A/N: Hey guys, I guess Whumptober wasn't for me. Sorry about the inconsistency of my posts. It will continue this way because I don't typically write these kinds of fictions, I read them a lot so I just need to work them out and see how it goes. Also, I'm not quick at writing stories. I will keep writing and posting throughout the year when I have some extra time. This one turned out be longer than I wanted it to, so this is part one. I hope to eventually finish this story and maybe write more stories from the 2024 Whumptober prompt list. Anyway, please, fav, follow, review, and enjoy!

"Breaking news! This morning, the police found a murder victim on the side of the road, but that's not the worst of it. Beacon County Sheriff Stilinski has confirmed that whoever's body it is has fallen victim to a cannibalistic serial killer. Furthermore..."

Scott McCall turned the TV off and checked his phone for any messages; strangely, there were none. After hearing about the murder from the news, Scott expected Stiles to already have known about it; and Stiles usually gets excited about these kinds of things. Scott tried to call Stiles but it went straight to voicemail, Maybe his phone's dead or he's grounded so he hasn't had the chance to tell me yet, Scott wondered. But that hadn't stopped Stiles before, Scott briefly remembered one of the times that Stiles snuck out of his house and into Scott's room through the window. Scott shrugged it off and decided to ask him about it when they got to school. He quickly grabbed some breakfast and was off to school.

His bike was wrecked after a minor accident (minor to him, anyone else would've had a few broken bones) so he ran to school, it was a few miles but he didn't even break a sweat. When he got there, he saw no sign of Stiles's jeep; but it almost always had something wrong with it, maybe it finally met its match and wasn't working today. Another strange but explainable incident, and Scott would never forget one of Stiles's favourite sayings: "One's an incident, two's coincidence, and three's a pattern," so Scott was already suspicious and on guard when he walked into school. He looked for Stiles where they usually met up in the mornings, if they hadn't already seen each other, but he never showed.

Scott finally found Allison and Lydia hanging out in the library. He walked up to them and asked,
"Have either of you seen Stiles today?"
They both turned to him with clear confusion and Allison put a comforting hand on his shoulder as she said,
"Oh, Scott. I'm so sorry. Haven't you heard?"
"Yeah," Lydia finished, following suit, "Didn't you watch the news this morning? Stiles has been kidnapped."

Stiles woke up to darkness, unable to see anything, with a throbbing headache and only the smallest crumb of an idea of how he got there:

He remembered lying in bed, trying to sleep, when he heard on the police radio he had stashed in his room that there was a 187, a murder. He had gotten up and climbed out of his window in a matter of minutes. But, of course, his dad had been expecting that and was waiting for him. To Stiles's surprise, his dad said he could come with him to the crime scene if he stayed in the car, didn't interfere, and left Scott out of it Naturally, Stiles hurriedly agreed.

There were a lot of blurry spots in between but it was the end that he remembered best:

The crime scene was in front of a small shoppe and Stiles had, of course, not followed his father's orders to stay in the car. It was impossible to see what was happening so he'd snuck out and hid around the corner of the building in the narrow, dark, alley. From there, nearly everything was visible; but it wasn't really the sight that interested Stiles, it was more so the conversation between Stiles's dad and the investigators.
"What's the situation?" his dad asked.
"Sir," one of them answered, "I think you should take a look at this."
They knelt down around the body and Stiles could no longer see nor hear anything. He decided to chance it and get closer. He moved behind a trashcan which was a bit closer and at a different angle so he could see and just-just hear what was going on. It looked like the body had huge chunks taken out of it.
"If... marks..." the investigator was saying, the conversation was still kind of muffled but Stiles was sure he heard one defining word that chilled him to the bone,
"... cannibal."

Stiles figured that he didn't really want to know the rest right then and he started creeping back to the car. But before he got there, someone grabbed his ankle and he didn't even flinch. He sighed, defeated, then turned around and said,
"Hey, dad."

But it wasn't his dad.

It was a man of about 30 or 40 with a wicked smile plastered on his face. He grabbed Stiles's knee and pulled him closer to him, they were both still hidden and Stiles whipped his head around anxiously, looking for something to help him. He suddenly remembered that there were at least ten police officers not even five feet away, so he called for help,
"Dad! Dad, help!"

The man pulled Stiles closer and covered his mouth with his hand but Stiles wasn't going to give up without a fight. He started thrashing and kicking, trying to bite his assailant but the man wouldn't have it. He punched Stiles in the head which made him dizzy for a few moments so he's unable to fight back as the man started to drag him towards the alley. Lucky for Stiles, his dad had heard the calls for help and saw the man trying to kidnap Stiles while he was disoriented. He ran over with his gun in hand, pointed at the man, but the stranger pulled out a knife which he held to Stiles's throat while he hid behind Stiles's body to keep from getting shot. He spoke with a creepy, whispery, light voice that gave Stiles goosebumps when he said,
"Oh. Ha ha. I got the Sheriff's kid, did I? I'm sure he'll taste much sweeter than I anticipated. Don't follow me or he dies now and we'll both be sorry, you don't want to know who I'll go for if I lose this treat."

The cannibal then proceeded to drag Stiles into the alleyway, down a side street, and into a car which he then drove off in after trying Stiles up with rope and taping his mouth shut; all while not being followed by the police force who Stiles had hoped would save him. Now, as he finally regained his strength too late and he was being taken to who knows where, his only hope was Scott.

"Furthermore, the cannibal showed up to the scene of the crime and kidnapped the Sheriff's son, Stiles Stilinski, in the hopes of claiming him as his next victim. The police are doing everything they can to keep Beacon Hills citizens safe from this new threat and ensure that this young man makes it home safely."

Allison paused the recording of the news and the screen was frozen on Stiles's smile from his yearbook photo. Scott sat on his couch with his head in his hands,
"If only I had let it play a few seconds longer. I would have known earlier, I could have helped him. Who knows, it could be too late now and it would be all my fault."
"No, Scott," Allison said, sitting next to him and wrapping an arm around him in a sort of protective hug, "You didn't do anything wrong, there's nothing you could have done."
"He might be dead!" he half-shouted as he looked at her.
"No," Lydia said, "he isn't dead, he can't be. I would have felt it."
"We have to do something," Scott said as he stood up and started storming up the stairs to his room, "I can't just sit here all day and do nothing while my best friend is out there being prepared as a feast."

Stiles's eyes started adjusting to the darkness and he could now kind of see his surroundings: he was in what he guessed was a basement but looked like it was just carved right out of the ground. He was tied to a support beam in the middle of the room. He didn't remember how he got there, of course he knew the cannibal had brought him there, but he didn't remember the exact instance. He also didn't remember falling asleep but his headache was still present and seemed centered in one place above his left temple. Maybe he had been knocked out.

He tried to reach up and touch that spot, to find out if it was bleeding, only to be reminded that he was tied up. He let his head fall back against the support beam as he groaned loudly, at least he wasn't gagged anymore, then a door opened behind him and Stiles froze. He tried to turn and see but his bonds were too tight, not allowing him any room to move. He heard the door close and then footsteps coming down a flight of stairs. He closed his eyes and concentrated, counting the number of steps; 11, a fairly lucky number in his book. He only hoped that it wasn't some dumb superstition and luck would be on his side.

"Well, hello. I'm glad you're awake. It's always more fun to kill them when they're conscious."
"What do you want?"
The man came into Stiles's line of sight, laughing,
"Oh, I didn't think you'd be stupid. I want to eat you," even the guy's voice sounded like he looked: high, creepy, and skinny; like a bag of bones; he looked as if he'd jumped right out of a horror movie.
"Are you a wendigo?" Stiles asked shifting uncomfortably in his bonds.
"No," the cannibal replied as he grabbed Stiles's chin and turned his head to get a better look at his neck, "but I am surprised that you know what they are. You see, my father was a wendigo and my mother was a human. And before she was eaten by my father, my mother gave birth to me. So, I, half wendigo half human, was raised on eating human flesh and I very much enjoy it but it isn't strictly necessary. I am, however, looking forward to eating the sheriff's son. Revenge is sweet after all. Luckily, I have the right seasonings for that."

"Oh," Stiles jerked his head out of the man's grip and tried to back away but—for obvious reasons—it was impossible, "You don't want to eat me, I'm fat and chewy."
"Oo, the fat's my favourite and it looks to me like you don't have too much to ruin the flavor. As for chewy," he poked at Stiles's stomach and arms, "I highly doubt that."
"Please, man. Come on, I know a good steak place downtown. Why don't you let me go and we can check it out."
The cannibal threw his head back laughing.
"I like you. It's going to be kind of sad to kill you, but it's like slaughtering your prized pig. You can just be lucky that I'm not hungry now. I like my food fresh," he licked his lips as he studied Stiles's body again with an evil grin, "sometimes raw. I'll see you later, Stilinski," he got up and left the basement cavern, locking the door behind him.
When he said "Stilinski," the man threw so much venom into it; Stiles wondered what his dad had done to this man.

Sheriff Stilinski was sitting at his dining table looking at the case files and crime scene photos that he had been staring at for the past three hours. He held his face in his hands as he sighed deeply; he looked at the clock, it was eight o'clock in the morning but he hadn't slept at all since Stiles had gone missing.
"Where are you, Stiles?" he said to himself.

He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the kidnapper. He had definitely seen the man's face before but he just couldn't remember when.
"Think, Noah, think," he said to himself, frustration nearly taking over.
Suddenly, an inkling of a memory tried to sneak its way into his mind, he started thinking about when he was in school. He stood up, hoping he was right and not just nostalgic for no reason, but as he approached his bookshelf, there was a knock on the door.

The Sheriff answered it and saw Scott looking back at him with a look on his face saying he was trying to be supportive but was failing and he knew it.
"Hey, Mr. Stilinski, how are you holding up?"
He reluctantly invited Scott inside and—surprise surprise—Allison and Lydia followed him inside.
He rubbed his face tiredly as he said,
"You kids should be in school."
"We wanted to check up on you, see if you've found anything yet," Scott said
"Well, I haven't."
"You look tired, Mr. Stilinski," Allison said.
He rubbed his eyes again and said, "I am. Now you kids should go to school while I get some sleep."
He couldn't believe he was talking about sleep while his son was out there somewhere being held captive by a cannibal who was planning to eat him.

The kids didn't argue as he'd expected them to. They only nodded and said their farewells as they left. The sheriff went back to his bookshelf and, reaching up, found a fairly dusty yearbook that he hadn't looked at for ages. It was his senior yearbook. He sat back down at the dining table and started flipping through the pages, studying everyone's face

before he knew it, had fallen asleep.

"Do we have to be here?" Lydia asked, looking around uncomfortably.
Lydia, Allison, and Scott were at the crime scene where Stiles had been taken to see if they could find any clues or if Scott could catch a scent.
"I can't smell anything," Scott said, getting very frustrated.
"Scott," Allison said, comfortingly, "it was last night and he was taken by car anyway, it wouldn't have been any use."
"I hate this!" Scott yelled, kicking over a trash can. He suddenly got a scent.
It smelled like Stiles and it smelled like fear.

"Wait," he said, "I think I've got something."
Lydia asked, "What is it?" her face filled with worry.
"It's Stiles's scent. Let's follow it."
Scott walked into the alleyway with Lydia and Allison following closely. He stopped when he got to the street, there where tire tracks from someone who had gunned it out of there but Scott didn't notice immediately, he was focusing on the scents, trying to find out where Stiles had gone; but his scent stopped there.
Lydia, being a fair bit smarter than Scott, pointed at the pavement calling out, "Look! Tire marks."
"So?" Scott asked.
"So," Allison answered, "if we can find out what kind of wheels these came from, we might find the kidnapper."
"Don't you mean cannibal?" Scott corrected her.
"I'd rather not think about that at the moment," Allison pulled out her phone and took a picture of the tire tracks, "My dad has a database of tire threads, I'll find out what kind of tires these came from."
Lydia spoke up then, "Guys?" her voice was quiet and she sounded like she was about to say something that everyone needed to acknowledge, but no one wanted to. She then proceeded to voice the question that all three of them had secretly been asking themselves,

"What if we don't find him in time?"

A/N: Please stay tuned for the second (and hopefully last) part of this story. I have no way of knowing when it will be done. But if you are a Teen Wolf fan, check out my story New Girl(Artemis) that follows a werewolf who moved to Beacon Hills and Scott and his pack have to deal with a new danger. Thanks for reading!