Trigger Warnings: violence, mention of death, mention of blood.
Four glorious pizzas covered in greasy pepperoni sat on the kitchen table, steam temptingly rising into the air – the telltale scent of garlic cloves and onion powder pooling an embarrassing amount of drool in Boof's mouth; a box piled high with fluffy breadsticks was in the middle of it, waiting to be devoured; bottles of soda, tiny beads of condensation slowly moving down their labels, made her throat constrict with a dryness that drew out her tongue to run over her lips - and none of it was for her.
Even though she hadn't made a move to take a slice, no matter how much she wished she could, her cousin's friend warned, "Don't you dare."
Leaning against the counter, drinking from a container of juice that had Boof's initials written on its side in bold letters, Ashley stared at her with a great deal of distrust – their strength shoving her into a cloud of unsure awkwardness.
Balling her shirt's sleeves within her fists, she began to protest, "I'm not –"
Rolling her eyes, flowy ponytail swishing when she shook her head in annoyance, Ashley leaned back on the heels of her feet. "Jake!" she shouted. "The weird-o wants to steal our food!"
"Really, I –"
"Leave it alone, Swiper!" was Tyler's, another member of her cousin's close group of friends, response.
Boof tried not to frown, but the pull she felt on the bottom half of her face proved to be difficult to fight against. Being treated as if she had a habit of taking things that weren't hers – which, up until a few years ago, she technically did – was far from great.
The only times that any of their guests really acknowledged her existence – with their busy social calendars, sports participation, and knowledge of the happenings of Beacon Hills High – was whenever they came over for their bi-monthly sleepovers. When seeing her so much as pass the living room stirred irritated groans from them, despite how she'd always make herself scarce and not bothering to leave her room unless she absolutely had to.
Shuffling her way over to the stool they kept in the corner, she used it to reach the box of Ritz Crackers from the cupboard's top shelf – her toes cracking the higher she stood on their tips. She'd managed to dump its last sleeve onto a plate, only for it to be snatched by Ashley without so much as a thank you.
"Hey!"
Pulling a package of pre-sliced cheese from the sandwich supply drawer, Ashley remarked, "Your juice tastes bad." Not bothering to shut the fridge's door, she made her way back to her cackling buddies. "You guys better be putting in Mean Girls," she said, blowing a loose strand of green hair from her face, "'cause there's no way I'm watching Transformers for the millionth time!"
Off to the side, the unfairly dubbed "bad" carton of juice sat empty, a couple drops of what it formerly held – along with crumbs that had yet to be identified – waiting to be wiped away by a paper towel. To further add insult to injury, the wrappers of the cinnamon sugar Pop-Tarts her aunt had specifically bought for a special First Day of the Spring Semester treat were close to the countertop's edge, not a single pastry in sight.
She wondered what deity she could have angered to have a bunch of rotten luck thrown her way in a matter of minutes. (If it was because she forgot to switch her clothes from the washer to the dryer last week, then she'd swear to always stay on top of her laundry from now on – no more soggy socks would be left to gather mildew because their owner became too engrossed in the Friday the 13th marathon she found while flipping channels.)
It was as she mentally made a list of things she could do to receive at least a day's worth of good karma (she figured saving a litter of kittens from a burning building would be a nice start, followed by donating all she owned to a local thrift shop) that her cell phone began to ring.
"Hi, Ryan," she said, dumping the trash she held in their designated bins before searching for something else to snack on. "Do you need me to run dinner up to Michelle?"
"Hey, kid," her aunt replied over a round of barking. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to stay late tonight. And, no. I just got back from doing that, but thanks for checking."
At the age of forty, Ryan Choi-Finstock was a respected deputy for Beacon County, a job she took as seriously as she did in raising her niece and nephew. (Always checking to make sure everybody was on the same page, calling in sick if she noticed that Lewis or Jacob couldn't stop coughing, and continuously asking if they'd eaten meals that didn't come from a fast food drive-through.) Now that they were well into high school, she'd started taking more shifts, but made it a point before she left that if they needed anything, anything at all, that they should give her a call and she'd see what she could do; like the time Boof had accidently left her Marie Antoinette report on the mudroom bench. Her aunt had dropped it off at the main-office seconds before she needed to be in World History – an incredible feat that had placed her on the same level of awesomeness as Wonder Woman.
Michelle, Ryan's wife of three years, was the Head of Trauma Surgery at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. Since taking over the position in 2009, their town was in the top three percent of hospitals on the West Coast who provided the best trauma care, an accomplishment that she was immensely proud of to the point where she had a bulging scrapbook devoted to every glowing article written about her place of work. As such, she tended to go hours without consuming a single thing; between planning for upcoming surgeries and taking care of patients with various nasty injuries that should be impossible for anyone to get outside of a poorly written medical drama, Boof really couldn't blame her. Honestly, she wished she could be as kick-ass as her; to be someone who had zero trouble in taking charge of stressful situations and keeping a level-head during frenzied events.
She'd be lucky if she someday became half the kind of person her aunts were: caring, cool, and too busy being amazing that they didn't have the time to worry about what other people thought about them.
Boof stopped unscrewing the chunky peanut butter's lid to take in this new development. "Do you know how long you'll be at the station?"
"Not sure," she said after a pause. "Could be the rest of the night or a few more hours."
Which meant she'd have to find another way to school in the morning. (A major drawback to having guardians who had more than a handful of shifts a week that didn't end until the wee hours of the morning.) Since the car her and Jacob shared would be filled to its capacity, it looked like she'd have to take the bus or ask Lewis is she could hitch a ride with him – a half hour before she'd normally start getting ready for the day.
"I'm sorry that I might not be there to see you off."
Though her aunt couldn't see her, Boof shrugged her shoulders. "It's okay," she assured, stabbing a large mixing spoon into the container and aggressively scooping out a hefty amount of peanut butter. "Really."
The familiar sound of her brother's footsteps, somewhere between rushed and believing that everything was meaningless, creaked down the stairs. Sure enough, Lewis strolled into the kitchen, the earbuds of his iPod hidden beneath his mop of dark curls, paperback copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray folded in on itself – a ballpoint pen gripped between the book's pages and his thumb. He didn't bother acknowledging her, nor did she expect him to.
She supposed their relationship was as normal as any other sibling relationship that had more than a couple years between them, or maybe it was because their personalities didn't quite mesh. While he didn't mind blending into the background with his classic novels, Boof watched everything unfold with want, imagining what it would be like to have someone in her life who she completely clicked with.
"I'll ask Lewis if he can take me."
Seeming to have heard her (she'd bet ten bucks that all he managed to catch was his name), the boy in question spun around, going to take out an earbud before Boof pointed at her cell and mouthed: "It's Ryan."
Stoically blinking, he returned to whatever task he'd been in the middle of.
"If you need me to give you a ride –"
"No, it's fine," she interrupted, heart picking up in speed at the thought of her bound-to-be exhausted aunt feeling obligated to drive her loser of a niece to school when she should be getting ready for a well-deserved sleep. If making sure that Ryan's comfort came before her own, Boof could find it in herself to figure out if she'd rather sit in a super bumpy vehicle that reeked of a decade's worth of gym bags or the awkwardness of not talking to her brother as they listened to the ABBA cassette that had been stuck in its radio since the 90's. "I promise I'm set."
There was a lengthy, what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you sigh on the other end, soon followed by the muffled voice of someone standing nearby.
"Okay, okay. I have to go. I'll talk to you tomorrow, yeah?"
"Yeah," she repeated, watching Lewis open the container they kept cuts of celery in. "Love you."
"Love you, too, Boof."
After a round of quick good-byes, the two hung up.
Shoving her phone back in the pocket of her jeans, Boof made a sharp whistle.
Turning, one of his brows raised in a what-do-you-want manner, Lewis found his sister holding out the jar of peanut butter, glancing down at the handful of vegetables he'd grabbed after they'd locked eyes. Not saying a word, he took what had been offered to him, peeked at the living room, unamusedly snorted when he noticed the pillow fight that had broken out, and retraced his steps.
Boof couldn't blame him; but while he had music to help mask it, she could hear every sarcastic giggle and empty threat that was made – passive aggressive reminders of how friendless she was.
Though they never were that nice to her, she wished they tolerated her enough to let her watch one of the movies they planned on viewing. Based on the ghostly shrieks coming from the TV's speakers, she knew that they'd decided on the first Ghostbusters. It would be fun to share all the facts she knew about it, like that the director was the voice of Zuul, and see them nod their heads or look at her with interest – waiting to see what else she knew.
Something in her chest twinged at the thought, drawing her hand to rest over where it radiated from.
Finishing what was left of the peanut butter she'd taken, Boof placed the spoon she held in the dishwasher and followed Lewis' lead; the five friends poorly singing along to the film's theme song following her as she made her way back to her room, the feeling in her chest remaining every step of the way.
She could hear "Heavy in Your Arms" playing behind Lewis' door, the black-and-white posters of his favorite musical artists carefully sticky-tacked across every inch of its once oak brown wood. A soft light peeked out from beneath it, telling her that he would pass out sometime within the next few hours – unlike Boof; any progress she'd made in beginning to consider settling down before eleven had been tossed in the trash the moment she knew they'd be fending for themselves until they made it to first period.
After quietly closing her own door, Boof plopped face-down on her mattress, the neatly tucked-in covers catching her in a cloud of purple fluff – the soothing smell of lavender hitting her senses. From here, the voices downstairs weren't nearly as loud. In fact, if she turned on her TV, she might not hear them at all. But she didn't want to watch whatever Bewitched re-run that might be on at this hour (no offense to her favorite witch, but Boof had a feeling that she wouldn't be able to find comfort in seeing what kind of trouble Samantha found herself in while she pondered the approaching semester).
Flipping over with a groan, Boof stared at a ceiling covered in clippings of constellations and planets – the swirls of shooting stars a dull yellow thanks to the lamps she'd turned on. Perhaps if she looked long enough, it would tell her what she could do to cure her boredom. Alas, all that got her was a stinging sensation that shot across her eyes.
"Ah!"
Grabbing a tissue from the side table, she rapidly rubbed it against her waterlines, gradually separating her eyelids when it felt safe enough to open them – only to learn that the human mind can be deceitful.
"Crapcrapcrap!"
Based on all that had happened that night, she knew exactly what would be included in her "What I Did Over Winter Break" essay: Didn't go anywhere because I spent all my money on gifts for my family; got sick by eating too many candy canes that I have yet to regret; almost burned my eyes out when I zoned out; watched my celebrity crush turn into a giant fly for an entire month; and offered my brother peanut butter in hopes that he might pretend that he cares about me. . . .
What a pathetic girl she was.
An owl hoot that managed to travel through panes of glass drew Boof out of her self-loathing. The tree branch that practically touched her bedroom window briefly tapped against it when a gust of wind passed on by, and she caught sight of a streetlight that momentarily flickered – its buzzing hum hitting her with an exhilarating desire for adventure.
A thought entered her head, pulling with all its might to get her to give-in.
No.
She shouldn't. It was too late in the evening for her to leave, considering she'd be on her way to Beach Hills High in less than ten hours, not to mention how there wasn't enough coffee in town to lessen the exhaustion she'd more than likely experience, and –
A round of thunder that shook her framed vintage monster movie posters, followed by goofy squealing that zipped down the hallway, was the push she needed.
Leaning over her bed, Boof grabbed the emergency flashlight Ryan insisted she keep incase the power went out and clicked the button on and off to make sure she didn't need to change its batteries.
Sliding on a pair of shoes, then her warmest cardigan, Boof swung her purse over her shoulder while unlocking her window's latch. Waiting to make sure no one had heard it clicking open, unfreezing only when she realized that their voices hadn't suspiciously changed in pitch, she took the path she knew like the back of her hand. Its rough bark pressed against her palms as she slunk her way towards the bottom, its trunk standing firm when she gracefully landed on the ground.
With a final look towards the living room, and the people scattered across its furniture, Boof left her family's home behind.
Though arguably the quickest route to the Forest Preserve, taking the main road was a bit risky. (Turns out having a deputy as one of a relative meant that the neighbors knew who to call if they saw her strolling down the street well past her curfew.) Which is why she found herself taking the significantly safer way, like the coward she was. Sure, it added to the travel time, but it also meant she had a vast string of fences to cover her.
For the most part, her journey across neighborhoods went smoothly. She'd only been barked at by a handful of dogs who'd furiously tried to scratch through what kept them contained and had a brief staring contest with an elderly racoon that had lumbered its way to a collection of overflowing bins (she liked to think that they had a mutual agreement to not tattle on each other – him getting the chance to feast on discarded chicken bones, Boof being able to continue on without a bunch of fuss).
The closest she'd come to having to turn around was when she made it a few houses down Woodbine Lane.
A bunch of clattering came from the left, followed by a porch light blaring to life before dimming down until all Boof could see was an army of white spots and the steps that led down to the sidewalk. Between the gap separating the homes she stood before, Boof watched a boy clumsily tumble out of the side door, reminding her of a newborn horse attempting to walk for the first time – his limbs so tangled that she was surprised when he managed to pull himself back up, hands tightly gripping the door's handle.
"Sh-shh!" he said, fingers pressed against his nose while his free hand began searching his coat's pocket, only to drop whatever it was when he brought it out (or, more accurately, juggled it when he lost his hold - a ring of brass keys chaotically twirling as they were unintentionally and repeatedly launched into the air before messily falling beside his tennis shoes). "God –" Bending down to retrieve them, he did a double take, eyes wide when he realized he wasn't alone. "Boof, hey!" he said, thumb twitching against the keys' metal ridges.
"Hey, Stiles," she quietly replied, rolling a loose thread on the strap of her bag between her fingers, gaze switching between looking at him and the grass.
Seeing as his dad and her aunt had been working together long before either of them were born, Boof had spent a fair chunk of her life interacting with the youngest Stilinski. They weren't friends, per-say, but they could technically consider the other an acquaintance. Up until Lewis was old enough to babysit her, they'd entertain themselves by coming up with make-believe quests that normally involved dragons taller than the Empire State Building and, when they out-grew playing pretend, invent card games when their fifth round of Go Fish became boring. She'd listen to him ramble about his favorite superheroes and the multitude of random thoughts he'd claimed needed to be said before he forgot about them, fascinated by how fast he could think.
Considering how much they'd interacted with each other once upon a time, Boof knew more about him than she did about her own cousin and sibling.
She knew that Sheriff Stilinski made him get a buzz cut the summer between sixth and seventh grade because he wouldn't stop scratching his scalp. She knew that he had gone through a dinosaur phase that was so severe that the only thing he wanted to talk about was all the facts he'd read at the public library. And, most importantly, she knew that he'd had the biggest (and embarrassingly obvious) crush on Lydia Martin, the most popular girl in their grade, since they were nine.
"What, ah. . . . What are you doing here?"
For the second time that evening, she shrugged her shoulders. "Just taking a walk." Glancing down at his tightly-shut hand, Boof asked, "Are you. . . going somewhere?"
"Huh?"
She pointed at his fists.
"Oh! Yeah. I'm going over to Scott's to talk about tomorrow's lacrosse tryouts."
Scott McCall, also known as Stiles' best friend since forever, was a sweet guy who'd always say hello to her if they saw each other in the halls and shyly smiled at her whenever he passed a stack of paper to her. She liked that he didn't pretend she wasn't there if they happened to notice each other, that he remembered her name, and would occasionally ask how her weekend was. So, really, he was among the limited amount of people outside of her family that she interreacted with on a sort-of regular basis.
Having more than reached her limit of social interaction for the day, Boof began to take the next few steps towards her destination. "Uh. . . . Have fun?"
"Yeah," he said, nodding his head like he was fighting to stay awake. "You, too."
Before either of them could add anything else to their awkward conversation, Stiles returned to locking the side door before sprinting to his jeep while Boof resumed her walk towards the forest preserve, the sound of a sputtering engine roaring off into the distance drowning out her agitated humming.
There were very few things in Boof's life that felt right: writing essays for the gothic novels her English teacher assigned – pouring her soul into the words that cascaded from her mind to paper with ease; opening her bedroom curtains as the sun rose, when its lilac hues of not-quite-night shifted into the ocean blue of almost-but-not-yet morning; listening to a vinyl album as it spun around her antique record player, gently swaying where she sat – reality put on pause until the final note of the final song faded away.
But the one thing, the truest of all things, that gave her some sense of belonging in a world that always felt just out of reach was her hikes through the woods.
Rain or shine, Boof would wander through nature; bare feet – come the warmer months – pressed against damp dirt, gliding over foliage in the process of decomposition. Her religion was her daily visit outdoors, its towering trees the columns of her church, the reflection of the moon shining off puddle its paint, and puffy clouds its elegant allegorical depictions.
Holding the flashlight beneath her chin, she grabbed onto the branch stretched out above her – hands getting a strong enough grasp to help pull herself up, widely swinging her leg over it to even out her balance. Leaning back, she let out the puff of breath she'd been holding, watching as it danced before her in cinder-gray spirals.
There was no mistake: tonight was cold and the reason behind the wool cardigan she'd thrown on shortly before sneaking out – not that anyone ever noticed (if they did, it had yet to be brought up during dinner). Spending time in the woods well past three in the morning, however, was something she was willing to risk an eternal grounding for.
Settling down, she began searching her purse for what she'd need. When she found her iPod, she placed it in her cardigan's pocket after selecting a song that caught her attention, David Bowie's enchanting vocals soon replacing the chirping of crickets and any other sound that might put her on edge if she let her imagination get the best of her. The last thing she grabbed was her falling-apart copy of The Metamorphosis – strips of packaging tape holding its binding in place, coffee stains and chunks of cover that she'd been unable to find no matter how much she searched for them having left a bunch of holes across it.
Replacing her flashlight with a portable booklight, she clipped it against the firmest part of the novel and dove back into the story of a man who woke to find he'd mysteriously become an insect sometime overnight.
"'He must go,' cried Gregor's sister, 'that's the only solution, Father. You must just try to get rid of the idea that this is Gregor. The fact that we've believed it for so long is the root of all our trouble.'"
Though she'd lost count of how many times she'd read this book, to the point that nothing could genuinely surprise her anymore, tears began to gather in the corners of her eyes.
How lonely, Boof noted, he must have felt in his isolation; knowing that his family felt ashamed of his existence – that it only took him watching his sister play the violin to be the cause of a problem he couldn't fix.
It must be horrible for someone to lose their connection to humanity, to have those who claimed to love them to look their way as if they no longer saw them – that they were considered a stranger who no longer had a place in their lives.
Kafka really knew how to dig into the fear of feeling useless, reminding his readers that all it takes is a single thing, big or small, to change someone's way of life. And she loved every bit of it.
Sticks crunching under feet that were way too heavy for anything that lived full-time in the wild snatched her away from fiction, a sense of panic rushing through her system.
Could it be a park ranger? She hadn't seen one in weeks, and she'd always managed to get away without any trouble before. But –
Clicking off the light, and pausing "Changes" in the middle of its second chorus, Boof brought her legs up to her chest until the muscles of her thighs began to shake. Scanning the ground, she finally found the sound's source: a couple of boys making their way through the woods – rather loudly. One of them was breathing heavily, his wheezing slowing down how fast he spoke, and the other - oh, she'd know that energetic voice anywhere: Stiles, the boy she'd run into a little over an hour ago. Which meant that the boy in the red hoodie had to be Scott.
"Huh," said Stiles, the flashlight he held not really focusing on anything, completely defeating the purpose of him having one. "I didn't even think about that," he admitted, nervous laughter escaping him.
"And, uh, what if whoever killed the body is still out here?" asked Scott.
Boof nearly gasped in disbelief, managing to catch it before it made it more than halfway up her throat by pressing her hands against her mouth. Did he use "killed" and "body" in the same sentence? As in there's an actual dead person and killer out here and any of them very well could be next?
As much as she enjoyed horror stories where the characters become victims of Count Dracula, she really didn't want to find out what it felt like to be one of those said characters. She'd much rather keep all her blood inside her veins, and she especially enjoyed not being a permanent resident of her town's cemetery.
"Also something I didn't think about."
"It's comforting to know that you've planned this out with your usual attention to detail."
"I know!"
She watched them make their way up the incline, waiting for the moment she could begin making her way back to the safety of her room – where she should have been to begin with – far, far away from what may or may not be the place she could meet her doom.
When they'd neared the top, Boof decided to start making her exit, hoping that she was as silent as she needed to be. (The last thing she wanted was to be dragged into whatever the hell they were doing, and she so didn't need Stiles accidently blabbing to his dad that he saw her, who would then feel obligated to relay this information to Ryan, which would lead to the grounding of the decade and a lengthy lecture about the importance of not putting herself in danger on a school night.)
A yip of surprise left her when she missed the tree's last knob, butt colliding with the not-quite-mud Earth. Eyes cartoonishly protruding out of their sockets, she made haste to press herself against its trunk, sucking in her stomach when she heard one of the boys turn around.
"Did you hear that?" Stiles shakily asked.
Heart frantically beating, Boof leaned her forehead against the bark, praying that they wouldn't be able to see her even with the help of their flashlight.
"Maybe it was a squirrel?" Scott suggested.
"The size of a cannonball?"
Just when she thought they'd climb back down, that she'd be found and have to explain that she spent most of her week in the woods instead of at the mall, she did something stupid – the kind that risked the invisibility that helped keep her out of sight and out of mind for sixteen years: she turned and hurried back in opposite direction of where she needed to go.
An object tumbled behind her, flapping as it skid across the ground, but she didn't stop to see what it was, nor did it even register that Stiles and Scott kept debating whether she was the killer or completely harmless; if they should pursue her or find a way to somehow mention this to the Sheriff. She ignored it all, choosing to pick up her speed – the damp wind brushing past her cheeks, purse thumping against her ribs.
Had she stayed a second longer, she would have heard them whisper-hiss as they watched the search party her aunt was a part of move closer and closer; their advantage of remaining hidden soon coming to an end. If she had waited before acting on impulse, she might have had a much smoother evening, one where she didn't spend the rest of it on edge, too afraid to look away from her curtains and what lurked within the shadows of Beacon Hills.
Considering how crappy the last day of winter break was going, she really should have known that it was going to get even crappier.
First off, it had begun to pour the second she stopped running, drenching her to the point where the layers she'd bundled herself in no longer kept her warm.
Shivering, she peered at the sky – blinking when a sprinkling of raindrops blurred her vision. Boof ran the sleeve of her cardigan under her nose, its tip icy to the touch while the rivers of snot it produced clung to the mauve fabric.
She needed to get it out so she could find her way back to the Preserve's entrance.
Chortling in victory when she managed to locate it among the clutter of her things, Boof went to turn it on, leaping in place when a bout of thunder rocked the world around her.
Secondly, she soon found out that the batteries were much closer to death than she'd initially thought.
"Oh, come on!" she said, roughly slapping it against her palm. "Work with me!"
(Seriously, who did she piss off? What did she do, and what would it take to get the target painted on her back taken off - there was only so much a clueless person could take before they decided it was probably best if they stopped doing anything at all.)
Thirdly: a major case of déjà vu hit Boof when she felt the ground rumble, the nearby debris bouncing with pent-up rage. She hardly had much of a chance to look off into the distance when a herd of deer burst out of the shadows, all of whom were frantically prancing in her direction with deep, anxious bleats.
With a shriek, Boof dove to the side, tripping in her rush to get out of the line of fire. Arms covering her neck and head to protect them, she begged whoever was listening to please, for the love of all that is holy, not let this be what took her out. Sharp hooves landed a fraction of an inch away from her feet, the edge of one brushing the tip of her shoes sending her leg skidding to the left.
Finally, after an eternity of frightened snorts, the dust began to settle.
Peeking over her shoulder, she noticed that all that remained of the incident was an overlap of hoofprints.
For a moment, all she could find it in herself to do was stare at the closest she'd ever come to learning what waited for her on the other side. All because a bunch of Bambi's relatives didn't care that they'd almost flattened someone in their haste to get away from whatever'd spooked them.
Friends was right: this really hadn't been her day, or week, or month, or even her year. Except she didn't have a Phoebe who would be there for her. It was just her and her weird obsession with Swamp Thing, which really didn't help her in terms of winning her classmates' approval.
"What the actual –"
To her greatest disbelief, there was a fourthly: the low growling of a giant dog.
Breath labored, Boof slowly turned her head until she was facing forward again – what she managed to see without the help of her flashlight instantly making her regret not staying in for the night: a hulking figure, bigger than any wolf she'd seen at the zoo, stood no more than three feet away from her. It could have been the dark playing tricks on her, all the stress she'd felt through-out the past several hours adding up to put her brain into a frenzy, but there was no way her imagination was creative enough the think of a nightmare that had no idea what form it should take in the corporal realm.
Its gaze, one that glowed like the headlights of an oncoming semitruck, focused on Boof.
A terrifying thought struck her: what if the thing that killed the body wasn't human at all? What if, and this seemed to be an incredibly strong "if," it was an animal big that could cause a serious deal of harm? This, whatever it was, looked powerful enough to really hurt someone – from the way it stood more man than beast to how looked like it could comfortably walk on its hind legs if it wanted to.
"Holy –"
Upon hearing her voice, the thing began to bound her way.
Scurrying backwards, her back collided against a tree less than a second before it reached her. She would have screamed at the top of her lungs had it not slammed its feet on either side of her with enough force to make her feel like she was going to faint. Instead, she unblinkingly stared at the thing, its face hovering before hers like a floating Halloween mask.
She'd heard that when everyone's time was up, their life would flash before them. The day they were born, screaming as the confusion of existence hit them; when they learned how to ride a bike without any help, peddling off into the distance and towards their first taste of freedom; getting a puppy on Christmas, having to chase after them when they didn't bring back the ball that had been tossed. Anything important, monumental. All Boof saw was the thing that was about to kill her, its pointed teeth gleaming with fresh blood.
Oh, God.
This was it. She was going to die, and she'd be lucky if anyone found her before the next millennium. Boof Marconi was going to have her throat ripped out in the middle of the woods, alone and filled with so much fear that she knew anyone would be able to smell it a mile away.
But it didn't move, opting to stare at her with an intelligent curiosity that she'd never seen another animal possess. It titled its head, as if wondering how it should eat its next meal: bite her head off like she was a gingerbread man, or her fingers so it would be harder for her remains to be identified.
Whatever will I do with you? the thing seemed to ask.
Thinking about how much it would hurt made her whimper, a wordless plea for it to somehow understand that today already sucked and that she really didn't need to add her demise to the list.
Oh, I'm sorry. If I had known your cousin's friends had been rude to you, and that you were almost run over by a bunch of deer, I wouldn't have dreamed of taking your life. My mistake. Please, do carry on as if this never happened.
It deliberately leaned towards Boof's hairline, her limbs becoming nothing more than pillars of stone. A wave of dread passed over her when she felt its hot breath brush her ear, the thin strands of her hair that managed to remain dry floating before landing back on her jaw. The thing let out a puzzled huff and, as if it hadn't been there to begin with, raced back into the darkness.
For what could have been a century, Boof remained unmoving, blankly staring at the spanning sky – stars twinkling as the world she knew continued to shift into something far more dangerous than what she'd been taught to believe, a thrilled howl echoing around her.
Meanwhile, somewhere not that far away, Scott McCall stood on the side of the road – watching as the car that nearly hit him drove off into the distance, its angered honking fading away. As rain drizzled around him, he lifted his hoodie to reveal a nasty bite that trickled blood – a sharp pang radiating from its deep indentations; the very same howl that Boof had heard filling him with a sinking dread.
It was a night, the two of them would soon come to find out, that had turned their lives into something straight out of a twisted storybook, and they were only but a small handful of its unfortunate characters.