The Art of Disappearing
In his dreams, there was a man waiting for him in the house of his grandfather. He didn't look threatening at all. He was lanky, almost a bit too thin to be called healthy. His face was obscured by mist, but his hands were open in greeting.
He looked familiar. As he walked around the room, his pace was fast and hectic. When he came back to where Stiles was seated, he held a chess board in his hands.
So they played.
The man talked, but Stiles couldn't see his lips moving. His hands were ash-grey as he made the first move. But his figures were black.
"I am what keeps the nightmares away," the man said.
As if to accentuate the truth of his statement, a blood-curdling scream tore through the night, raising goosebumps all over Stiles' skin. The scream was deafened by the walls of the house, which meant that the screamer was outside. This suspicion was confirmed when someone knocked frantically on the window while wailing loudly.
"You're the one who inflicted me with them in the first place," Stiles countered, making his first move on the board.
The chess pieces had names written on them. They were engraved on the side. Stiles could have sworn that each piece had a different face, a face he was well acquainted with.
His opponent's chess pieces were faceless, just like himself.
"I do what I have to do," the faceless man replied.
"You tried to kill me!"
The walls started to ooze red fluid. The desperate wailing continued while the house shook and the windows rattled. Footsteps were coming closer.
"I did what I had to do."
Distracted by everything that was happening around him, Stiles walked away from the game. The knocking on the windows became frantic as the frames already showed cracks from the force. Whoever was out there wanted to come inside.
"Who's out there? Why can't they come in?"
The faceless man inhaled sharply.
"I do prefer the company of the living. Ghosts just remind me of all the things that could've been."
He turned to look at the window but he made no move to open it. His voice sounded wistful.
"I would not open the door if I were you," the man warned Stiles, who had walked closer to the door. The teenager's arm was outstretched toward the doorknob. His indecisiveness was obvious by the way his fingers were shaking.
Scratches appeared on the wooden walls as if they were just made by an angry animal. Stiles put his hand next to one and compared the size of the scratches with his fingers. It fit. He retracted his hand as fast as if he had been slapped. The fire in the fireplace flickered and then dimmed. Shadowy figures were dancing over the walls, but a living body was nowhere to be seen. The stinging pain in his hand was only apparent in the back of his mind. Instead, his focus was directed at the bodyless creature which was slowly stalking towards him.
***
A wistful sigh escaped Isaac's lips while his hand kept on mechanically brushing Erica's hair. The blonde girl rolled her eyes at him.
"I can feel you pining. Stop it," she said.
They were sitting on Erica's bed, doing each other's hair. Isaac already had about a dozen pins in his so now it was Erica's turn.
"I'm not pining! You better stop sulking. You're killing the mood."
Erica's brows drew together in a scowl.
"It's Friday night, we are young and free, and yet here we are. Sitting alone at home, braiding each other's hair."
Other girls her age were probably out in some club, dancing and flirting with strangers so that they had another story to share with their best friends. Strong, powerful girls who relied on each other, and broke hearts instead of the having their hearts broken.
"Danny asked me if I wanted to go to 'the Jungle' with him, but I said no," Isaac said. He earned a slap on the thigh for that remark.
"What is wrong with you!" Erica hissed. "When a cute boy asks you to go out, you say yes!"
"So you think he's cute?"
Erica huffed. "No, I think he's hideous. That's probably why every gay guy gets moony-eyed over him." She threw a pillow at her friend. "He's not Scott. That's your problem. You know perfectly well that he is attractive, nice and smart. And interested in you. But you're too hung up on McCall to even give him a chance!"
Isaac looked to the ground, a grimace showing on his face. "Am I that obvious?"
Erica snorted. "Everyone knows. Except for Scott, that is. If he had realized, he would have let you down easy. He's nice like that."
Affronted, Isaac lept up and threw the hairbrush onto the bed. "What makes you so sure he would reject me, huh? You can't know that!"
"I just know. You have eyes, Isaac. That's why you haven't confessed to him yet. You know as well as me that he's still in love with Allison. If there ever comes a time when he won't love her anymore, then, yeah, maybe you'd have a chance. But right now? There's no way. You are too good to be someone's second choice, you know that, right?"
For a moment, it seemed Isaac wanted to argue, but then he closed his mouth and looked away. A few seconds later, he sat back down on the bed so that Erica could rest her head on his shoulder. One half of her hair was put together in a beautiful braid, the other half fell in waves over her shoulder.
"You could be one of them if you tried, you know?" Isaac said.
"One of who?"
"Of the girls. You're one too, after all."
A humourless laugh escaped the blonde girl's lips. "Oh my gosh, Isaac, you have no idea how girls work. Not even a clue. You can't just hang out with them because you are members of the same sex. You have to spin intrigues about them first and bring them down. Then, maybe, if you're lucky, they'll become your best friends."
Isaac looked at her as if girls were a beautiful, exotic insect that he had never seen before. He was obviously fascinated, but at the same time, he was scared that they were lethal.
"I've never before been so glad that I preferred boys," he muttered. The only thing he regretted a little was the fact that the first kiss he had ever shared with a boy had been with Jackson. Just the thought of it made him want to rinse his mouth.
"You're thinking about kissing Jackson again, aren't you?" Erica chuckled.
"He uses too much tongue for my taste."
They laughed, rolling around on her bed. In all honesty, she didn't feel like she needed a female best friend. Sometimes, she felt like she should have one, but then, Isaac proved to be the best friend she could wish for, and just like that, she was content with her situation again. His scent was comforting and familiar to her. Tracking may not be her strength, but she knew that she would be able to trace his steps 3 weeks after he had left. She would be able to smell him on her hairbrush and know that he had loved to brush her hair using his left hand. Traces of his scent would cling to that one shelf in the library, where she knew his favourite book was shelved. What she especially loved was the blend of both their scents. It smelled like Christmas, late movie evenings, funny adventures, warm hugs. It smelled like family.
She also loved Boyd's scent, but in a different way. While Isaac's was a comforting, trust-worthy pillar of support, Boyd's scent was a steady, challenging path. She discovered new notes every once in a while because it was not easy to break through another layer of his scent. Boyd was quiet and laid back but he was also strong, enduring and fierce underneath it all. While she was brash, he was thoughtful, while she was fiery, he was stoic. They balanced each other out.
It had taken Erica a long time to figure out that she was in love with him because she had searched for love in the wrong places. He had been there for her nonetheless. Never expecting anything in return. Realising that she loved him was slipping and landing on a soft mattress. It had certainly taken her for a spin, but the impact was not at all painful.
Before she could contemplate her love-life, a pillow hit her in the face. Feathers were slowly sailing through the air. Werewolf-strength was no match for a pillow, it seemed.
"You're making 'the eyes' again. It's sickening," Isaac teased. The expression she was apparently wearing whenever she was thinking about Boyd had been dubbed 'the eyes' by Isaac. He claimed that her brown eyes became all gooey. She didn't believe him.
"But, putting the jokes aside, I'm really glad that you're no longer hung up on Derek," Isaac admitted. At the reminder of that embarrassing part of her life, Erica grimaced. It was the first time Isaac had dared to talk about her silly crush on their Alpha.
"Please, it took me like half an hour to get over him."
Isaac raised his eyebrows. "You really changed your tune. I thought you would challenge Stiles for a fight over him. And actually, you kind of did, didn't you?"
"I spent too much time around boys," Erica shook her head at herself. "Only a boy would think that you could win a person's heart through the victory of a challenge. But, yes, I did think that. But that's all in the past now."
"How did you do it?" Isaac asked, curious. "You make it seem so easy. Like heartbreak is nothing but a mosquito bite to you. Don't you ever lie awake at night, thinking about all the could-bes and all the what-ifs?"
Since their conversation had turned serious again, Erica decided that it could only be continued with hot chocolate. She told him as much and together they made their way to the kitchen.
****
“You’re scared of what’s outside,” Stiles said, his face lightening up with the realization. “Whatever it is, you don’t want to face it. It’s your weakness.”
The faceless man had gotten up as well and stood with his back to Stiles and the door. He was on the other end of the cabin. The air around him had changed somehow. Before, it had been like mist; heavy, mysterious and cold. Now it seemed that the fog had lifted and it was eerily still with only darkness surrounding.
The only thing visible now was the shadow of the creature that was slowly creeping towards the door.
Stiles was watching it out of the corner of his eyes, thinking that if he didn't, the thing would attack immediately.
"Don't be scared of the shadow. It has no body," the man suddenly said. "Be scared of what follows him."
Stiles thought that was very generic advice but he didn't dare to disregard it at the moment.
The wailing had stopped without Stiles noticing. He only noticed when the silence was once again disturbed.
A knock.
Whimpering.
It sounded small and distraught. Like a child having a nightmare.
Stiles once again reached for the door handle. Just as he was about to turn it, someone had forcefully pulled him backwards. His hand scraped the rough wood of the door painfully.
He fought against what was holding him back. Surprisingly, the figure behind him was bony and weak so it was considerably easy to throw it off. The teenager got hold of the door handle and turned it. The door then flew open. Before he could take in completely who stood before him, a body came crashing towards him.
Instinctively, he reached out to catch it. But he was not fast enough.
The scrawny, ash-grey body of a child lay curled up before him. The whimpering rose to a tremendous wave of sound, overpowering him, forcing him to his knees. He was clutching his ears in an attempt to shield himself.
But a piercing scream tore through this barrier and resonated achingly in his head. Through the pain, he registered a name. Someone was screaming a name. A woman. She addressed a part of Stiles with it that must have been dormant for years. Like an animal awakened too early from hibernation, it roared full of fury inside of him. It tore at his soul with its sharp teeth, uncaring of what it was destroying.
It was awake now and it wanted to live.
The child looked at Stiles with sunken eyes. One was milky, the other was brown. His cheekbones were protruding from his face almost more than his little nose was.
The boy opened his mouth as if to say something so Stiles leaned closer. What did he need? What was wrong with him? How could he help? The teenager hoped the boy would be able to tell him.
But not one word left his lips. Instead, they became stained with blood as it flew out of him in a fountain of red.
Forgotten was the name the woman had called him. All Stiles saw in front of him was Ray.
Ray, vulnerable, sick and with one foot already in the grave.
"What have you done?" the faceless man whispered, his eyes locked on the child. Though faceless, the shock was clearly apparent in his expression. "What have you done?" He repeated the sentence until it went from a pitiful whisper to a cry of anguish. The man's fury ran so hotly, it began to burn the walls. The floor was molten caramel in which Stiles was slowly sinking. The sweet scent wafted through the air for a short time, then all he could smell was smoke and ash. The world around him was engulfed in flames, then everything disappeared.
****
They basically had the whole Hale House to themselves tonight. Peter was supposed to be somewhere in the house but he was just a ghost to them; at night, he was alive but no one was bothered by him. Everyone else was out. Derek, Cora, Laura and Malia had a family thing, Lydia spent the night out partying, Jackson had a family dinner, the same with Boyd. Well, and Scott and Allison were on a date. Or something along those lines. Scott still kept up with his self-made promise to put Stiles before her. He was suffering because of it just as Allison was but he was loyal to his best friend nonetheless. It would have been admirable if his heartbroken demeanour weren't so insufferable.
That left Erica and Isaac almost alone on a Friday night during the Christmas holidays.
Lea who was staying at the Hale House, for the time being, was meeting someone as well.
Having the house to themselves, the two teenagers turned up some music as they made themselves hot chocolate. Isaac was rummaging around in the pantry, looking for some left-over Christmas cookies. As soon as he had found the good ones, they grabbed the tray and were about to head back upstairs.
An unexpected noise halted them in their steps.
The two werewolves looked at each other, alerted now. Someone new was in the house. As they listened closely, they could make out another heartbeat. One beating very erratically.
Isaac had doubts but Erica's eyebrows were drawn together in defiance. She knew that they would've heard had someone entered the house through the door even with the music on. There had been no additional heartbeat before they had gone downstairs so there was no way they would have missed an intruder being on the same floor.
Isaac whipped his head in the direction of the bathroom. The heartbeat was most prominent there so the intruder must be in the bathroom.
The tray with the food was put aside as the betas made their way to the bathroom door. Erica closed her hand around the doorknob, listening for a sound that would indicate if the intruder was moving. The only thing she could hear was their heartbeat and their irregular breathing.
The scent was putting her off as well. It was so familiar but there was a bitter and strange undertone to it that ruined any chance of recognition.
In one fluid movement, Erica opened the door and stepped into the bathroom, her claws ready to attack.
She almost lost her footing.
"Oh my god," she said breathlessly.
Isaac was just as bewildered as she was.
Standing in front of the sink, dressed in only pyjamas and barefoot, stood Stiles. As if their presence had cut off the strings holding him up, he sank to the floor.
His eyes were open but dazed.
He looked straight through them.
Erica offered him a hand, which he took hesitantly. His hands were shaking. He was as white as a sheet, with eyes taking in his surroundings in a frenzy. It appeared that he too had no idea how he managed to get here.
After guiding the confused teenager to the living room, they forced him to sit on the couch and drink a glass of water.
Having Stiles stay at the Hale House was nothing out of the ordinary. Him appearing out of thin air when he was supposed to spend the night at his father's house, however, was.
Then they waited for an explanation which never came.
Stiles, instead, was focused on his hand. There was a wooden splinter embedded in his palm.