Alone • Liam Dunbar

Fifteen

Everything had begun to feel like it used to.

I kept glancing over my shoulder every second of the day, staring into dark corners, waiting for an unknown threat to jump out. My schoolwork had started to pile up after only a week of falling behind, and it made me heavily debate giving up on it entirely as there were far more pressing issues to tend to. The lies I had outweighed my truths, and then there was the weight of the knife hidden in my boot, a tanto blade sheathed inside of an ankle holster, that made every step I took feel heavier than it should have.

This morning, I sat up in bed for what felt like hours, biding time before I had to get ready for school. I stared at the walls across from me, focusing on the shelves that housed my family sword and the dagger gifted to me by the Calaveras, and thought of what they stood for.

My sword represented the fight I was born into, the fight that forged me into what I am, which wasn't always something good. The dagger, on the other hand, symbolized that though that was true and the fight would always be a part of me, it wasn't all I was.

I reminded myself of that each moment my darkest thoughts tried to convince me I was falling back into old habits. The decision to carry a weapon again wasn't one I made of my own volition, my hand was forced, but it was still a choice I had to accept in order to do what I was supposed to.

Protect my friends.

It was sickening to have to watch them fear for their lives again.

Scott tried to remain hopeful, as always, but at this point, it felt empty. Borderline aggravating. We were facing enemies we knew barely anything about, and what little we did know about them came from the mysterious book Malia found, which eerily reflected what we had been experiencing recently.

The novel depicted a story of a small town where teenagers were abducted in the night by a group of parascientists, The Dread Doctors. After undergoing various experiments, they were buried alive. Incubated. When they rose from their graves, those mutated teens created hell on earth as their bloodlust drove them to do unspeakable things to their neighbors.

Malia was getting close to finishing the book. After what happened to Tracy, after we lost, she was desperate for answers and was more than willing to spend her waking hours reading.

I, on the other hand, had barely started it.

Kira made us all copies to get started on the novel, but every time I looked at the cover I broke out into a full-body sweat. It made me anxious for more than one reason. Then there was this gnawing sensation in the pit of my gut, like something inside of me was telling me not to read. I couldn't get past it. I tried to, but had to stop a few pages in.

Though that wasn't entirely because of my body's reaction, but rather because the acknowledgments section of the book provided us with our first concrete lead.

For providing scientific perspective and invaluable insight, this book is dedicated to Doctor Gabriel Valack.

We had no idea who the author of the book was, their name didn't show up on any site or informational database, but we were more than familiar with Valack and his particularly unhinged methods of medicine.

After Scott found the mention too, he and Lydia were adamant about going to Eichen to search for answers. I hated the idea of them being in there, especially Lydia.

She had only been discharged from the hospital yesterday after her surgery and she was already getting back into the thick of it. If it was only research I would have been all for it. Lydia was a literal genius, no debating that. But her going to Eichen, after she and Stiles were almost murdered there a couple of months ago, wasn't something I could encourage.