*028 | PARASITE EVE
( parasite eve — bring me the horizon )
" don't call it a warning, this is a war.
it's the parasite eve,
got a feeling in your stomach
cause you know that it's coming for you
leave your flowers and grieve
don't forget what they told you "
11 YEARS AGO, 2013
📍CALIFORNIA, BEACON HILLS,
THE CEMETERY
____________________________
IT WAS A COLD NIGHT in November, and the year was 2013— when Allison Argent's eyes opened again.
Her eyes opened in a sudden fright as though something had triggered her awakening.
Within seconds, Allison was gasping for breath as she realised her surroundings—she was in a coffin. Panic immediately set in as she found it impossible to breathe in and out, her eyes widening in horror as her heart began to beat for the first time since it stopped last year, in Aspen's arms, on the ground of Oak Creak.
Allison's body shifted in panic inside the coffin, until she then placed the palms of her hands up to the ceiling of the coffin, trying to push it open.
She obviously couldn't put her finger on it right away, due to the panic of waking up all of a sudden in a coffin— but she felt different. And not in a way you'd expect someone to feel differently after suddenly reviving from the dead.
The blood in her veins felt different, like she was now creating a whole new aura, like she had a brand new sense of being and purpose.
Allison began to hyperventilate, her chest rising up and down rapidly in fear and panic, the feeling of waking up buried six feet underground in a coffin not exactly being a pleasant one.
And just as Allison hyperventilated in her rapid, heaving breaths, her eyes wide and horrified— she was overcome with a vision.
A vision that played out in her mind like a movie scene.
Except it was a movie scene that had really happened.
A matter of minutes ago.
Only a couple miles away from the cemetery.
The vision took her to a road. It was a quiet road, no cars passing by.
The sky was blanketed in a dark sea of stars, as the only vehicle in sight was a blue Jeep—that had been halted suddenly in the middle of the street.
Then Allison saw her— she saw Aspen Bellator.
"I'm a little harder to take down than that..." Aspen's voice spat the face of Theo Raeken maliciously, her body straddled over his dominantly, her hand harshening her grip around his neck without any trace of mercy.
"Whatever," Theo managed to choke out between breaths, "You won't— actually kill me..."
"Won't I?" Aspen cocked a brow, tilting her head, "What makes you so sure?"
"You..." Theo choked, managing to keep his eyes open as he stared into hers, "Y-you don't— have... it in you..."
Aspen smirked.
"That sounds like a challenge..." she said back, trying to ignore the vigorous pain in her lower abdomen as blood pooled from her stomach.
She had dried blood and claw marks all over her neck, and a fresh, gaping wound bleeding through her shirt, and a look to kill in her eyes. She was the picture from hell.
"You won't kill me," Theo repeated, sounding confident as Aspen actually loosened her grip on his neck slightly just so she could hear his pathetic speech. "I know a lot about you, remember? More than you like to admit. You didn't kill that family of hunters, the Chasueusse's— even though they wanted you dead. In fact from what I hear, you fought them with guns, and never even pulled a fatal trigger."
Aspen tilted her head back upright, visibly amused by Theo's words as she was now the one to smile smugly.
"Oh, Theo..." Aspen murmured tauntingly, "You fight a human threat with human means, I didn't need to kill them to win. You on the other hand, don't get that preferential treatment."
"You still won't do it..." he murmured, but then Aspen asserted her claws at the same time that she strengthened her grip around his throat, making blood drip from his neck this time as he screamed in pain.
With a stern, rageful jaw and an immense hunger of revenge and peace, Aspen then took her other hand which wasn't wrapped around his neck, and plunged it into his chest.
Theo screamed so loudly, and his eyes began to water with pain as they widened, looking down and watching as Aspen's hand pierced his chest, right over the skin of where his heart was.
"Does that hurt, huh?!" Aspen yelled over his screams of pain, her claws getting dangerously close to his rapidly beating heart. "You know that feeling like your heart's about to give out?"
Theo continued to choke on breath, his eyes now showing a true, real sense of genuine, petrified fear. He would beg for his life he could've spoken.
"That feeling like it's being ripped out of your chest and there's not a thing you can do about it?" Aspen continued as her claws got closer to the vital organ, she could feel it thumping with terror. "Is that feeling sinking in yet? When you realise that this moment might actually be it— and you start to think about all the people you can never say goodbye to, how you'll never see them again?!"
Aspen's own eyes began to well up, she was focusing on the rage and revenge, she wanted to make Theo feel what she felt, she wanted to inflict the same pain on him that he had to her, but to do that, a part of her had to relive it all herself.
"This is how you've made me feel for months!" Aspen yelled as she noticed Theo beginning to cough up blood, his eyes trickling with tears of pain and defeat. "This is how I felt every single day alone in that cell— being someone's science experiment!"
"Pl—" Theo choked as blood coughed up from his lips, "Please..."
"If I let you live—" Aspen whispered, tears welling up her eyes even though she shared no remorse for the boy, "then I'll never get to know peace, Theo..."
She looked into his eyes, seeing the pleading and desperation in them, but she shook her head, pursing her lips, her hand wrapping around his heart, making his mouth fall open in response to the agony.
"And personally," she whispered, "I think I deserve to know what peace feels like..."
With his heart in her hands, Aspen didn't waste any more time before ripping her hand out of his chest—his heart along with it.
Allison's mind was snapped out of the vision once she watched Aspen rip out Theo Raeken's heart and toss it aside.
It was in that moment— that something clicked, and a new found purpose was triggered.
Allison then truly began to realise how different she felt, as she blinked out of the lifelike vision and was back in that coffin, surrounding by nothing but black. She suddenly felt the blood in her veins change, she felt a new-found sense of power running through her.
Allison then used her newly heightened, borderline-supernatural strength to break open the lid of her coffin with the palms of her hands.
The Argent huntress gasped for breath as all the dirt buried on top of her fell into the coffin, suffocating her even more so.
She quickly managed to climb herself out of the coffin, but became more engulfed by the six feet of dirt piled on top of her.
It took a few minutes—but Allison eventually climbed herself out of that grave, until she felt the nip of the cold November air on the flesh of her hand that had just sprung up from beneath the dirt-filled grave.
Once the formerly-dead huntress had finally climbed her entire body out of the grave, she gasped for a true breath. For a few moments, she just stayed still as she barely processed what the hell was going on— she just breathed, in and out, she breathed.
She also dusted all the dirt off of her body, looking down and finding she was still dressed in the same clothes she died in— including the army green jacket and the fingerless leather huntress gloves.
And then finally after a few minutes of long, heavy breaths, Allison realised where she was and what she'd just done. She looked around and was surrounded by grave stones— turned around to hers, and realised she just climbed out of it.
She was alive.
Allison swallowed heavily, her eyes wide as she turned to look at one grave stone in particular— her own.
ALLISON ARGENT
1994 - 2011
DAUGHTER SISTER FRIEND SAVIOUR
"We protect those who cannot protect themselves."
All the memories suddenly came flooding back— her life, her death, everything in between.
Allison crouched beside her own grave, delicately caressing the marble stone with the palm of her hand, reading the epitaph over and over again.
And then she shakily whispered aloud— "How am I here..."
And just like that— she was snapped into a new vision, a flashback.
"I know you and I never had the pleasure of meeting, Allison," said a boy who Allison recognised from the vision she'd seen a matter of moments ago— Theo Raeken— "but I'm here to change that..."
Theo placed the syringe down on the dirty ground, and began digging up Allison Argent's grave.
Once he was finally done, and he saw the wooden coffin come into his sight, he brushed away the rest of the dirt until he could open it. And when he did—he smiled as he saw the pale-skinned, deceased huntress's body.
"Here we go..." Theo said with a dark tone of voice, bending down to pick up Allison's body and take it out of the grave, and rest it on the ground.
Once he had the dead girl's body laid out on her back on the grass, Theo laughed in a very villain-like manner as he stood up, looking down at her. He then bent down to pick up the syringe filled with the life-reviving fluid, and walked back over to the deceased body.
"I'm sure you've heard all about me, Allison." Theo chuckled, preparing the syringe for injection, "But allow me to formally introduce myself— I'm Theo, the guy who's about to give you your life back..."
He then took the needle of the syringe—line it up with the flesh on Allison's neck— and injected her with it. He took a step back, and waited. He waited for the gasp of air, he waited for those lifeless eyes to open again.
He waited almost a minute—and nothing happened.
"That's weird..." Theo murmured, "must be because you've been dead for so long..."
He then crouched back down beside her, took the syringe—and injected her for a second time, thinking surely now that would do the trick. He stood back, hovering over her lifeless body, waited for the gasp of breath—which again, never came.
"What the hell..." Theo murmured, starting to get angry again, as he took the device and injected her for a third time—and a fourth, and a fifth.
Allison's body remained lifeless, despite how hard Theo tried.
"Why isn't it working!" Theo grumbled, his jaw hardening as the smug and victorious smile was wiped off his face in an instant.
The vision then cut to Theo giving up on the revival of the huntress, burying her back in the grave and returning the scene to the way he found it—and he walked away, thinking the whole thing had been a wasted effort and a failure.
Allison blinked again, and the vision was over, she was back crouched beside her grave, her puzzled expression slowly fading as some things started to piece together.
And then it started to get even weirder.
Allison could hear things she shouldn't have been able to hear— she was not a werewolf, she hadn't been bitten, but she could hear the rustling of someone hurrying through the woods— and she could hear sniffles of crying mixed with panicked breaths.
Allison felt an instinct kicking in to hide—she headed for the closest tree, standing back to back to it as she breathed in and out heavily with cloudy confusion, still not having really let it set in that she was back.
She was alive.
As the rusting of footsteps through the twigs and leaves got closer— Allison began to sense something familiar about the sniffled crying.
The huntress stealthfully peered her head around the trunk of the tree she was hid behind—and then she saw it.
Aspen Bellator was dragging Theo Raeken's dead body through the woods— and a few moments later, began digging a hole.
That was when the cloudy confusion disappeared, and Allison's mind had never felt so clear.
Because she only had one thought running through her mind in that moment, as she watched Aspen Bellator bury Theo Raeken.
He's the one that gave me my life back.
From there on out, everything became so clear. Allison's gaze on Aspen from the distance she stood at behind the three transformed into a glare.
The only thing Allison felt in that moment— and for every moment that would follow for the next eleven years— was a need to avenge Theo Raeken, the one who gave her her life back.
She wasn't in control of it at all— the burning sense of loyalty that sparked inside of her.
It was a blind loyalty, one that couldn't ever be reasoned with.
Allison had all of her memories— every last one of them. Every hug, every conversation, every heartfelt moment she had ever shared with Aspen Bellator.
But the burning, blind sense of loyalty that had suddenly ignited inside of her was more powerful— so powerful, that she simply didn't care about all of those memories.
All she could think about— was that she died over a year ago, and while she had assured Aspen in her last breaths that everything was okay, and that she hadn't been scared— the truth was that she obviously was never ready to die.
She was seventeen.
And when she took her final breath on the old battlefield of Oak Creek, she truly thought it would be the last one she ever took on this earth.
But now? Thanks to Theo Raeken— she had her life back.
She owed him. She owed him the revenge he never got.
And because Theo had thought the Dread Doctor's revival serum hadn't worked? Because he injected her with it more than five times the necessary dosage? Allison was back, and equally— if not stronger— than a supernatural creature.
She possessed practically every power a werewolf did, minus claws and fangs. She had heightened senses like hearing and vision. She had a supernaturally altered strength, and a heightened speed.
Allison Argent would now be at an equal measure with any of them in a fight.
Allison glanced over at her grave as she stood behind the tree, her eye catching a glimpse of something silver and shiny, and she was pretty sure she knew what it was.
She glanced back at the scene that had ignited this inexplicable sense of revenge inside her, and noticed Aspen was far too engulfed in what she had just done to notice what was happening on the other side of the preserve.
Allison crept back to her grave, dug her arm inside and picked up the silver arrow she had noticed seconds prior. She also picked up something else she noticed— her bow.
They had buried her with her bow and arrow.
Allison stood up straight, her bow in one hand and her arrow in the other, as she watched in the distance as Aspen dumped Theo's body into the grave she'd just spent all this time digging.
Any emotion Allison ever used to feel for Aspen Bellator was wiped away, replaced with a need to kill.
Allison inserted her silver arrow into her bow, and pointed the head of the weapon at Aspen's head.
The huntress pulled back on the string of the weapon, about to release it and fire the fatal shot— when she suddenly lowered the weapon, deciding against the attack.
It was then that she devised the very first part of her plan.
She would wait.
Because the best revenge was not something to be rushed.
The best revenge had to be enacted when the target of your vengeance has everything to loose.
Kicking a person while they're already down? Barely worth it.
But taking down someone who had finally clawed their way through blood, sweat and tears to the top? Someone who finally got the life they always wanted, someone who has absolutely everything in their life to lose?
That was when revenge tasted the sweetest.
So Allison Argent would hide in the shadows, she would sit quietly and bide her time—waiting.
She would keep an eye on Aspen, she would watch her as she entered new phases of her life.
She was there, lurking in the shadows when Aspen took her first step into Harvard University.
She was there when she became friends Josephine Steel.
She was there when things started to go south for her and Stiles, and she was there when Aspen started to turn her life around with the help of Jordan Hayes.
She would build up her strength— which she soon found out came from killing supernaturals. It's what earned her the infamous reputation of the faceless Manhattan Murderer.
She would devise a team: a team of those capable enough to help her take down Aspen Bellator. A team that would consist of trained hunters and assassins— all of which would share an axe to grind against their target.
A team that would all share a motive of revenge: Avery Drake, Raven Chaseusse, and she herself would be the mastermind behind it all.
And eleven years later, it was finally time.
Aspen finally had a life to lose. And Allison was going to be the one to rip it all away—
All because of Aspen's worst enemy she ever made— Theo goddamn Raeken.
Aspen never thought about it again after that night, or mentioned it to a single soul— but that night in the woods? She had felt like she was being watched.
But she just pinned it down to a guilty conscience— she thought it made sense to feel like a pair of eyes were burning into the back of her skull whilst she quite literally had somebody's blood all over the palms of her hands.
Who knows what would've happened if Aspen had just turned around that night.
And if she never killed Theo Raeken in the first place?
Well... let's just say a lot of things would've never happened...
//
well then....
hefty authors note incoming
to those of you who managed to guess it was allison all along and it was linked to theo's injection, good on you guys ✊
also not to be cocky motherfucker and toot my own horn but... can we pls appreciate that i started setting up this plot TWO books in advance? 🤭
some of you knew me too well to know that i would never write a scene like that and then sweep it under the rug as if it never happened...
anyway, i hope the way this chapter isn't written in a confusing way, but in case it is — i'm gonna put it in very simple terms to clear up any confusion.
allison is basically sired to theo.
so it is technically her doing all this, but the 'blind loyalty' she feels towards avenging his death is out of her control. aspen killing theo is what triggered her to come back to life because she's basically a weapon of revenge. she's 'sired' to him because he's the reason she's alive again.
and the serum he used to try and revive her is basically a marvel super serum situation— she's not technically supernatural but she has heightened strength and stuff (and is obviously a trained hunter)
also 2 days until the teen wolf movie 😫😫 (i'm from the uk so it doesn't come out til Friday here annoyingly)
i am excited to see allison kick fucking ass and that is it. well, excited to see scott and lydia too, but mainly the wife.
anywho, that is it from me, next chapter is also a flashback but it's much less dark trust me