Oooooo stuff is happening. I hope you guys are liking the changes that I'm making to this season
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My eyes opened heavily, an aching in my head. I felt myself squinting, a light shining directly in my eyes. Confusion swirled with the clouds in my head as I tried to figure out what was going on. This wasn't my bedroom.
Attempting to sit up, I found that I couldn't move my limbs. Craning my neck, I saw that my wrists and ankles were bound to whatever surface I was on.
At this point, the panic was beginning to set in. What happened to me?
Looking around, I saw I was in a rather dark room. It was wet and dim, strange objects littering the space. Where the hell was I?
When I heard a metallic clicking sound, my stomach dropped. I had heard that noise before; it was the same noise I had heard outside of Malia's house. The last thing I remembered before waking up.
The noise grew louder until I could finally see what was making it. The Dread Doctors walked towards me, the lights flickering above us adding to the ominous gloom they brought with them.
I had never been to where the Dread Doctors' conducted their experiments, but I remembered how Liam and Hayden had described it. A dark room lit by low hanging lights, medical equipment everywhere, and large glad tube with someone in it. It didn't take a genius to figure out that that was where I was.
As the Doctors got closer, I tried to use my ability, but nothing was happening. The injection.
I attempted to reach for my neck, before remembering I was restrained.
One of the Doctors was by my side a few moments later, placing a gloved hand on the side of my head. It pushed my head roughly so that I was facing away from it. It was examining the side of my neck that Theo had injected that had left my veins looking like they had charcoal running through them.
"What did you do to me?" I managed to get out, still feeling drowsy.
None of them answered as they went about their work. The way they moved almost seemed like a mirage, my vision trying to compensate for the strange image.
As I felt like I was about to pass out again, I felt one of the Doctors clamp down on my arm. I tried to turn to see what they were doing, but the first kept my head in place, not letting me move.
"What are you doing?" I whimpered, trying to look. "What are you doing!"
They didn't answer, but they didn't need to. Moments later, I felt the pain in my left arm as they inserted something into it.
At first, I bit it back, but as they pushed whatever it was further, I found myself unable to do so, letting out a scream I didn't even know I was capable of. The lights swayed as the air shifted, the ability paralytic only doing so much.
I screamed for them to stop, but that didn't listen. I felt something get strapped around my arm, before they finally let go of my head.
Quickly looking down, I saw a brown leather strap around my arm, holding a tube that had been inserted beneath my skin in place. I felt sick as I looked down at it, blood making its way into the tube.
One of the Doctors hooked the tube up to something, slowly beginning to feed a liquid into my body. As soon as I felt it travelling through my veins, my body began to feel heavy, like my limbs were made of lead.
I wasn't even able to move my head at this point, so now I was just stuck facing down towards my arm. I watched as best I could as the Doctors crowded around the surgery table, each with a different surgical tool.
Whatever they were sending into my bloodstream did nothing to dull the pain. I felt every incision and prod as they began their experiment.
"What are you doing to me?"
"Looking for potential," one actually answered. "Preparing."
"What the hell does that mean?"
I screamed again as I felt a scalpel dig into my torso, slicing my skin open. Whatever they were doing, they didn't care that I could feel everything; I would heal, after all.
"Sylph."
Another cut as they inserted another tube, this time into my chest. All I could do was scream. I was lucky to be able to hear them over my own cries of pain.
"Werewolf."
Breathing shakily, I tried to shake my head, but still couldn't. "A Sylph, yes. But, I'm not a werewolf."
"Co-dominance."
Liquid began to flow through the second tube, infiltrating my body. This one, unlike the first, caused pain. It felt like it was causing a searing sensation all throughout my body.
"A natural chimera."
Feeling myself beginning to slip out of consciousness, I managed to get one more question out. "What do you want?"
"Power."
♧♤♢♡
'Also known as sylphids, a sylph is an air spirit. It is an elemental being with a unique and strange ability over the air, giving it the ability to manipulate things such as the wind and clouds. Alongside this, sylphs can manifest their powers through the blowing of the wind, the fall of snow, the downpour of rain, the gathering of clouds.'
I woke with a start, breathing heavily as I grabbed my chest. Taking a deep breath, I reached for the drink bottle on my bedside table, gulping down at least half of its contents.
It was the strangest feeling. I knew I had had a nightmare, but I couldn't remember the majority of it, just bits and pieces. I felt a stinging in my back, flashing me back to when Kali had almost killed me under Deucalion's orders the night of the recital when I had been researching.
I hadn't thought of that night in a while, the memory itself being rather unpleasant. Back then, I hadn't known what I was or how to control myself. I mean, I was still working on control now, but at least I knew who I was; what I was.
Focusing back on reality, I realised it was my phone ringing that had woken me up. When had I even gone to bed?
Grabbing my phone, I saw that it was Stiles who was calling me. Hitting the accept button, I brought it up to my ear.
"Hey, did you find Kira?" I asked groggily.
"Yeah, we're bringing her home," he informed me. "Are you okay? You don't sound good."
"I'm fine," I said through a small smile. "Just a bit tired."
"Is Charlotte home yet?"
Climbing out of bed slowly, I went to investigate. Opening the door, I heard the living room television on and two voices talking softly. "Yeah, they're both here. I didn't even wake up when they got home."
"Okay. I'm coming to see you."
Sighing, I closed my door once more. "Stiles, you don't have to come over. I'm fine."
"You literally smashed your shower screen, Ri, you're not okay. And that's okay," he told me softly. "Besides, I'm already at your front door."
I heard him ring the doorbell through the phone before he hung up on me. Raising my brows, I shook my head as I opened the door and went to go to the front of the house.
Charlotte and Iris had beaten me to it, however, bother of the, greeting Stiles. They stepped aside so that he could enter the foyer, closing the door behind him.
"I figured we would be seeing you soon enough," Charlotte informed him, arms crossing over somewhat. "Can someone now explain what happened in the bathroom?"
"Why didn't you wake me when you got home?" I asked.
Charlotte gave an empathetic look as she glanced over at me. "You just got out of the hospital, Ri. I wasn't going to wake you when you were finally getting some proper sleep."
"In regards to the bathroom," Stiles said slowly, leading off into nothing.
"That was me," I admitted. We had said no more lies, so that's what I was holding myself to. "I got into the shower and all I could see was the box, and I had a panic attack of sorts and kind've, blew the glass out, I guess."
Charlotte and Iris both looked at me, both of them with slightly widened eyes. Even Iris, who was also a Sylph seemed surprised. She probably hadn't lost control as many times as I had. Or maybe she couldn't do something like that - she had mentioned that I was stronger than because of my parentage.
My sister took a step forward, before wrapping her arms around me. "And you're okay? Nobody got hurt?" she asked softly.
"Nobody got hurt," I assured her. "Would it be okay if Stiles stayed though? I would just. . . I would feel a lot better if he were here."
Charlotte seemed to hesitate as she pulled away, glancing over to Iris. The woman raised her brows, the two of them having some sort of conversation between themselves.
Finally, Charlotte nodded. "Alright. I trust you."
Giving her a grateful smile, I hugged her once more. After thanking her, Stiles and I both said goodnight to them both, before heading towards my room.
I made sure to mouth a thank you to Iris, knowing she was part of the reason Charlotte had said yes. I was glad Charlotte had someone who made her happy, it made me worry about her less knowing someone would be here for her if something happened to me.
When we got to my bedroom, I closed the door behind us before I went to sit on my bed. Stiles didn't sit, however. Instead, he began to pace.
"What's on your mind?" I asked as I watched him.
He chewed on his thumbnail for a moment, before he stopped walking to look at me. "Okay, firstly, we looked more into damnatio memoriae - horrible, horrible stuff, by the way.
"It was this Roman practice where the government would decree for images of the damned to be destroyed. They would scratch off their names from inscriptions, chisel their face off of statues, all that kind of stuff because they believed it was a punishment worse than death. Because what's worse than being forgotten?
"Anyway, this practice, it was used for this serial killer in 1598, called the Demon Tailor. This dude was like a mega, sicko, psychopath, okay? He lured little kids into his shop in Paris and kill them and boil and eat their flesh. So the courts, they basically erased this guy from history, and no one knows his name. But that's not even the worst part."
My eyes were wide as I sat taking in everything he was saying. When I managed to compute it all, I felt my self stumbling for words for a moment. "How in the holy hell, is that not the worst part, Stiles?"
He pursed his lips as he put his hands on his hips, "We think that this guy, this Demon Tailor, might've been a werewolf. And we think that he is the one who the Dread Doctors are trying to bring back. But not just that."
"What else could there possibly be?"
"We know what it is. The werewolf in the video."
"Okay," I nodded, waiting for more explanation, still in shock from every other thing he had said.
"The Beast," he informed me.
"The Beast?" The name sounded familiar, and I felt my eyes squint in thought. I'd heard that before. And then it hit me.
"The Beast of Gevaudan," I whispered as I felt my blood run cold. I flashed back to a memory in the school cafeteria from years ago, sitting across from Allison as she read from a book, looking into her family's history for a school project.
"So, it's called 'the Beast of Gevaudan.' A quadruped wolf-like monster, prowling the Auvergne and South Dordogne areas of France during the year 1764 to 1767. La Bete killed over one hundred people, becoming so infamous that King Louis the Fifteenth sent one of his best hunters to try and kill it.'"
To my dismay, I knew exactly which direction this conversation was going in. So, when Lydia claimed what she was saying to be 'boring' I painfully agreed, hoping to throw Allison off of the topic.
Allison just continued to read straight from the book, brushing us off. "'Even the church eventually declared the monster a messenger of Satan.'"
"Hmm. Still boring," I sighed, even though, I was actually highly interested. Unfortunately, if Allison kept digging, she might find out the truth; and I couldn't risk that. My comment also earned me a grin of approval from Lydia, which I was uncertain of how to feel about.
"'Cryptozoologists believe it may have been a subspecies of hoofed predator, possibly a mesonychid.'"
Lydia swung her head back as she ate more food, "Slipping-into-a-coma bored."
"'While others believe it was a powerful sorcerer who could shape-shift into a man-eating monster.'" She whispered at the end a little, trying to make it seem spookier.
"Any of this have anything to do with your family?" I asked.
The pale girl nodded, "This. 'It is believed that La Bete was finally trapped and killed by a renowned hunter who claimed his wife and four children were the first to fall prey to the creature.' His name was Argent."
"Wait, you've heard of it?" Stiles asked, genuinely surprised.
I nodded slowly, still half in the memory. "Allison. She told Lydia and me about it back before she knew about werewolves. How did you guys find out about it?"
"Corey told Mason who told Liam who told us," Stiles explained.
I ran my hands through my hair, thinking everything through. "This isn't going to end well, is it, Stiles?"
He sighed as he sat beside me, shaking his head slightly. "I really wish I could be positive here, but this thing - we've never seen anything like it before."
"I feel sick," I mumbled as I stood up, suddenly feeling suffocated. I opened my window slightly, before peeling my jumper off and taking a deep breath. "This is insane."
I glanced over to Stiles, to see him looking at me strangely. Peering down at myself and giving my clothes a quick examination, I didn't find anything out of place.
"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
He stood up and walked over to me, before taking ahold of my hand and leading me to stand in front of my mirror. "Look at your neck," he said quietly, his voice lined with concern.
I did as he said, letting my head fall to the side slightly so that I had a better angle. The vine-like veins that had turned black after the injection from Theo were still present, except now, they were much lighter - almost grey.
My brow furrowed, as I ran a finger along it, confused by the change of colour. Stripping my shirt off, I saw that it had grown somewhat also. It wasn't just on my neck now but had travelled down over my shoulder past my bra strap, breaching on my chest.
It reminded me of the marks that Stiles had had when Deaton gave him the leatharia vulpina to keep the Nogitsune at bay not so long ago. The Lichtenberg figure. Except, I couldn't remember being injected with fox repellent or being hit by lightning recently.
"Riley, what happened while I was gone? That didn't look like that when I pulled you out of the shower," Stiles stated, examining the marks. He ran his fingers over my skin, which normally left me blushing, but all I felt right now was cold.
I stepped closer to the mirror and out of Stiles', staring carefully at it. I tried my best to think, but I couldn't place when this happened. "I don't know. After you left I went to see Malia. We got into a fight because she was considering going to Theo for help in finding her mum, which I told her was a bad idea because he is a sociopath. But then she left and I. . . well I was obviously super worn out from the whole shower thing and just went home and crashed, because all I remember is waking up."
"You don't even remember driving home from Malia's afterwards? Or going inside your house? Or getting into bed?" Stiles asked, completely worried now.
I bit my lower lip, trying to think back. I'd fought with Malia, she drove off, I remember being angry, and then waking up in my bed. I shook my head, remaining silent.
"That also means that you think you slept for basically a whole day, Ri, because I left you here last night, and now it's night again," Stiles said, beginning to pace again. "I knew I shouldn't have left you here alone. You said you'd be fine, but I knew that something would happen. Something always happens!"
I ran over to him, getting him to stop as I put a hand over his mouth. "Keep it down!" I hissed. "I don't want Charlotte and Iris to worry unless there is actually something to worry about, Stiles."
"Okay," he mumbled against my palm.
I lowered my hand, turning back around to face the mirror. It was so strange being unable to remember anything after Malia's house. Why had the marking changed? And why had it spread? And why couldn't I remember one damn thing about anything that happened before I woke up?
"Show me your eyes," Stiles said suddenly, his face as serious as I had ever seen it.
"What?" I asked, looking at him as I turned around.
"Your eyes," he repeated as he stepped closer to me. Raising his hands, he placed one on either side of my face and got me to look at him.
I gulped somewhat, placing my hands on his wrists, "What if I lose control again?"
"You won't. I trust you," Stiles said. "Show me."
Taking a deep breath, I nodded in his hands. I closed my eyes for a moment, making sure to concentrate and stay in control, before reopening my eyes.
I felt Stiles' hands falter on my cheeks, eyes widening, before narrowing in confusion. "Wh- how?" he mumbled as he looked at me.
Dragging his hands downwards, I turned to look in the mirror. My eyes were glowing, as requested. Except they weren't glowing their normal silvery blue. Now, it was a stormy silver, like the lightning inside a storm cloud.