Chapter 1: The Bite That Changes Everything
The flashlight beam cut through the darkness like a knife through velvet, illuminating twisted branches and fallen leaves that crunched beneath Scott McCall's sneakers. His inhaler sat heavy in his jacket pocket—a familiar weight that reminded him of his limitations as he struggled to keep pace with his best friend's longer strides.
"Remind me again why we're doing this?" Scott wheezed, his breath forming small puffs in the October night air.
Stiles Stilinski spun around, walking backwards with the kind of manic energy that meant he'd consumed too much Adderall and coffee. His own flashlight waved erratically, creating dancing shadows between the trees.
"Because my dad thinks we don't know about the body they found cut in half. But we do know, and more importantly, we know they only found half of it. Which means..."
"The other half is still out here."
"Exactly! And if we find it first, we'll be legends. Well, I'll be a legend. You'll be the guy who was with me when I became a legend."
Scott stopped walking, doubled over as his lungs seized. "Great. My asthma's acting up again." The inhaler found its way to his lips automatically, the metallic taste bitter and familiar. "Why do I let him talk me into these things?"
"Dude, you okay?"
"Yeah, just give me a second."
But the second stretched into several as Scott's breathing struggled to normalize. The preserve felt different tonight—heavier somehow, as if the darkness itself was alive and watching. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and not from the cold.
"Maybe we should head back," Scott suggested, straightening up slowly.
"Are you kidding? We're so close I can practically smell the—"
A sound cut through the night. Not the rustle of small animals or the whisper of wind through leaves, but something larger. Something that moved with predatory purpose through the underbrush.
Both boys froze.
"What was that?" Scott whispered.
Stiles' eyes went wide behind his flashlight beam. "Probably just a deer. Or a raccoon. A really, really big raccoon."
The sound came again, closer this time. Footsteps—no, not footsteps. Something that landed too heavily, moved too fluidly to be entirely human.
"Run," Stiles breathed.
They bolted.
Scott's lungs screamed in protest as branches whipped past his face and roots tried to catch his feet. His flashlight beam bounced wildly, creating a strobe effect that made the forest look like something from a nightmare. Behind them, the sounds of pursuit grew closer—whatever was chasing them moved faster than any human could.
"This way!" Stiles veered left toward what Scott hoped was the path back to the Jeep.
But Scott's foot caught on a fallen log, and he went down hard, his flashlight spinning away into the darkness. Pain shot through his ankle as he tried to get up.
"Stiles!"
His friend's footsteps stopped, then doubled back.
"Scott! Where are you?"
"Over here! I think I twisted my—"
The roar cut through the night like nothing Scott had ever heard. It vibrated in his chest, primal and furious, raising every instinct that screamed predator and run and hide.
"GO!" Scott yelled. "Get out of here!"
Stiles' flashlight beam found him sprawled against the log, and for a split second their eyes met. Scott saw the war on his best friend's face—loyalty battling self-preservation.
"I'm not leaving you."
"Yes, you are. GO!"
Another roar, closer now. Close enough that Scott could smell something wild and musky beneath the scent of pine and decay.
"I'll get help," Stiles promised, backing away. "I'll bring my dad, I'll—"
The creature exploded from the tree line.
Scott's mind couldn't process what he was seeing. It moved like a man but was too large, too powerful. Red eyes blazed in the darkness, and when it opened its mouth, fangs caught the moonlight like blades. But strangest of all was the intelligence behind those crimson eyes—ancient and calculating and utterly alien.
Time slowed.
The creature's claws extended with a sound like steel scraping stone. Scott tried to scramble backwards, but his injured ankle betrayed him. The thing lunged, and Scott threw up his hands in a futile gesture of protection.
Pain exploded across his side as claws raked through fabric and flesh. Scott screamed—a sound torn from somewhere deeper than his throat as fire spread from the wounds. But the physical agony was nothing compared to what happened next.
Images flooded his mind like a dam bursting.
Summer sunlight filtering through green leaves. Children's laughter echoing in a clearing. Three small hands pressed together, sticky with blood from pricked fingertips. Ancient words spoken in voices too young to understand their power.
"What...?"
An enormous tree stump, weathered and wise, pulsing with light that had nothing to do with the sun overhead. The taste of copper pennies and the smell of earth after rain. Power thrumming beneath the ground, responding to innocent ritual.
The visions hit him in waves, each one accompanied by a burning sensation in his right palm that spread up his arm like fire. Scott felt something crack open inside his chest—not bone, but something deeper. Something that had been waiting.
When the creature released him, Scott collapsed to the forest floor, gasping. Blood seeped through his torn shirt, but the wounds were already beginning to close. He could feel his flesh knitting back together, cells regenerating faster than should be possible.
The red-eyed beast studied him for a moment that lasted an eternity. Then it spoke, its voice like gravel and smoke:
"The awakening begins."
And it was gone, melting back into the darkness as if it had never been there at all.
Scott lay on the cold ground, trembling. His palm burned like he'd pressed it against a hot stove, and when he looked down, he could see a faint scar across his right hand—thin and white and impossibly old for something that hadn't been there an hour ago.
"What the hell just happened to me?"
Morning came too bright and too loud.
Scott jolted awake to his alarm clock's electronic screaming, immediately reaching for his inhaler out of habit. But when he drew breath to test his airways, something was wrong.
He could breathe.
Not just the shallow, careful breathing he'd known his whole life, but deep, full breaths that filled his lungs completely. No wheeze. No tightness. No burning.
"What..."
He sat up and immediately regretted it as his bedroom spun. But it wasn't dizziness—it was sensory overload. He could hear his mother's heartbeat downstairs, steady and strong. The coffee maker gurgling in the kitchen. Mrs. Peterson next door scolding her cat. The Hernandez family three houses down arguing in rapid Spanish.
His eyes watered from the assault of smells—bacon cooking somewhere, car exhaust from the street, the lingering scent of the shampoo his mom had used yesterday morning, and underneath it all, something wild and musky that reminded him of...
The preserve. The creature. The bite.
Scott's hand flew to his side where the claws had raked across his ribs. He pulled up his shirt, expecting to see torn flesh and dried blood.
Instead, he found pale scars that looked years old. Four parallel lines that had healed so completely they were barely visible.
"This is impossible."
He stumbled to his bathroom mirror, gripping the sink as the world continued to overwhelm his enhanced senses. His reflection looked normal—same brown hair, same brown eyes, same face that had never been remarkable in any way.
Until his eyes flashed gold.
Not a trick of the light or morning grogginess. His irises actually glowed golden for a split second before cycling to an impossible purple, then silver, then back to brown so quickly he might have imagined it.
But he hadn't imagined it. Just like he hadn't imagined the healing or the enhanced hearing or the way he could smell fear radiating from the jogger passing by outside his bedroom window.
"I'm going crazy. I hit my head when I fell, and now I'm having some kind of psychotic break because people don't just—"
His phone buzzed with a text from Stiles.
are you alive? please tell me you're alive. also did you see what bit you because I've been researching all night and I think we might have a problem
Scott stared at the message. Stiles had seen it too. Which meant either they were both having the same psychotic break, or something impossible had actually happened in those woods.
Another text appeared.
meet me at school early. we need to talk. and scott? don't tell anyone about this. not yet.
Scott's enhanced hearing picked up his mother's footsteps on the stairs, her elevated heartbeat that suggested worry. She'd probably been up half the night wondering why he'd come home with his clothes torn and refused to answer questions about what had happened.
"Scott? Honey, are you okay? You're going to be late for school."
He grabbed his backpack and headed for the door, pausing only when his reflection caught his eye again. For just a moment, the boy in the mirror looked like someone else entirely. Someone older. Someone who carried the weight of secrets and power.
Someone whose eyes held depths that shouldn't exist in a sixteen-year-old.
"What am I becoming?"
Beacon Hills High School felt like a minefield of sensory input. Every conversation within fifty feet reached his ears with crystal clarity. Every emotion seemed to have its own scent—anxiety like sour milk, excitement like ozone before a thunderstorm, teenage hormones like a cloud of competing perfumes and body sprays.
Scott found Stiles pacing near the lacrosse field, his usual manic energy dialed up to eleven. His best friend looked like he hadn't slept at all, hair sticking up at odd angles and eyes rimmed with red.
"Thank God," Stiles said when he spotted Scott. "I was starting to think that thing had come back and finished the job."
"About that," Scott began, but Stiles was already pulling out his phone, fingers flying over the screen.
"I've been researching all night. Animal attacks, unexplained phenomena, local legends—and dude, this town has a seriously weird history. Did you know that Beacon Hills has had more unexplained disappearances per capita than anywhere else in California?"
"Stiles—"
"And get this—there are reports going back decades of creatures in the preserve. Large, predatory, definitely not any known species of wildlife. The official explanation is always 'bear attack' or 'cougar sighting,' but the wounds never match, and—"
"STILES."
His friend finally stopped talking, looking at Scott with worried eyes.
"How do you feel?" Stiles asked. "Because you look... different. Better, actually, which is weird considering you almost got mauled by something last night."
Scott took a deep breath, tasting his friend's concern on the air. "How do I explain this without sounding completely insane?"
"I feel fine. Better than fine. I can breathe normally for the first time in my life."
Stiles frowned. "Your asthma?"
"Gone. And I can hear things I shouldn't be able to hear. Smell things from impossible distances. And Stiles..." Scott held up his right hand, showing the faint scar across his palm. "This wasn't here yesterday."
Stiles grabbed Scott's hand, examining the mark. The moment their skin touched, both boys gasped.
Electricity arced between them—not painful, but startling. Scott felt something snap into place in his chest, like a puzzle piece finding its proper position. For one impossible moment, he could sense exactly what Stiles was feeling: confusion, fear, excitement, and underneath it all, a strange sense of rightness that neither of them understood.
"What the hell was that?" Stiles jerked his hand back, staring at his own palm.
Scott looked down and felt his world tilt. There, on Stiles' right hand, was an identical scar. Thin, white, and impossibly old.
"Stiles, when did you get that?"
"I don't know! It wasn't there yesterday, I would have noticed, and—" Stiles stopped mid-sentence, his face going pale. "Scott, I woke up this morning with pain in my side. Right where you got clawed."
They stared at each other in the growing morning light, pieces of an impossible puzzle starting to fall into place.
"This is insane," Scott whispered.
"Yeah, but it's happening." Stiles rubbed his scarred palm absently. "And I've got a feeling it's just getting started."
As if summoned by his words, Scott's enhanced hearing picked up the sound of approach—footsteps on grass, measured and deliberate. He turned toward the lacrosse field and froze.
A girl with dark hair stood near the bleachers, her hand pressed to her side in a gesture that looked all too familiar. Even from a distance, Scott could see the recognition in her eyes, as if she was seeing something she'd been searching for her entire life.
When she dropped her hand, revealing a pen that had fallen to the ground, Scott heard the small sound of its impact from fifty yards away.
And for reasons he couldn't explain, he started walking toward her.
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