beast | teen wolf

14 | happy death day

Dylan, Boyd, Isaac and Derek had been sitting in the loft on the wooden pallets for what felt like hours. The sun was setting. For the most part, it was quiet among the four werewolves. Dylan stared into the view hold of her camera. She wasn't taking a photo of anything, she just liked to look through the lens.

    Everything seemed so simple in a photograph. You saw what you wanted to see. And most of the time, you never bothered to look deep enough. It was just what the eye could see. But if you dared to look harder, you could see a hidden image. A darker, mysterious, deeper image with a hidden message. A hidden backstory.

    "A picture is worth a thousand words," is what they say. Meaning a single, still image can convey complex and sometimes multiple ideas, which conveys its meaning or essence more effectively than a mere verbal description.

    When people looked at Dylan, they saw an orphan redhead girl with severe anger issues and a bitchy attitude. They knew she liked to skateboard and take photographs. She got into fights, got thrown in jail several times. She didn't care for anyone. She lacked emotions. She never tried hard at anything in her life.

    But if they dared to look deeper into the mind of Dylan Cohen they would know that her bitchy attitude was a defence mechanism to keep people away. She had anger issues, daddy issues, trust issues. She put up walls because caring for someone meant trusting them and they always let her down. She lacked emotions because she had been hurt so many times, it no longer surprised her. People believe they know someone from a first glance, but they really don't. They just don't bother to look hard enough.

    Derek came around and sat beside Dylan. She didn't remove her gaze from her camera lens. The two sat in an awkward silence for a few moments until Derek said, "I bit Charlie." News which didn't shock Dylan as she already knew. "I figured the bite should save him--"

    "I know."

    "He's a strong kid. I wasn't afraid that it wouldn't work because--"

    "But what if it hadn't worked?" she asked. Derek didn't respond, just stared at the girl. She continued her gaze through the lens before removing it to face him. "What do you do when it doesn't work? Just sit there and wait for them to die?"

    Derek furrowed his brows. "Dylan, did it-- did it not work?" She didn't respond, instead just stared into his eyes and he'd get the message. "He's dead, isn't he?" Dylan returned back to her camera.

    "Wait, but the message," Isaac said, clearly listening to their conversation. "Ben said he was alive. Boyd and I read it. You told us he was alive."

    "He is," she responded. "Not for long though." Her words lacked emotion because she couldn't force herself to feel. Her emotions basically shut off. Too much feeling over the past forty-eight hours, she couldn't do it anymore.

    "What do you mean?" Boyd asked.

    "The bite didn't take," she explained. "He's currently lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines, probably on several different medications. He's gonna die," she said nonchalantly. "Today, tomorrow. He is as good as dead."

    "Wait, but, if the bite didn't take, then how is he still alive?" Isaac questioned. "He should be dead, right? It's been, what? Almost three days."

    "Yep."

    "Dylan, I'm so sorry," Derek said. "I was sure the bite would take. I wanted to save him."

    "It's fine. There's nothing you nor I can do about it now. We just have to sit back and wait for him to kick the bucket."

    Silence broke out once more as everyone took in the redhead's emotionless words about how her brother was going to die. Dylan knew how rude she sounded the entire time. But the walls she built, they couldn't be broken. Not anymore.