[BOOK 2] "𝙞 '𝙢 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙨𝙖𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪'𝙧𝙚 𝙡𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪'𝙧𝙚 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝."
As Junior Year begins, lies are unravelled, truths are revealed, and no one ever expects an angel to set the world on fire.
A...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"I'M not sure I know how to pronounce this... or if it's not actually a misspelling..." the doctor spoke to Sherriff Stilinski, as the boy clad in hospital scrubs sat patiently by the MRI scanner. It was heart breaking really, everyone including him believing he was inheriting such a disease from his deceased mother.
" Just call him Stiles." Sherriff Stilinski muttered solemnly.
" Okay. Stiles, just to warn you, you're going to hear a lot of noise during the MRI." The doctor continued, "It's due to pulses of electricity going through metal coils inside the machine. Uh, if you want, we can get you earplugs or headphones..."
"Oh, no." Stiles dismissed lowly, "No, I don't need anything."
"Hey, we're just on the other side of that window, okay?" Stiles' dad said to him reassuringly, before he and Melissa made their way out of the room, leaving the two brother-like boys alone.
A silence washed over them, a silence where neither of them knew what to say, what the right thing to do in this situation was. Stiles had been so convinced there was something going on with him, but this certainly wasn't what he had conspired.
"You know what they're looking for, right?" Stiles broke the silence with a low and solemn murmur. When Scott didn't respond, Stiles continued, "It's called frontotemporal dementia. Areas of your brain start to shrink. It's what my mother had. It's the only form of dementia that can... hit teenagers... and there's no cure."
Scott was still at a loss for what to say, and it was evident to both of the boys that there was a key figure missing from this moment. The third member to their life-long trio. Aspen had been MIA for a while, putting nobody at ease. Both Stiles and Scott knew they could no longer fight with denial about what was happening to her—that she was the host of the nogitsune, Okami. They both silently pondered the same thought—how on earth did their lives get so fucked up to the point where Stiles was being tested for a terminal disease, and Aspen was being tortured from inside her own mind, her body playing slave to the world's most powerful supernatural creature.
"Scott..." Stiles spoke up again, finally finding the words he knew he needed to say, "If I'm... If I have..." he struggled to say the very sentence aloud, but Scott understood it anyway.
But the two were interrupted when there was a knock on the door, then incame a man wearing a very solemn expression.
Ace Carter strolled in hesitantly, his hands in the air as a sign that he was here under no harmful intent, as both Scott and Stiles looked at him with expressions he couldn't read.
"Hey," Ace said in an uncharacteristically soft tone, "I know I'm probably the last person you want to see right now..."
"You're definitely on the list, yeah," Stiles spoke with a defeated laugh, but not sending him away either. He knew Ace was an instrumental hand in finding him the previous night, so he was silently grateful.
