.
No one moved for a moment, both of them staring up at the tree tops before Scott finally began to move forward, and, albeit hesitantly, she followed his example.
The walk seemed to lose its urgency as the night continued. Scott's posture began to relax and his stride was slow and lazy, his hands hidden away in his pockets as his gaze veered around the woods. His hood slipped again and she was only able to see his uneven jawline before he moved it back in place.
Thunder rumbled through the air again, closer this time. She stopped, her muscles tensing all over again at the sound. Her eyes locked in the direction of the noise, peering through the trees as she searched for the source. Something shifted in the woods.
Her gaze narrowed.
Scott's inhaler rattled as he shook it, his gaze locked in the same direction as hers. The thundering sound grew, nearing closer and closer with every passing second. It was off, she realized, it didn't sound entirely like thunder it almost sounded like… hooves.
She realized what it was the second before they arrived.
The herd of deer sprang through the trees, all of them jumping wildly as they fled. She threw herself back against the tree, a startled yelp leaving her lips as they ran past. The thundering of their hooves echoed in her ears like war drums. She was fortunate enough to be behind a tree when they came.
Scott wasn't so lucky.
The moment the deer burst through the trees, Scott scrambled backwards frantically, tripped over his own feet after only a few steps. in an attempt to get away. The thud of his back hitting the ground joined the thundering of the deer's hooves. His inhaler flew out of his hands and went soaring through the air.
His arms curled around his head in a protective gesture and the rest of him curled into the fetal position. His eyes danced around frantically, the thundering of hooves and the steady onslaught of deer obscuring his senses. He flinched away when one stumbled next to him. The deer scrambled back up and ran as fast as it could, stumbling after the herd.
And then, there was silence.
Both of their breathing was labored as the adrenaline bled away from their veins. The girl quickly rightened herself, composing a mask of nonchalance to hid her startled reaction.
Scott made no move to conceal how frightened he was. There were tears in his eyes and his breathing was slightly ragged, though that might have been from his asthma. The leaves still danced through the air as they drifted downward, finally settling after the deer had passed.
He scrambled backward, his widened eyes pooling full of fear. His hood had fallen again, his shaggy brown hair was ruffled, but it added to his charm. He didn't seem to notice the leave stuck in his hair.
His gaze nervously shifted around the woods again, almost like he was expecting more deer to come leaping through the trees again. He scrambled back to his feet, his shoulders hunched up and his head ducked low. He blindly reached for the phone in his pocket and the flashlight barely illuminated the ground as he searched for his inhaler.
"Come on, come on," he mumbled and the leaves rustled as he shifted through them. His tone was sharp with agitation though his voice held an overall softness that seemed to bleed the tension from her muscles.
The light on his phone was dull, barely casting enough light to shine six inches in front of him. And even though the little light casted out bounced back off the water on the leaves, she still had to close her eyes tightly to adjust her eyesight.
When they opened again, she saw the dead body.
The dead body- the dead woman- looked to be in her mid-twenties. The pieces of skin that weren't covered in blood was pasty white, a color that can only be achieved by dying of blood loss. Her raven black hair seemed to melt with the shadows, making it nearly impossible to be seen in the dark. Her dark eyes were glazed over with death, unseeing the two children who had been traumatized by their corpse.
Her eyes drifted downward, but shot back up once she saw the beginning of the woman's spine.
Unlike a normal person. the girl didn't make a sound at the sight of the body. Her eyes went wide with horror, yes, but nothing, not even a whimper, slipped past her open lips. The only reaction she had was digging her thumbnail deep into the palm of her hand, so deep that it bled.
It might have to do with the fact that this wasn't the first time she had seen a dead body.
Scott, like any normal person, threw himself back as soon as he saw it, a horrified cry tearing from his lips. He flipped over the side of the slope he had been struggling to climb earlier and his startled shout was soon replaced by grunts of pain as he tumbled. She winced as his back slammed into a tree trunk before he kept falling.
He fell to a stop at the bottom, his ragged pants laced with pain as he struggled to catch his breath again. He curled into a tight ball, seemingly unaware that he was being watched. And slowly, so slowly that she wouldn't be detected, she made her way down the hill.
She carefully leapt from shadow to shadow, her gaze never leaving the hurt boy who was trembling on the ground. Her footsteps were light, almost as if she was floating on air as she walked. The shadows still seemed to wrap around her body, shielding her from view if anyone wasn't looking closely enough.
When the boy grabbed a fallen tree in an attempt to pull himself up, she froze.
His face was still tight with pain and he grimaced slightly when he began to move, but at the moment, she was just grateful that he could move. She slipped back into the shadows as he propelled himself over the tree, somehow landing gracefully despite the tumble he took earlier. He only managed to take a few steps forward before he stopped, his shoulders tensing.
Almost as if he felt someone watching him.
She forced herself back up against the tree and held her breath. She cursed herself for following him, for going into the woods that night, and for the damn murderer that was on the loose. Life just couldn't get any harder for her.
But instead of seeing her, he saw something else, something beyond the place she was hiding. She could vaguely hear growls and a blur of brown dashed past her tree before it leapt on the boy. They tumbled onto the ground, a blur of brown and red, and when they came to a stop, the monster was on top and it dug its fangs into the boy's stomach.
His cries were horrific, loud and broken with pain as he squirmed under the monster's grip. Dead leaves were thrown into the air as they both struggle. Blood started to dribble onto the leaves and the monster's eyes narrowed, a growl escaping his blood covered lips. It was going to lunge. It was going in for the kill.
"HEY!"
The monster turned its head just in time to be struck across the face with a tree branch. A loud, sickening THUD resonated throughout the forest and the impact sent the beast flying away from the boy, landing at least six feet away from the two kids.
Scott forced his eyes open, squinting through the pain to look at his savior. Her black clothes helped her melt into the shadows and her blond hair was slightly covered by her black beanie. His vision blurred and when she turned to face him, all he could see were bright blue eyes.
"Start running!" She cried, just as the monster leapt up and pinned her to the ground. She managed to wedge the tree branch between her and the monster's mouth before it ripped out her throat. Scott stared in horror, "But-"
"GO!"
Scott jumped up and ran.
As soon as Scott made it past the tree, the girl's attention shifted back to the beast on top of her. It frantically pressed against the tree branch, trying with all of its might to break it, to try and kill the girl underneath it. Its foaming saliva, the saliva that was mixed with Scott's blood, fell from its mouth and dripped onto her cheek.
The girl pushed the monster back with all of her strength, a disgusted squeal escaping her lips at the wet touch. The monster clenched its jaws at the last moment, pulling the branch with it as it fell away. The girl's ragged breath of relief came too soon as the monster leapt back onto her, immediately digging its teeth into her flesh.
Her scream was loud and shrill, nearly making the beast flinch away from the sound if not for its stubbornness and shire will. She thrashed under its grasp, kicking its stomach and punching its snout, throwing all of her strength into escaping. With one last solid punch to its nose, the creature flew backward.
And she was running.
Trees blurred as she passed, branches and leaves snagging at her clothes and cutting up her face. Blood leaked from her wounds, both the small cuts and the bite mark on her side. The sound of the monster's growls still rang in her ears, despite the distance she was putting between them.
Her foot caught against a raised tree root, sending her tumbling towards the ground. She tucked her arms protectively toward her chest, pulling her legs upward and inward as she rolled. When she came to a stop, she was in the middle of a small clearing, the moonlight drifting down gently.
She winced as the pain in her side returned vigorously, nearly sending tears down her cheeks. She glanced down at her side, blood was already leaking down her side, the black of her clothes cloaking it from her sight.
Slowly, she shifted her jacket off of her body, letting it fall onto the forest floor with a crunch. She took a shaky breath and clenched the material of her shirt in her shaky fingers, raising it in one fluid motion. She peered downward and grimaced. Blood now covered his side and more was still pouring from the wound. One look at the actual bite and she could already tell it was going to be a bitch to clean.
She sighed, let her shirt fall back into place and looked up.
The full moon shone down on her, illuminating her bloodied shirt and the clearing around her. The night was still and quiet once more, save for the chirping of the crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl. The moon's rays drifted downward, blanketing the forest around her in a silvery glow. The forest was peaceful, all of the animals minding their own as they continued on, the crickets kept chirping and the owls kept hooting.
She sighed once more, glancing around the woods a final time before running back the way she came. And if Scott had gone back to look for her, he wouldn't have seen her, because she was running so fast that she was just a blur of silver and crimson.