The Shape of Us

The shrill ring of my phone sliced through the quiet of my bedroom, dragging me from a shallow, restless sleep. I fumbled for it on my nightstand, knocking over a stack of comic books before my fingers closed around the cool plastic. The screen glowed with Scott’s face. I swiped to answer, a groan already forming in my throat.

“Dude, I will wire your lacrosse stick to a car battery if you’re calling to ask about the chemistry homework again,” I mumbled, my voice thick with sleep.

Silence. Then, a sharp, ragged breath. “Stiles?”

I sat bolt upright. My heart gave a painful thud against my ribs. He didn't sound right. He sounded… small. And terrified.

“Scott? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“I don’t know,” he gasped, and the sound was punctuated by the rustle of leaves and the snap of a twig. He was still in the preserve. “I-I lost you, and then I heard something… I ran.” Another ragged breath. “Stiles, I can’t find my inhaler.”

That was it. That was the panic button. Scott without his inhaler was like my Jeep without a roll of duct tape—non-functional and on the verge of a catastrophic breakdown.

“Okay, Scott, just stay calm. Can you see anything? Road lights? Anything?”

“No, just trees. It’s dark. I think something’s out here with me.” His voice was a high-pitched whisper, tight with a fear I hadn’t heard since we were ten and got locked in a department store after closing.

“I’m coming to get you. Just stay on the phone with me.”

“My battery’s at four percent.”

“Of course it is,” I hissed, throwing my legs over the side of the bed. I was already pulling on the jeans I’d left in a heap on the floor. “Okay, just… hide. Find a big tree or something and stay quiet. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

The line went dead.

“Scott? Scotty!” I stared at the phone, a string of curses running through my head. This was my fault. My stupid, adrenaline-junkie fault. Let’s go find the dead body, Scott! It’ll be an adventure!

I grabbed my keys from the desk and crept out of my room, holding my breath as I passed my dad’s closed door. The last thing I needed was a lecture about curfew and the proper use of police-band radio scanners. I slipped out the front door into the chilly Beacon Hills night and sprinted for my Jeep.

The engine turned over with a familiar, comforting roar. I peeled out of the driveway, pushing the old blue beast faster than was probably safe. The houses blurred into streaks of light before giving way to the solid, imposing wall of black that was the Beacon Hills Preserve.

My headlights cut a shaky path through the oppressive darkness as I turned onto the dirt access road. The Jeep bounced and rattled over the uneven ground, the contents of my glove box creating a chaotic percussion against the frantic beat of my own heart. My mind was racing, replaying the night. The thrill of hearing the dispatch call about a body in the woods. The moronic pride I’d felt convincing Scott to come with me.

We’d been searching for maybe an hour when the deputies got close. We split up to avoid getting caught. That was the last I’d seen of him—a fleeting shape swallowed by the trees, his flashlight beam bobbing away into the darkness.

Then there was the howl.

It had ripped through the woods just as I was getting back to the Jeep. It wasn't the yipping of a coyote or the deep call of a wolf. This was different. It was guttural, pained, and full of a rage that had made the air itself feel like it was vibrating. It had frozen me in place, every nerve ending screaming wrong, wrong, wrong. I’d told myself it was just a weird animal, maybe a bear, but I knew I was lying. A knot of pure dread had been twisting in my gut ever since.

Now, that dread was a cold, heavy stone. What if that thing, whatever it was, had found Scott? Alone, in the dark, without his inhaler.

“Come on, Scott,” I muttered, my knuckles white on the steering wheel. I slowed the Jeep, leaning out the open window, the cold air biting at my face. “SCOTT!”

My voice sounded thin, pathetic. The woods swallowed it whole, offering only the chirp of crickets in reply. I drove another hundred feet and tried again, my voice cracking with desperation. The silence that answered was bigger and darker than before. It was a hungry silence, and right now, it was eating my best friend.

My headlights swept across the tree line, revealing nothing but an endless, impenetrable wall of pine and shadow. I slammed my palm against the horn, a long, desperate blast that felt like it was being absorbed by the sheer volume of the woods. My throat was raw from shouting his name.

Just as I was about to scream it again, a figure stumbled out from between two thick pine trees, collapsing onto the gravel at the edge of the road.

“Scott!”

The relief was a physical blow, so potent it almost made me dizzy. I slammed the Jeep into park, not even bothering to turn off the engine, and vaulted out of the driver's seat. The headlights illuminated him, and the relief curdled into ice-cold horror in my stomach.

He was on his hands and knees, head hanging low, his breathing coming in harsh, painful-sounding pants.

“Scott, man, are you okay? What happened?” I skidded to a stop beside him, my hands hovering, unsure where to touch.

He looked up at me, and his face was pale, slick with sweat even in the cold night air. His eyes were wide and unfocused, pupils blown huge and black. He looked like an animal caught in the glare of an oncoming truck—terrified and completely lost.

“Stiles,” he breathed, and the word was a broken thing. He tried to push himself up but swayed, his arms trembling. He was clutching his right side, his hand clamped tight against his torso, knuckles white. His whole shirt on that side was dark and wet, a deep, horrifying black in the Jeep’s high beams.

“You’re bleeding,” I said, the words feeling stupid and obvious. “What happened? Did you fall?”

He just shook his head, a jerky, uncoordinated movement. “It was… it was big.”

“What was big? A bear? Did a bear attack you?” My mind was racing, trying to find a logical box to put this in. Bears made sense. Sort of.

Scott didn't answer. He just let out a low groan, his body slumping. I grabbed his arm to steady him, my fingers wrapping around his bicep. He was cold, his skin clammy despite the sweat.

“Okay, okay, let’s get you in the Jeep. We need to get you to the hospital.” I tried to pull him towards the passenger door, but he resisted, planting his feet.

“No. No hospital,” he gasped, his voice suddenly sharp with panic. “My mom… she’ll kill me for being out here.”

“Scott, you’re bleeding all over the place! I don’t think your mom is the primary concern right now!” I tugged on his arm again, frustration and fear making my voice tight. “Let me see it.”

He hesitated, his gaze darting back towards the darkness of the woods as if he expected something to come charging out. Then, slowly, he pulled his hand away from his side.

My breath caught in my throat.

This wasn't from a fall. This wasn't from a bear. This wasn't from anything I could name.

It was a bite. A massive one. The flesh was torn open in a deep, brutal crescent, the edges ragged and raw. It looked like someone had taken a pair of giant, serrated shears and just ripped a chunk out of him. Blood was still welling up from the wound, thick and dark, soaking through the shredded fabric of his t-shirt and hoodie, dripping onto the dusty ground. I could see the glistening white of subcutaneous fat, the angry red of torn muscle underneath. The sheer violence of it made my stomach heave.

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered, staring at the wound. My brain felt like it had short-circuited. No animal I knew had a jaw that wide.

“It was so fast,” Scott mumbled, his eyes fluttering. He was going into shock. “I didn’t even see it, just… teeth. And then it was gone.”

That snapped me back into motion. Shock was bad. Bleeding was worse. “Okay. Okay, hospital is non-negotiable, buddy. We’re going.”

“No,” he insisted, his voice weaker now. “Your house. Or mine. Just… get me out of here, Stiles. Please.”

The plea in his voice, the raw terror there, overrode every logical instinct I had. I looked from his pale face to the horrifying wound, then back to the oppressive darkness of the preserve. Whatever had done this could still be out there. Getting him away was the first priority. Everything else could wait.

“Fine. My house. Your house. Whatever. Let’s go.” I wrapped his left arm over my shoulders, taking most of his weight, and half-dragged, half-carried him to the Jeep. He practically fell into the passenger seat, his head thudding against the window as I slammed the door shut. I ran back around, jumped behind the wheel, and threw the Jeep into reverse, gravel spitting from under the tires. I didn’t look back at the woods as I spun the wheel and floored it, leaving the dark, silent trees behind us.

The drive to Scott’s house was a blur of streetlights and panicked thoughts. I kept glancing over at him, slumped against the passenger window. His breathing was still shallow, and a low sound of pain escaped him every time the Jeep hit a bump. The metallic smell of his blood was thick in the cab, a cloying scent that made my stomach churn. It was everywhere—a dark, spreading stain on his clothes, a smear on my hand from where I’d grabbed him, a slick patch on the seat upholstery.

“We’re almost there, man. Just hang on,” I said, my voice sounding thin.

He didn’t respond, just made that quiet, pained noise again.

I killed the headlights a block away from his house and coasted the rest of the way, pulling the Jeep to a stop in the darkest patch of curb I could find. Melissa’s car was in the driveway. Shit.

“Okay, Scott, we gotta be quiet. Like, ninja quiet.”

He nodded, his movements sluggish. I got out and went around to his side, opening the door carefully to keep it from creaking. I helped him out, his weight leaning heavily against me again. He was shivering now, a fine tremor running through his whole body. We moved across the lawn like a single, clumsy organism, me practically carrying him, his feet dragging on the grass. The front door was always unlocked. One of the many perks of living in a town where the sheriff’s son is your best friend.

I turned the knob with agonizing slowness and pushed the door open an inch at a time. The house was dark and silent. Melissa’s room was at the top of the stairs, her door slightly ajar. We had to get to Scott’s room without making a sound. I pointed up the stairs and then put a finger to my lips. Scott gave a weak nod.

Every step on the staircase was a potential landmine. I went first, testing each tread for creaks, guiding Scott where to put his feet. He was holding his side again, his face a pale mask of pain in the dim light filtering through the window on the landing. We made it to his room and I shut the door behind us, the soft click of the latch sounding like a gunshot in the silence.

Scott immediately stumbled towards his bathroom, and I followed him in, flicking on the light. The sudden brightness was harsh, clinical. It made everything worse.

He braced his hands on the sink, his head hanging down. His reflection in the mirror was a stranger—ghostly pale, eyes wide with shock, his brown hair matted with sweat. I looked from his reflection to the real thing, and my focus landed again on the wound.

“Okay. Hoodie off. T-shirt, too,” I ordered, my voice trying for a command but coming out shaky.

He peeled the hoodie off with a sharp intake of breath, hissing when the fabric pulled at the raw flesh. I helped him with his t-shirt, carefully lifting the blood-soaked cotton away from his skin. The shirt was ruined, stuck to the edges of the bite with drying blood. I had to gently tug it free, my fingers brushing against his skin. It was cold and clammy.

With his torso bare, the wound was fully visible under the bright bathroom light, and it was so much worse than I’d thought. The bite was a brutal, gaping mouth carved into the skin and muscle of his right side, just above his hip. The teeth marks were deep, impossibly deep, like four punctures on top and four on the bottom. The flesh between them was shredded, a mess of torn tissue and dark, congealed blood. I could see layers—the pale yellow of fat, the deep crimson of muscle tissue beneath. It wasn’t just bleeding; it was weeping a clear fluid around the edges.

“Dude…” I breathed, my hands hovering uselessly. The first aid kit under his sink was meant for scraped knees and paper cuts, not… this. This was a horror movie prop made real.

I grabbed a clean washcloth and ran it under warm water. “This is gonna suck,” I warned.

He just grunted in response, his knuckles white where he gripped the edge of the porcelain counter. I started at the edges of the wound, trying to gently dab away the blood so I could see what I was dealing with. His skin flinched under my touch. His breath hitched. I kept going, my movements as steady as I could make them. The water turned pink, then red, as I rinsed the cloth and repeated the process.

The more I cleaned, the more unnatural it looked. The punctures were too clean, too symmetrical for any animal I’d ever read about. And there was something else. A dark discoloration was spreading out from the bite, a web of faint black lines just under his skin, like poison seeping into his veins. My mind, my stupid, over-caffeinated, always-researching mind, started to spin. The howl in the woods. The impossible size of the bite. The speed he’d described.

None of it added up. None of it fit into a logical, biological box. A knot of dread, cold and heavy, settled deep in my stomach. This wasn't just an animal attack. Something was fundamentally wrong here, on a level I didn't have a name for yet. I looked from the grotesque wound on my best friend’s body to his terrified eyes in the mirror, and for the first time, I felt a fear that had nothing to do with getting grounded. It was an ancient, primal fear. The fear of the thing in the dark that you can’t explain.

I patched him up as best I could with gauze and medical tape from a first-aid kit that was clearly not equipped for supernatural maulings. I didn’t sleep. I sat in the worn-out armchair in the corner of his room and watched him, listening to his breathing, half-expecting him to start convulsing or bleeding out on his Star Wars sheets. But he just slept, a deep, exhausted sleep. The sun came up, and he was still alive. It felt like a miracle.

“How do you feel?” I asked as he swung his legs out of bed, moving with a stiffness that was the only sign of the previous night’s trauma.

“Fine,” he said, his voice a little rough. “Weird. But fine.”

“Fine? Scott, an animal tried to eat you. There’s no ‘fine’.” I pointed at his side. “Let me see it.”

He hesitated, then lifted the hem of his sleep shirt. I leaned in, expecting to see the same bloody, mangled mess I’d taped up hours ago. My breath stopped. The wound was still there, but it was… different. The deep, ragged gouges were gone. In their place was a clean, almost surgical-looking line of puckered skin. It was still an angry red, stitched together by what looked like thick, black thread, but it wasn’t a bite anymore. It was a scar in the making. The dark, veiny discoloration was completely gone.

“What the hell?” I whispered, reaching out but stopping my fingers just short of touching him. “It’s healing.”

“Yeah,” Scott said, looking down at it himself, a strange mix of relief and confusion on his face. “I told you, I feel fine.”

“No, you don’t get it. That’s not possible. Wounds like that don’t just… knit themselves back together overnight. That should be infected. You should have a fever. You should be in a hospital bed, not getting ready for school.”

He just shrugged, pulling his shirt down. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. Maybe my body’s just got, like, a killer immune system.”

I wanted to scream. A killer immune system didn’t explain the howl, or the size of the bite, or the impossible speed of his recovery. But he was already pulling on a hoodie, grabbing his backpack. He was determined to pretend everything was normal, and short of tackling him and tying him to his bed, there was nothing I could do.

The school hallway was sensory hell. I could tell something was off with Scott the second we walked through the doors. He kept flinching, his head snapping around as if he was hearing things.

“What is it?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

“Can you hear that?” he muttered, his eyes wide.

“Hear what? The collective IQ of the student body dropping with every step Jackson Whittemore takes?”

“No. A phone. It’s ringing.” He pointed towards a bank of lockers fifty feet away. “In there. Someone’s phone is ringing. I can hear the song.”

I stared at the lockers, then back at him. I couldn’t hear anything but the usual morning chaos. “You’re hearing things.”

“I’m not,” he insisted, his jaw tight. A girl I didn’t know fumbled with her locker combination, finally getting it open. A tinny pop song immediately spilled out from her bag inside. Scott flinched again, pressing a hand to his temple. “It’s so loud.”

His temper was a short fuse all morning. In chemistry, he snapped at Harris for breathing too loud. In English, he broke his pen just by gripping it too hard, ink bleeding all over his fingers. I spent the entire day running interference, dragging him away from confrontations, making up excuses about him being sick, sleep-deprived, stressed about the upcoming game. He was a live wire, and I was the frantic, failing insulation.

It all came to a head at lacrosse practice. The field was a cacophony of whistles, shouting, and the percussive thwack of sticks. For Scott, it must have been like standing in the middle of a warzone. He was on edge from the moment he stepped onto the field, his movements sharp and aggressive. He was faster than I’d ever seen him, more agile. He was also a menace.

He flattened two freshmen without even trying, sending them sprawling to the turf. Then he got into it with Jackson. Jackson, being Jackson, shouldered him hard after a play, muttering something under his breath. I saw Scott’s whole body go rigid. His head snapped towards Jackson, and I saw something flash in his eyes. Something that wasn’t Scott.

Before I could even yell a warning, Scott moved. He didn’t just check Jackson; he launched himself, a blur of motion, and slammed his shoulder into Jackson’s chest. The sound of the impact was sickening, a wet, heavy crunch. Jackson went flying, landing flat on his back with a groan, the wind completely knocked out of him.

The entire team froze. Coach Finstock’s whistle shrieked, a piercing sound that made Scott physically recoil, clapping his hands over the sides of his helmet.

“McCall! What the hell was that?” Finstock bellowed, storming onto the field. “You want to explain that little outburst?”

Scott didn’t answer. He was just standing there, breathing hard, staring down at Jackson who was now trying to sit up, his face a mask of fury and pain. I knew I had to do something. This wasn't just a bad mood. This was something else. Something dangerous.

I ran onto the field before my brain had even finished processing the thought. Finstock was turning purple, his spit flying as he yelled. Scott just stood there, a statue in red and white, his hands still clamped to his helmet.

“Coach, it’s my fault!” I yelled, skidding to a stop between them. The smell of cut grass and Scott’s sweat hit me. “He’s sick. Fever. I told him not to play, but he’s an idiot. You know how he gets about first line.”

Finstock’s angry gaze shifted to me. “Sick? He looks like he’s about to rip someone’s throat out with his teeth.” The words sent a freezing jolt down my spine.

“Yeah, well, the flu can make you cranky,” I said, my voice squeaking slightly. I grabbed Scott’s arm. It was tense, hard as a rock under the padding. “Come on, man. Let’s go.”

Scott let me pull him, his movements stiff and uncoordinated. It was like steering a tank. “Get him out of here, Stilinski!” Finstock bellowed after us. “And McCall, you’re on the bench until you get your head out of your ass!”

I didn’t stop until we were inside the locker room, the heavy door swinging shut behind us and cutting off the noise from the field. The sudden silence was deafening. The only sounds were our harsh breathing and the drip of a leaky showerhead in the corner. The air was thick with the smell of old sweat, antiseptic cleaner, and something else, something sharp and animal coming off Scott.

He ripped his helmet off and threw it against the lockers with a crash that echoed through the room. He sank onto the bench, burying his face in his hands. “I don’t know what happened,” he mumbled into his palms. “I just… I got so angry. And I heard his heart beating. It was so loud.”

My own heart was hammering against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat of terror and a sick, horrifying sense of validation. I pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped it. The screen was already lit up, a dozen browser tabs open and waiting.

“I do,” I said, my voice low and unsteady. “I think I know what’s happening to you.”

He looked up, his face pale, his brown eyes wide and lost. “What are you talking about?”

I knelt in front of him, turning the phone so he could see the screen. The first tab was a Wikipedia article. The title was simple: Lycanthropy.

“Last night,” I started, my voice gaining a weird, frantic momentum. “The attack. It wasn’t a mountain lion, Scott. Or a bear. Think about it. The bite marks, they were too… deliberate. And the howl we heard, that wasn’t any animal I’ve ever heard before.”

He stared at the phone, then at me, his expression shifting from confusion to alarm. “Stiles, what is this?”

“It’s research,” I said, swiping to the next tab—a scanned page from an old, leather-bound book, the text in archaic Latin. I’d spent all morning running it through online translators. “It describes an infection, passed through a bite. An infection that gives you enhanced senses. Incredible healing.” I gestured towards his side, where the monstrous wound had been. “You healed overnight, Scott. That’s not a killer immune system. That’s impossible.”

I kept swiping. Tab after tab of folklore, mythology, medieval bestiaries, and crackpot cryptozoology forums. Each one a piece of the same terrifying puzzle.

“The hearing,” I went on, my words tumbling over each other. “The phone in the locker. The rage on the field. The strength, Scott. You didn’t just hit Jackson, you threw him. You threw a hundred-and-seventy-pound guy ten feet through the air.”

“Stop it,” he said, his voice a low growl. He stood up, backing away from me, from the phone in my hand. “You’re freaking me out.”

“I’m freaking out, too!” I scrambled to my feet, following him. “Because this is all adding up to something that can’t exist. But it’s happening. It’s happening to you.”

He shook his head, his breathing getting heavier. “It’s not real.”

“Then what is?” I demanded, cornering him between the lockers and the sinks. I looked him dead in the eye, forcing him to see the terror and the certainty in my own. I took a deep breath, the cold, metallic smell of the room filling my lungs. I had to say it. I had to make it real.

“Scott,” I said, my voice dropping to a near whisper. “The bite, the rage, the strength… It’s a curse. I think you were bitten by a werewolf.”

The word hung in the air between us, heavy and monstrous.

“I think you’re becoming one, too.”