[INTO THE WOODS]
"the childhood I lost,
replaced by fear"
song: true faith - Ashley Johnson
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Aaliyah sat on her bed holding back tears as she watched her father drive away through her window. It was the day before the first day of her sophomore spring semester and he had to leave, he had found a job. He was going to New York to hunt a group of unidentified supernatural beings that had been terrorizing midtown Manhattan. He was hired by some rich guy Aaliyah had never heard of. He had gone on business trips before, both for hunting and his day job, a firearm engineer. But this one would be extra-long and extra-dangerous. Plus, Aaliyah hated being left alone with her mother.
Her brother Liam had no knowledge of their parents true jobs. No one ever told him of the supernatural, mostly due to Aaliyah's protectiveness over him and not wanting him to know. When her parents told her, Aaliyah was only 11, much younger than most hunters start, but she had figured out a large part of it on her own through her own snooping. Once her parents knew she knew they told her, and the next week began her training.
Her father, Nicolas Dunbar, taught Aaliyah how to use every weapon he owned, shotguns, hand guns, pistols, automatic guns, arrows, knives, hand-to-hand combat, even nun-chucks and swords. Aaliyah preferred hand guns and knives, but she was good at anything he showed her. The only thing that worried her was the thought that constantly lived in the back of the mind: when he finds out about her, will he kill her?
Part of her knew that her father loved her more than anything, even her brother. But she also knew that he hated the supernatural. She wasn't entirely sure why he hated them so much, she guessed someone he cared about had been killed by a werewolf, he had hinted to it but never told her directly.
Now Aaliyah watched as he left. He left her alone with her mother, and she was pretty mad at him. Before he left he hugged her and told her he loved her, he did the same for Liam. Even after his truck was out of the driveway and was out of sight she still stayed on the same spot on her bed, too upset to move.
Once it grew dark she heard a knock on her window. At first she ignored it writing it off as a tree branch hitting the house until it happened again. Then heard two unintelligible voices of some boys. She walked to the window and opened it revealing her two best friends: Scott and Stiles. They stopped arguing and their heads snapped towards the girl as she opened the window.
Scott was almost like a brother to Aaliyah. He always let her stay over at his house when Aaliyah got in to fights with her mom, which was fairly often. Scott was a safe place for her, they always took care of each other.
Stiles was the sheriff's son. Although Aaliyah loved Scott she loved Stiles a bit more. There had always been something special there, even though she never noticed it. Stiles did, but he kept quiet about it fearing he might be wrong. The only person Aaliyah cared about more than her friends was her brother.
"What are you guys doing here? It's almost midnight." Aaliyah asked looking out of the window.
"They found a body in the woods." Stiles informed his friend rubbing his hand over his buzz cut.
"So?" Aaliyah voiced scrunching her eyebrows together confused.
"We're gonna go look for it." Scott spoke from behind Stiles.
"How do they know there's a body in the woods if they haven't found it yet?" The girl asked pushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
"That's the best part," Stiles smiled, "They only found half of the body!"
"Gross!" Aaliyah cringed looking back into her room trying to decided if she was gonna go with them or not. "Which half?" She turned back to her friends.
"Uh, I didn't think about that." Stiles admitted. "So, are you coming?" He asked hoping she would come.
"I don't know. What if we do find it? Couldn't that be like, traumatizing?" Aaliyah wondered.
"Who cares! You have to come it'll be no fun without you!" Stiles pleaded.
"Fine." Aaliyah gave in. She ran to put on her black converse. Before leaving she made sure to a grab a knife and slide it in her pants and climbed out the window to join her friends.
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The three drove to Beacon Hills preserve in Stiles' blue jeep. Which was pretty beat up and broken but he refused to get rid of it. It had been his moms before she died.
"Are we seriously doing this?" Scott asked as they got out of the car. His red hoodie sleeves went slightly past his hands. Aaliyah ran up from the back of the jeep next to Stiles.
"You're the one always bitching that nothing ever happens in this town." Stiles said shinning his flashlight in front of them. They walked ahead of Scott into the woods.
"I was trying to get a good nights sleep before practice tomorrow." Scott complained jogging to catch up with his two friends.
"Right, 'cause sitting on the bench is such a grueling effort." Stiles joked in his usual sarcastic tone.
"No, because I'm playing this year. In fact, I'm making first line." Scott insisted, overly confident in his lacrosse skills.
"Hey, that the spirit!" Aaliyah cheered sarcastically. She stayed close to Stiles' side, her hand near her knife as she was slightly scared of the woods at night. Especially since there could a murder walking around them. Not that she couldn't handle anything that came at them, but she'd rather not. And she could never tell Scott or Stiles her families secret, and especially not her secret.
"Everyone should have a dream, even a pathetically unrealistic one." Stiles continued to make fun of Scott's lacrosse skills. Not that he was any better. Arguably he could be worse.
A branch cracked and echoed through the woods. As soon as it reached her ears Aaliyah jumped to grab Stiles' arm getting as close to him as she could. Stiles looked down her. "You okay?" He laughed slightly
"Fine, totally fine." She said still not letting go of him as they continued further into the woods. She slightly eye'd her knife making sure it was still there.
"You look scared." Scott said.
"Yeah, well there's a dead girl in the woods which means someone must've killed her right? So there's possibly a murderer walking around out here with us!" Aaliyah gave a reason for her jumpiness.
"I didn't even think about that." Stiles said as the approached a small but steep hill. "You're gonna have to let go of me so we can climb this." He looked down at his friend secretly wishing she didn't have to let go.
"Right, yeah." Aaliyah hesitantly let go of him but still stayed close.
"It's comforting to know you planned this out with your usual attention to detail." Scott said from behind them was they climbed the hill.
"I know." Stiles groaned.
"Maybe the severe asthmatic should be the one holding the flashlight, huh?" Scott suggested leaning up against a tree still only halfway up the hill. He pulled out his inhaler and used it. The three of them ran up behind a branch and fell down on their stomachs to see the police looking around about a hundred feet or so in front of them. Stiles turned off his flashlight so they didn't find them.
"Hey, come on!" Stiles jumped up grabbing Aaliyah's hand and pulling her with him while he ran towards the police. An idiot move for someone who's dad was the sheriff.
"Stiles!" Scott called for them taking another breath from his inhaler. He ran after his friends that were far ahead of him.
Stiles kept his grip on Aaliyah's hand while he looked back for Scott. "Hey, Stiles!" Aaliyah began to warn him about the police dog he was about to run into but she wasn't fast enough. He turned around as the dog barked at him and he fell to the ground letting go of her hand.
"Hold it right there!" The cop with the dog yelled. The teens held up their hands to cover their eyes from the light.
"Hang on, hang on!" Sheriff Stilinski shouted from behind the cop. "This little delinquent belongs to me." He said. "And his friend too." He added once he saw her. Aaliyah gave him a small smile and wave. Sheriff Stilinski was always nice to her. He waved back. Stiles stood up.
"Dad, how are you doing?"
"So, do you, uh, listen in to all of my phone calls?" Stiles' dad asked him.
"No." Stiles shook his head. "Not the boring ones."
"Now, where's you're usual partner in crime?" Stilinski looked around for Scott.
"Who, Scott? Scott's home." Stiles lied. "He said he wanted to get a good nights sleep for the first day back at school tomorrow. It's just us. In the woods."
Stilinski shined his light around. "Scott, you out there?" He shouted not believing his son. For good reason. "Scott?" Stiles and Aaliyah looked back for him too. "Well, I'm gonna walk you two back to your car." The sheriff sighed. He grabbed the back of Stiles' neck. "And you and I are gonna have a conversation about something called invasion of privacy."
Aaliyah looked back to see if Scott was there but she had to hurry up and leave before she was able to see him. She listened for him instead using the heightened senses she had. She usually tried to refrain from using her abilities when she could, but this was important. She closed her eyes and focused on him. She heard him whisper 'damn' then heard foot steps letting her know he was okay and she left.
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Aaliyah walked up to the entrance of the school seeing her friends talking by the stairs. "That is awesome!" Stiles laughed. "I mean, this seriously gonna be the best thing that's happened to this town since... the birth of Aaliyah Dunbar." Aaliyah heard Stiles say when she ran up to her friends standing outside the school.
"What's the best thing that happened?" She asked ignoring Stiles' comment about her.
"Scott found the body!" Stiles laughed.
"What? Really!" Aaliyah asked.
"Yes. Right before I got attacked by a bunch of animals and got this." Scott lifted up his shirt revealing a gauze bandage covering a bloody wound on his side.
"Are you okay?" Aaliyah asked concerned for her friend. A thought crossed her mind of the possibility of what it could be from, werewolf being a prominent one. She pushed the thoughts away with the more realistic answer of literally any other animal. Like a coyote, deer, or mountain lion.
"I'm gonna have nightmares for a month, but, yeah I'm fine." Scott said just as the bell rang and the three walked into school.
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"As you all know, there indeed was a body found in the woods last night." The teacher spoke as he wrote something on the board. Scott, Stiles, and Aaliyah exchanged looks. "And I'm sure your eager little minds are coming up with various macabre scenarios as to what happened. But I am here to tell you that the police have a suspect in custody," Aaliyah looked at Stiles who just shrugged not knowing anything about any suspect. "Which means you can give your undivided attention to the syllabus which is on your desk outlining this semester."
Someone's phone rang and Aaliyah noticed Scott flinch like a loud noise happened. Her and Scott were both looking around the room for someone to pull out a phone. It wasn't rare that Aaliyah would accidentally listen in on people conversations or hear a phone call from across the school, so she didn't think much of it. But Scott never had.
"Mom, three calls on my first day is a little overdoing it." They both heard the voice of a girl. Aaliyah looked out the window to see a beautiful brunette girl search through her bag as she talked to her mom. She knew she should block her out and stop listening but she had such a mesmerizing voice she wanted to listen to her talk all day. So she kept listening.
"Everything except a pen. Oh, my god, I didn't actually forget a pen. Okay, okay. I gotta go. Love you." The girl hung up her phone as the principal walked up to her. Aaliyah kept her gaze out the window on the girl. Her long dark hair falling down her shoulders over the scarf she wore, her soft smile as the principle walked her into the school, she was the prettiest girl Aaliyah had every seen.
"Sorry to keep you waiting." The principal apologized to her and lead her in. "So you were saying San Francisco isn't were you grew up?"
"No, but we lived there for more than a year, which is unusual in my family." She said.
"Well, hopefully Beacon Hills will be your last stop for a while." The girl and Principal entered the classroom. Aaliyah could hear her heart beating, which was oddly comforting. "Class, this is our new student, Allison Argent. Please do your best to make her feel welcome." She stood in front of the class the principal introduced her. Argent, Aaliyah thought the name sounded familiar but she wasn't sure where from. She had long brown wavy hair. She had a gray shirt, brown jacket, and blue scarf. She walked to the seat behind Aaliyah and sat down. Aaliyah had an idea thinking about the conversation the new girl had with her mom.
She grabbed an extra pen and turned back to give it Allison. She smiled and grabbed the pen. "Thanks." Aaliyah smiled back feeling an instant connection.
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