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He watches from behind a nearby tree as his best friend get reprimanded by Sheriff Stilinski for being so foolish as to come out here tonight before sending him home with a disappointed sigh as he likely wondered where he’d gone wrong with that boy. What sort of teenager would even be interested in sneaking out on a school night to come body hunting in the woods? It’s not exactly an unfair question, and is one that Scott very quickly begins asking himself once he realizes he’s been left to find his own way back. Still, it’s far more interesting an activity than anything he would have come up with. Of their little duo, Stiles has always been the one who seeks out opportunity. He’s also the one always getting them into trouble.
Scott- too wrapped up in watching his step- never sees the creature coming. It’s probably for the best; there would have been nothing he could have done even if he had. With a sudden force, the air is wrenched from his lungs and he goes crashing down the hill until his body comes to a stop somewhere pinned against the forest floor by a beast with dark fur. It’s too dark to tell, but from the size of it he thinks it must be a bear. Whatever it is, there isn’t even enough time to flinch before it rips its teeth into the space where his shoulder meets his neck. The bite tears through flesh and muscle until Scott is sure that the sharp fangs have crunched straight through into his bone marrow. As if injected with some sort of poison, the pain from that spot reverberates through him until his entire body feels molten; like his organs are melting inside of him. As quickly as the beast appears, it’s gone. It doesn’t grant Scott even a modicum of relief. He can still feel it watching him. Listening. Waiting for something that Scott couldn’t even begin to understand.
When he finally gathers back his breath it’s to scream in agony; it comes out a blistering roar that tears at his vocal chords and sounds foreign to his own ears. He hardly hears it over the sound of the ringing- so loud that he feels like his head might burst. With it come the sudden and overwhelming smells- the grass, the mossy air, just a little further away is someone’s cologne, the blood of a fresh kill- which fill him with a wave of nausea, and he has to turn himself over so as not to choke on his own vomit- the smell of which burns at his nostrils and only makes him more nauseous. When the sound of ringing finally begins to fade away seconds or hours later (both feel like an impossible eternity) it’s replaced by an overwhelming sensitivity. Each chirping bird, snapping twig, and rustling leaf hits him like a buckshot. He raises both hands to cover them only to wince away as newly formed claws dig into skin as easily as knives. His ears perk, focusing in on one sound above the chaos. It’s his mother’s voice, gentle and assuaging, but he’s in too much pain to understand what she’s saying. He tries to call out for her but the words don’t form. It’s as if his mouth is no longer capable of moving to form the syllables. He cuts his tongue on newly sharpened teeth. He realizes that his mother isn’t here. He’s alone. He’s hallucinating. He must be.
Like a frightened child, he tries to make himself small by curling into himself; it’s a mistake he quickly comes to regret when he feels his hips pop out of place and shift with a sickening crack as he pulls his legs inward. His ankles pop and rapidly expand, pulling the skin taut over newly formed bone. Downward, each individual bone in his feet break and stretch inside his shoes until the tattered material violently explodes off of him. His arms are soon to follow. He has to look away so as not to throw up again; the forceful gagging rips away the flesh of his vocal chords until the act feels strange and foreign in his newly shaped throat. His legs break, dissolve, and take new shape that doesn’t quite fit until that newly loose skin begins to melt away like putty. His knees look like they’re twisted backward. He has the excruciating feeling that his body may be falling into pieces inside of him. All he can do is twitch and writhe and whine as his body begins to rip itself apart. He can feel his vertebrae pop and shift one by one. He stops crying only when his tear ducts take a new shape which no longer allows it.
He throws his head back and howls.