บท 7: Curious World pt.1
'Werewolves…' Landon was lost in his thought, walking mechanically toward the exit. He had stopped searching for Barrow, instead reflecting on what he had just heard.
'That makes sense…' Landon thought about all the peculiarities he had noticed: the beastly aura, the fangs, and claws, the red eyes he had seen on the boy Scott in the woods.
But then he thought about the girl who had shifted from a coyote to a human.
'Could she be a shapeshifter? Or maybe a coyote-werewolf if that even exists? Like the child of a human and a coyote…' The young boy grimaced at the strange, but possibly plausible thought.
'How on earth could they reproduce…' Landon began imagining strange scenarios to make sense of his theory.
'Anyway, it doesn't matter for now. I've learned a bit more about the world…' Landon began to gather all the information he had.
'Could it be a world like Twilight, or Harry Potter? Harry Potter is set around the 2000s and in England, so it's unlikely, but Twilight…' Landon was somewhat repelled by the idea of immortal beings bloodsucker resembling very pale humans.
'It's too early to try to draw conclusions, I don't have enough information yet…' Landon shook his head, stopped thinking about it, and left the school.
Landon got back into his car and returned to the hospital.
He sat at the reception, still with his face covered by his hood. There had been a few minor injuries and other small accidents but no serious emergencies so far.
'I can relax for now…' Landon sank in his seat with a sigh.
The striking gray-green eyes of the young boy observed the people around him: the patients with their loved ones, the nurses chatting among themselves, the families either worried or relieved and comforted. He watched it all like an observer, feeling like an intruder.
After all, Landon had no family, not a single friend.
In that brief moment, he felt alone…
Landon just slowly shook his head.
'It's how it must be, it's for the best…' Landon knew that everything required sacrifices; it was just his turn, choosing the lives and happiness of others over his own.
A life of solitude awaited him, Landon knew that.
"Hmpfhhh…" he sighed, allowing himself to doze off for a few minutes. After all no one needed him…
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Two hazel green eyes stared straight ahead, getting lost in the horizon, a storm of thoughts swirling behind her clear pupils.
'There's someone, a person connected to that blue fire…' She didn't know where or why, but deep down, she instinctively knew this deduction was correct.
"Lydia, Lydia!" Stiles called out, the young boy had managed to slip away from the coach and spotted his red haired friend in the distance.
The girl in question was standing in front of the school entrance, looking at the parking lot ahead, standing still.
"Hey Lydia…" the young boy called as he approached Lydia, running.
"Lydia, are you okay?" Stiles asked, trying to follow her gaze, but he didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
The young girl snapped back to her senses.
"Yes… Yes, I'm fine," Lydia turned her gaze towards her friend, but the girl's hazel eyes betrayed other feelings.
Ever the observant one, Stiles noticed. He placed a hand on her shoulder and asked,
"Lydia, are you sure you're okay…?" Worried, he knew that ever since she had become a banshee, the girl had been bearing a lot in silence.
The girl looked one last time at the parking lot before turning around and nodding.
"Yes, don't worry, let's go find Scott and the others to see if there's any news."
Stiles didn't push it and simply nodded.
The two approached the entrance where they saw the other four coming out.
"Barrow isn't here, we didn't find his scent anywhere." They had searched the entire school but found no trace of his scent.
"What, that's not possible, Lydia felt he was in the school…" Stiles responded, confused by the situation.
One of the twins spoke up:
"Maybe Lydia was mistaken, perhaps she misinterpreted her banshee visions, or maybe she was right when she sensed Barrow, but he left in the meantime. Maybe the police have some new information?"
Stiles listened to his words, unconvinced.
"No, the police haven't found him, the lead at the mall didn't turn up anything."
'He should be here, it's the most logical place given his past…' he thought, before turning to Lydia and asking for one final check.
"Lydia, are you sure you sensed that Barrow was at the school?"
The young girl's mind was still somewhat elsewhere, but she answered nonetheless:
"I don't know, I felt he was at the school, but maybe he left."
"Okay, and can you sense where he is now?" he asked, not wanting to give up just yet.
"No, I don't know, nothing comes to me…" the banshee said softly.
Stiles sighed and decided to give up.
Scott stepped forward and spoke:
"Alright, let's stop here for today, we've done all we can. Let's get rest, maybe we'll have better luck tomorrow." Everyone listened to his words and left one by one, leaving only Scott and Stiles.
"Do you want a ride? I'll put your bike in the back." Stiles offered his best friend.
Scott hesitated for a moment, looking a bit uneasy.
"What's wrong, is there a problem?"
"No, it's just that I'm not going home, I'm expected elsewhere, so…" Scott said, stumbling over his words a bit.
Stiles grinned at the sight of his embarrassed brown-haired friend.
"You are expected?" he asked, a sly smile on his face.
"Yeah, I'm invited to dinner at Kira's family's place…" the young boy smiled sincerely.
Stiles made a few teasing remarks, happy for his friend whom he considered a brother and who was slowly beginning to move-on from his first love. They went their separate ways.
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The sun was setting over Beacon Hills, giving way to a night that would be anything but peaceful.
Allison Argent was in her father's office, sitting in front of the computer, searching for anything that could help her regarding the supernatural flies.
Everyone knew the story about the flies that came out of Barrow's chest before he killed those around him and escaped, but most people thought it was just that, a story, something to make Barrow even more terrifying.
But it really happened. Allison was browsing her family's bestiary regarding "supernatural flies."
Allison's family was an ancient one, deeply connected to the mystical world: the Argent family.
This world is far larger and more dangerous than Landon had ever imagined. Werewolves have existed for a long time, and a human can transform into a werewolf through a bite or sometimes a scratch from a werewolf.
But not just any werewolf's bite, a bite from an Alpha, a more powerful, more bestial, a more dominant werewolf, recognizable by its red eyes.
Werewolves are divided into three categories: Alphas, who are the pack leaders; Betas, who are part of the pack and obey the Alpha; and Omegas, who are lone wolves without a pack or the lowest-ranked members of a pack, often disrespected and even bullied within some werewolf packs.
Werewolves live in packs, hiding among humans, resembling them in almost every way except for their abilities: first, the characteristics of a wolf, partial fur, claws, and fangs; then, superhuman strength close to a ton for the strongest; superhuman agility and speed, capable of feats and jumps bordering on the impossible, and able to run up to 60 km/h, surpassing the record of the world's fastest man, Usain Bolt, at 38 km/h; superhuman senses and vision, even infrared vision, capable of smelling blood from 300 meters away, and seeing in the dark.
And also, one of the most important and unique things about werewolves is undoubtedly their superhuman healing. A werewolf can heal from a severe non-supernatural injury in a few hours and can even regrow a limb as long as it's reattached. The process is slower, but it only takes a few days.
Being a werewolf has incredible advantages, but not only that, it's a mystical and secretive race, of course, but a race that comes from nature. Everything has its weaknesses, its disadvantages, and its natural countermeasures.
For werewolves, three are known.
First, their bloodlust: werewolves have a very high tendency to lose themselves in anger, to lose control, not to mention the full moon, which enhances the physical abilities of any werewolf but also greatly increases their bestiality, their thirst for blood, and their murderous instincts.
Next is wolfsbane, the natural countermeasure for all werewolves, a highly toxic plant that comes in many forms and variants. It causes no harm to a human when ingested but is one of the most harmful poisons for a werewolf and can even kill one depending on the dose and the toxicity of the plant variant. A werewolf can heal from it but not on their own, and not by themselves , it requires techniques like burning the wound or other methods.
And the last is mountain ash, which isn't really a natural countermeasure for werewolves alone; it's simply a natural countermeasure against all supernatural beings. It's an ash that repels and creates a sort of protection against supernatural beings. You can place it around yourself or around a supernatural enemy if you can, and it creates an impenetrable dome for anyone who isn't human. There are some stories that say certain special species can't be held back by it, or that someone with immense willpower can break the barrier by force.
But mountain ash only stops the supernatural, if a human is with them, they can easily destroy the barrier for them. All it takes is for the mountain ash to no longer form a circle; just a small opening, and the mountain ash has no effect. If the ash isn't connected in a circle, square, or any other shape on the ground, if the ends aren't linked, then the mountain ash is useless.
Werewolves have another peculiarity, the color of their eyes. Red signifies an Alpha, but there are two other colors: bright yellow and icy blue.
If a human transforms into a werewolf for the first time, their eye color in human form won't change, but their wolf eyes will be bright yellow, and they can remain that way for the rest of their life.
Unless… unless the werewolf has blood on their hands, innocent blood.
Some legends say that when a werewolf takes the life of an innocent, no matter the context or reasons, their soul is changed, tainted, and their eyes take on that icy blue hue.
And that mark, that proof of their cruelty, will follow them forever unless the werewolf becomes an Alpha, turning their eyes into a scarlet red, resembling blood.
The supernatural isn't an exact science; it's nature, after all. There are evolutions, mutations, deviations even in the supernatural, mysteries, unknowns that have yet to be fully explored…
For example, some special wolves can even transform entirely into a wolf; they have access to a much higher transformation, not just into a human-wolf hybrid. And there are even deviant cases of transformation among werewolves, like a hybrid more wolf than human, standing over 2 meters tall, a being lost in its bestiality while denying itself, becoming neither human nor wolf, but a strange fusion of the two, an abomination.
Werewolves have had an immense bloodlust and a great tendency to succumb to rage. Many new werewolves, unaware of this detail, committed massacres on their first full moon night if no one guided them.
Werewolves need an "anchor," something to attach their humanity to, allowing them to control themselves. Those who mastered themselves best could even go out on full moon nights without it having any effect on them.
Werewolves represented the majority of the supernatural, they were the main thing one turned into when bitten, but not the only one, far from it.
Scott and his friends had already encountered these special cases, like Malia, the girl they re-transformed into a human, she was a coyote-werewolf, or last year when they had to uncover the identity of and fight a Kanima, a sort of lizard, with scales covering its entire body, reptilian eyes, fangs with a paralyzing venom, and a powerful tail that could slice through metal bars. An enemy far more powerful than the average werewolf.
But again, nature balanced this by giving it inherent limits and weaknesses. In fact, the Kanima was a sort of supernatural anomaly that appeared in a person suffering from deep emotional distress. And the longer the person spent in the Kanima form, the more this side took over their identity, slowly erasing their human side. Moreover, one of the Kanima's greatest limits was that its deepest instinct was to serve someone else, someone who wanted to pursue a grudge or a revenge. The Kanima responded to their call and became their servant, even becoming a part of this new master who controlled it, like an extra limb they could feel and control in their mind. And that's where the trap lay.
Scott and his friends discovered that the master of the Kanima also slowly became a Kanima themselves, and the cycle continued.
Lydia herself is also a special case. She was bitten by the same Alpha who transformed Scott, yet she didn't change, she didn't become a werewolf, at least not at first. She began having trances and found herself at crime scenes filled with corpses that the police hadn't yet discovered. She started seeing things, hearing whispers, predicting when and where danger would strike. She became a Banshee, a "screaming woman" by its translation. A Banshee is intimately linked to death and has the offensive ability to emit a piercing scream that, if controlled and trained, can even injure or kill a werewolf.
And all of this was just a few of the elements on the surface of this supernatural iceberg. There are things far stranger and more curious that populate this world.
In this world, most humans were unaware of what was happening behind the veil. They lived their lives, oblivious to the fact that they were considered nothing more than prey.
At least, most humans were. But over the centuries, some noticed the strangeness, learned the secret, knowing that many massacres and carnage with disregard for human life had been perpetrated by these supernatural beings. This knowledge filled them with cold rage.
These humans, aware of the supernatural world, united under the same objective. They observed, analyzed, gathered information, learned their weaknesses, trained, and prepared.
The hunters were born, tracking the werewolves, armed with wolfsbane-coated weapons, setting traps with mountain ash. The wolves became the prey, and with the advent of firearms, for the first time, it was no longer the werewolves or any other supernatural beings that held the advantage…
Allison was part of the Argent family, one of the oldest and most prestigious hunter families. They primarily hunted werewolves, but also any supernatural being that posed a threat.
Beacon Hills had seen several packs and had been visited by different supernatural beings, but it had always been firmly held by the Hale family, a very old and respected family of werewolves. But they were also quite peaceful, they made a peace pact with the Argent: The Hale wouldn't attack any innocents or hunters unless they were attacked first, and the Argent wouldn't interfere in their affairs, staying out of their way. The agreement had always been respected by both parties, who got along rather well.
The Hale became the protectors of Beacon Hills, at least until about ten years ago.
A decade ago the Hale family tragically lost their lives in a fire, the matriarch, the most powerful and respected werewolves of the family, and even the young ones for some of the children, all perished leaving only 2 known survivors.
Derek Hale who was absent from the house that day, and his Uncle Peter Hale, who barely survived the fire, although barely, third degree burns, all over his body, he went into a long coma.
The young Derek aged 17 at the time decided to leave the city, only returning a few times to visit his uncle, other than that, he wanted nothing more to do with Beacon Hills, leaving this city behind.
But just 1 year ago, his sister Laura Hale who he thought was dead had returned to Beacon Hills, Derek impatient to see did not waste time and returned to Beacon Hills, only to discover the corpse of his sister, she had been killed by a werewolf, but given the huge paw marks on the ground, and the length and width of the scratch, it was more of a monster than an ordinary werewolf.
A new alpha had appeared in town, was making ruthless massacres, terrorizing the city.
His sister Laura was an alpha, and when a werewolf kills an alpha he himself becomes an alpha.
Derek understood that his sister's killer was this alpha, and he was not the only one to pursue this beast, The Argent family learned the news of the massacres, recognizing them as the work of a werewolf, They also returned to Beacon Hills.
[Werewolves Bestiary - here]
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