I ran for my life. Trees whipped past me as I sprinted with all I had. I could only hear my heavy breathing and the leaves crunching under my foot. Well, that wasn't exactly true. I could still hear his bones. I could still see Scott, my best friend, bend backwards in agony as the light of the full moon caused him to change. His spine cracked and he screamed as I watched in horror, unable to do anything to help my friend. He turned to look at me and his eyes pleaded for the end. But then they began to change. His pupils dilated so much so that even the whites of his eyes were consumed by a complete blackness. His screams morphed into a hideous howl. He no longer looked at me for help. He looked at me now with razor sharp fangs bared, the urge to kill apparent in his inhuman eyes.
And so I ran. I ran for my life. Unable to save my dearly loved friend, I ran from the monster he had become. I couldn't hear anything besides my own breathing and the leaves. But then I could. I could hear the sound of that vicious animal gaining on me. I screamed as I ran, tears running down my face. What was this thing? I turned to look and yelped in despair. It was no longer Scott. This creature could have never been human. I ran face first into a tree and I was trapped. I leaned my back against the tree as the creature slowly advanced on me, low growls escaping between clenched teeth. It got back up on two legs and put a clawed hand to my throat. Its fangs were so close to my face that I could feel its breath.
"Scott," I begged, "please."
I was in complete hysterics because I knew this monster couldn't be reasoned with. It wasn't my friend anymore. The creature roared as its claws tore out my throat.
My eyes sprang open and I gasped for air. My father was standing over me looking exceedingly worried. I was so sweaty and out of breath that I could have sworn that I had actually ran from...whatever that was. My bed was completely covered in books and I looked to see one was open next to me. It depicted a Central African myth of a shape-shifting, wolf-like creature. I must have fallen asleep reading it. It was the thing Scott had turned into in my dream. In my nightmare.
"Stiles," my father demanded, "are you alright? You're burning up!" He put his hand on my forehead.
"I think so," I whimpered. I wiped my eyes and wasn't too surprised to feel tears on my cheeks.
"I came in when you didn't answer," my dad explained. "It looked like you were crying in your sleep. So I tried to wake you up."
"Dad, you're not supposed to wake someone up if they're having a night terror." Although you weren't supposed to remember night terrors. And I could remember every second of mine.
My father picked up the open book and frowned. "I knew that these would give you nightmares."
"Dad, really," I assured him, "I'm fine. You know me. Just an overactive imagination." I quickly grabbed the book back from him and snapped it shut. The creature didn't even match any of Scott's symptoms anyway.
"Are you sure you're able to go to school today?"
"Yes!" I shouted at my father. Then in a more quiet voice, "I'm sorry. Just a little jumpy. Just need something to take my mind off of it. How's it going with the body?"
"You wake up from a nightmare and want to talk about a dead body?" my father asked dubiously.
"Nothing like the cold slap of death to bring you back to reality," I said with a smile.
The Sheriff rolled his eyes. "Well, there hasn't been much luck on finding the other half, but we began analysis on the half we do have. I'm pretty sure it's going to be written off as an accident. We found animal hair on the body."
I was frozen with renewed curiosity. My dad obviously took this as his cue to leave, thinking my silence meant I had lost interest. Oh, quite the contrary.
"What kind of animal hair?" I asked just as he had reached my bedroom door.
"Wolf hair," he answered before leaving.
I took some time before I was able to get out of bed and start getting ready. Wolf hair? What did it mean? The dream didn't mean anything. It was my own imagination. But the hair. That was real. That was hard evidence. Maybe Scott had been right. Maybe a wolf had found its way back to Beacon Hills to relive the glory days. Maybe, starved for food, it had attacked Scott hoping for an easy meal. But Scott did hear it howling. According to my research last night, that meant another one, maybe a whole pack, could have been close. Whatever the logical conclusion was to this mystery of ours, I had to keep telling myself one thing: My friend wasn't a werewolf. Because werewolves didn't exist.
I took a handful of adderall and left my house. On the drive to school I couldn't help but feel anxious about seeing Scott. That image of him from my nightmare still gave me chills. But it was just a dream and Scott was my best friend. He had called me from work the previous night, raving about how Allison had agreed to go to Lydia's party with him. He sounded like such a little schoolgirl. How could someone like that be a vicious monster? I would have to tell him straight away about the whole wolf hair thing. It meant that he was right and wolf had probably attacked him. Or possibly a werewolf. No. My friend wasn't a werewolf. Because werewolves didn't exist.
The first eliminations of lacrosse tryouts were today and I knew Scott would already be on the field. Even though it should have given me immense pain to go out to the field and see Coach's smug little face, my mind was elsewhere. I saw Scott getting ready over by the bench. I knew once he was on the field, I wasn't going to get another chance to talk to him. I had to make this fast.
"Scott!" I called as I raced for him. I grabbed him before he left.
"Stiles, I'm playing the first elimination," Scott complained. "Can it wait?"
"Just hold on, ok?" I took a deep breath before continuing. "My dad talked to me this morning. The fiber analysis came back from the lab in LA. They found animal hairs on the body from the woods!" Scott didn't even pay attention as he grabbed the rest of his stuff.
"Stiles," he mumbled, "I gotta go." And then he ran out toward the field.
"Scott wait!" I yelled at him. "You're not gonna believe what the animal was!"
He was already on the field when I said quietly, "It was a wolf."
I stomped over to the bleachers and sat down with a thud. I couldn't believe Scott was so obsessed with lacrosse now that he wouldn't even listen to his best friend. Coach had the boys in a semicircle around him as he gave some sort of "motivating" speech. I looked at Scott. He seemed completely human. Not the monster I had seen. Werewolf. What was I thinking?
The semicircle of lacrosse players broke into two small teams. It was red versus black today. Scott was wearing red. Jackson was wearing black. This was going to be interesting. The whistle blew and the scrimmage began. Red had the ball now and was passing it back and forth until it reached Scott's stick. He stood there dazed for a moment before running and being knocked down by Jackson. Now, that was the Scott I had come to know and love. Jackson walked away like the prick he was and Scott got up angrily. Hopefully that little good luck streak from yesterday wasn't wearing off now.
Scott and Jackson went head to head now for the ball. The ball sat between both of their sticks on the ground. The whistle blew and Jackson went to claim the ball. Unfortunately, Scott already had it and was running. A black defender tried to hold him up and he sidestepped around him. Another was on right, but Scott quickly passed the lacrosse stick to his left hand and narrowly fit past the guard. The crowd seemed shocked and awed. I had never seen anyone do that on our team before. How had Scott known how to do that? A wall of three black jerseys cut him off and I knew that was the end of the line. At least it should have been. Scott propelled himself into the air and did a frontflip over them. Seriously. A freaking frontflip. How?
Scott made his shot and the ball landed in the goal easily. The crowd went nuts. Scott seemed pretty proud of himself. He had just pulled off the impossible. Scott was mobbed by a swarm of red jerseys as the black jerseys threw down their sticks in defeat. Coach called him over.
"McCall! Get over here!" Scott took off his helmet and jogged over to Coach as his team still celebrated.
"What in God's name was that?" Coach demanded to know. "This is a lacrosse field! What are you trying out for the gymnastics team?"
"No Coach," Scott answered stiffly.
"What the hell was that?"
"I don't know," Scott replied. "I was just trying to make the shot."
"Yeah, well you made the shot," Coach scoffed. "And guess what? You're starting, buddy. You made first line."
The people in the bleachers all rose to their feet, celebrating Scott's achievement. It was weird how I was the only one not standing or clapping, seeing how I was the only person in this school who gave a damn about Scott a week ago. But as Scott smiled and laughed and looked to me for praise, I was silent. What Scott had just done was impossible. Impossible. No amount of scientific research could explain what he had just done. It wasn't drugs; I knew that for a fact. Scott was making me question everything I had ever known to be real. What he had just done was impossible, yet he did it. It made me start to think what other impossible things could be true. Like werewolves. Werewolves were impossible. So was Scott. It was a match.
I left while the crowd still cheered and Scott still rejoiced in his triumph. I sent him a quick text in my jeep, telling him to meet me at my house in an hour. He replied with ok and a question mark. My dad wasn't home yet and I was happy about that fact. I couldn't be bothered to deal with him at the moment. Which made me sound like a horrible person. I didn't really care. I was pretty sure my friend was a fucking werewolf. I continued my research right where I had left off. Lycaon, wolfsbane, silver bullets. It was funny to think that all of this might be real.
I found descriptions of a werewolf in a book from a library that was a perfect match for everything that was happening to Scott. The heightened senses, ability to perform near impossible feats, improved health. Had Scott used his inhaler since that night? The book said the creature's appearance didn't differ too wildly from a human being. Just a distorted face, extra hair growth, and claws. So not the freaking terrifying monster from my dream. But still terrifying nonetheless. I nearly hit the ceiling when a knock came from my bedroom door. I got up to open it. Scott stood there with the stupidest grin I had ever seen from him. Clearly he was still in a great mood. Sorry to ruin your afternoon Scott, but there's a full moon tonight and I'm not reliving my nightmares.
"Get in," I ordered. Scott waltzed in like he owned the place. Smug much?
"I've been up all night," I rambled. "Reading. Websites. Books. All this information."
"How much adderall have you had today?" Scott joked.
"A lot," I admitted. "Doesn't matter. Just listen."
"This about the body?" Scott asked as he sat on my bed, pushing papers and books out of the way. "Did they find who did it?"
"No," I sighed. "They're still questioning people. Even Derek Hale." The extremely hot Derek Hale. Wasn't I supposed be obsessed with his mystery instead of werewolves?
"That guy we saw in the woods the other day?"
"Yes, but that's not it!" I snapped.
"What then?" Scott asked.
"You remember that joke from the other day? Not a joke anymore." Scott was silent, so I continued.
"The wolf, the bite in this woods. I started doing all this reading. Do you even know why a wolf howls?"
"Should I?"
"It's a signal," I explained. "When a wolf's alone it howls to signal its location to the rest of the pack. So if you heard a wolf howling, that means there could have been others nearby, maybe a whole pack of them."
"A whole pack of wolves?" Scott exclaimed.
Time for the revelation. "No. Werewolves."
Scott's face melted into a mask of annoyance. "Are you seriously wasting my time with this?"
"Scott," I said, "I've never been more serious about anything in my life."
"You know I'm picking up Allison in an hour," Scott said as he gathered his things.
"I saw you on the field today Scott," I said, putting a hand on Scott's chest. "What you did wasn't just amazing; it was impossible."
"So I made a good shot," Scott mumbled as he tried to leave. I grabbed his backpack and threw it onto my bed.
"No, you made an incredible shot. The way you moved; your speed, your reflexes! People can't just suddenly do that overnight! And there's the vision and the senses. And don't even think I don't notice you don't need your inhaler anymore."
"Ok!" Scott interjected. "I can't think about this now. We'll talk tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?!" I exclaimed. "The full moon's tonight! Don't you get it?"
"What are you trying to do? I just made first line, I got a date with a girl who I can't believe wants to go out with me, and everything in my life is somehow perfect. Why are you trying to ruin it?"
I wasn't looking at him anymore and I searched through the papers on my desk, trying to find some kind of proof that might get him to believe me. Scott was silent for a few moments before he finally spoke again.
"Are you doing this because you didn't make the team? Because everything in my life is going right and you can't stand it?"
That hurt like a punch in the stomach. I turned to see him again and I could see in his eyes that he regretted what he said the moment he had said it. But it was too late to take it back.
"Scott," I whispered, "how could you even say that? This is so not about me. This is all about you. I'm just trying to help. You're cursed, Scott." He stared at me, maybe afraid to say anything else. I kept going.
"And it's not just that the moon will cause you to physically change. It just so happens to be when your bloodlust will be at its peak."
"Bloodlust," Scott snorted.
"Your urge to kill."
"I'm already starting to feel an urge to kill, Stiles."
Images of Scott changing, chasing after me, flashed before my eyes. I turned away from him to get a book from atop my printer.
"Look," I recited, "'the change can be caused by anger or anything that raises the pulse.'" I looked back at Scott with a smirk.
"I haven't seen anyone raise your pulse like Allison does. You have to cancel this date." I walked over to Scott's backpack and searched the pockets for his phone. Scott protested, but I eventually found it and began searching through his contacts for Allison.
"Give it to me!"
Scott grabbed me by my shirt and pushed me into the wall of my bedroom. I dropped the phone somewhere on the floor in shock. Scott didn't care. As my head hit the wall painfully, Scott cocked one of his arms back, ready to strike me in the face. It all seemed too familiar as I pictured Scott, his face inhuman, bare his claws and fangs at me, ready to kill.
"Scott," I gasped. "Scott, don't." This was just like my dream. Was this still my friend? Could he be reasoned with?
Scott's face was twisted into a snarl of rage. Before he actually hit me, Scott released my shirt and turned away from me. He cried out and knocked my computer chair across my bedroom. He was breathing heavily, but I was grateful he decided to direct his outburst of wolfy anger at my chair and not my face. Still I shrunk away from him when he turned back to look at me. He seemed so shocked at what he had just done. He slowly bent down to pick up his phone.
"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I gotta go...get ready for that party."
He gathered his things carefully, looking back at me every so often with worried eyes. He apologized one more time before finally leaving. I could still barely move, even when I heard him slam the front door. I took several forced breaths before finally going to fix my computer chair. My best friend almost hit me. He did treat me like one of the guys, but he still did recognized the fact that I was a girl. And he almost hit me. And who knows how far it would have gone if he actually had. Scott refused to believe it, but I think he knew. I didn't need anymore convincing.
After righting the chair I noticed something on the back of it. It was torn. Not just torn, but slashed at. Three distinct slash marks. Three distinct claw marks. No, I didn't need anymore convincing. It was a full moon tonight and everyone at that party could be in danger. Because, holy shit, my best friend was a werewolf.