Chapter Text
Oh god, what.. happened?
Cody was covered in blood and his clothes were torn up, leaving patches of skin bare to the morning cold, all he could smell and taste was the metallic copper that lingered in the air and the corners of his mouth.
He didn’t even know what was worse, the amount of blood that stained his body.
Or the fact none of it was his own.
Well if the lack of pain and the body that laid only a couple of feet away from him was anything to go by.
..................
…Body?
Oh, oh god. Who was that? it looked like one of his classmates but his now freaked-out mind couldn’t put a name to the corpse, his mind was racing through every question that could be asked in this scenario.
Did I do this? There no way, it looks like an animal mauled her, who is- I didn’t- I couldn’t have-
With every added question it felt like a rope was tightening in his chest making it a struggle to breathe, he clutched at the tattered suit he was wearing with dirty blood-stained hands
Cody tried to grasp at the memories of last night, it was a party- homecoming, and Sierra had shown up talking about being his date even though he never even asked her out. And he needed to find some excuse to leave and Gwen was there and she was leaving so he offered to walk home with her- they walked the same route home anyway and..they..he…
he-
-Suddenly hunched over in pain, body burning under the pale moonlight peeking out from under the clouds.
Being a few steps ahead of the teen Gwen looked back at him, her face being one of concern at the sight of the hunching boy. “You.. alright Cody?” she reached her arm out but didn’t actually touch him.
“I don-” Cody’s response was cut-off by a accompanied by a loud crack that was accompanied by a pained cry that bordered between an animal’s and a human’s. The sound startled the goth as she took a step back and retracted her stretched arm, now feeling uneasy with whatever was happening.
Limbs shifted, and strikes of white-hot pain came in the cracking of joints and changing bones.
Everything seemed to blur with the change. Memories only came in terrible flashes.
Gwen’s attempt to run, seeing her once sort-of-friend now something monstrous.
But it was faster, wobbly, but much faster. Easily able to swipe at her even from the distance she’d managed to create.
She’d run to the woods nearby hoping to lose the monster between the trees, a mindless panicked decision when the houses were only a good couple of feet away. And it chased.
And god she tried- but it wouldn’t have mattered if she were wearing better shoes or was a school athlete, it was far too fast for any human.
Cody’s hands landed on his head and pulled and dug into his scalp with nails that shouldn’t have been long enough to do that considering his nail-biting habit.
He didn’t want to remember the
Screaming- she was screaming trying to push away- get away but the claws and teeth dug deep, the blood spilled fast and then she was dead
Gwen was dead, she was dead. Dead dead dead because of-
Cody felt sick, it was him but he wasn’t- he wasn’t it. He wasn’t that monster but...but the blood on his hands, his torn clothes-
It was whatever that thing he’d become.
Not him.
A wave of nausea struck and before he could do anything- a mix of dinner and stomach acid from hours ago spilled onto the dirt floor, now an even worse smell lingered in the air as it twirled and danced with the already present scent of death and blood, gross.
He couldn’t be here but he couldn’t just- go home, his parents would see, anyone could see him, they’d ask and what would he say- what could he say, that he turned into a monster and killed his best friend's girlfriend?
In the midst of his internal dilemma, Cody hadn’t even realized a third party had entered the scene until he heard the sound of a clearing throat.
He jumped in surprise and scooted away from the source of sound snapping his head towards the direction to see who it was.
“Noah?” The infamous know-it-all from school stood only a few feet away from the carnage, looking way too calm for the situation at hand.
What was he doing here? in the middle of the woods with not a hint of terror or fear on his face despite the sight that lay right in front of him. All that was actually present on the other boy’s expression was a slightly raised brow layered with disgust as the (slightly) taller boy had his nose pinched, clearly trying to avoid smelling the abhorrent stench in the air. All in all, a stark contrast to everything that was going on in Cody’s own frazzled mind.
“It’s- it's not what it looks like I was- I didn’t-” Cody stammered, trying to find some explanation for all of… this.
Noah sighed, exasperated before reaching to grab Cody’s arm and pull.
“Come on.” was all he said.
Confused all Cody could say was-
“What.”
Noah rolled his eyes, “I said, come on. Before someone else sees this.” He tugged a bit harder.
“But Gwen, she’s-”
“Dead, I can see that. Now we should go before somebody else sees that.” Noah had stopped pinching his nose now, clearly exasperated with Cody’s inability to move.
Cody finally stood up with the third tug, allowing Noah to finally pull the other along as he moved away from Gwen’s abandoned body.
The two had begun walking towards…. somewhere.
You know, the sky was actually a realllly nice shade of blue even with no sun to accompany it since it was still early in the AM, well it probably was at least. Cody would be enjoying it right now if the image of Gwen’s mauled body wasn’t haunting him in the back of his mind.
Soooo instead of letting those images push to the front, he will settle on putting his focus on the boy in front of him instead.
“...Hey dude, uh where are we going?” He didn’t know why, but he felt nervous. Maybe it was because the two had never really spoken before. (Or maybe because they were both walking away from a body.)
“My house, where else?” Noah turned his head slightly to look back at Cody and while he only turned his head for a moment to respond Cody had noticed something just, a little weird.
Noah had a sharp pair of teeth, that's not weird everyone has a pair of sharper teeth but.
Nobody he knows has sharp teeth that look like that, at least as far as Cody knew, but maybe this was all in his head.
“Oh, okay.” he didn't question that, he probably should have.
At this point, with how both his night had ended and how his morning had begun Cody didn’t see how this could get any worse.
Or weirder for that matter.