"Sorry, Lahey, but I'm more of a cat person."
Vera Pérez is no stranger to the supernatural. Growing up alongside the Hale family has kept her fairly well-informed about the creatures that lurk in the darkness. However, she didn't become one of thos...
┌─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┐ chapter thirty-five! SOME KIND OF DISASTER └─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┘
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
( riddled, pt. iii — letharia vulpina, pt. i )
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
IT SEEMS THAT the chaos will never end. Every time Vera thinks they have a moment of peace, a split second to sigh in relief and release the tension that pulls their bodies taught like puppets on strings, the universe cackles and shoves something else in their path. In a way, she feels like she should have known that their ride hadn't come to a complete stop yet. There is always another horror looming ahead.
In this case, it's the fact that Stiles has disappeared again.
It doesn't make sense this time. There hadn't been a phone call or a sleepwalking spell. Stiles had been undergoing brain scans to see if he could receive a diagnosis for frontotemporal dementia, there had been a power surge at the hospital, and then everything had gone dark. And Stiles vanished into thin air.
There's something different about this that Vera can't quite put her finger on. She feels it gnawing at her gut as she goes to school two days after Stiles had asked Scott to find him. This isn't like him. Even if they hadn't been the best of friends at the beginning of this supernatural mess in January, she'd still grown accustomed to his typical habits and mannerisms. Stiles would never do anything to intentionally cause his father distress. He wouldn't have disappeared in an instant like some magician performing a sick magic trick. No, this is something deeper. This is wrong.
She can't even find solace at home, because her abuela's cold has gotten worse, leaving Mai in a constant state of worry as she talks with other family members on the phone. Her house has grown depressing again.
All of this has caused Vera to lose a significant amount of sleep for the past few days, leaving dark rings beneath her eyes that she'd covered with makeup this morning. She'd wanted nothing more than to go to school in her pajamas. However, she'd forced herself to pull on a green turtleneck that she'd tucked into her ripped jeans, then shoved beige boots onto her feet. As for her hair, she'd left it tied up in a ponytail in preparation for cross country practice that afternoon. She'd also put her contacts in for that occasion; it's more difficult to run in glasses.
As she walks through the halls of the school building like a wraith haunting the corridors, blank-faced and with eyes glazed over while her body moves on autopilot, Vera tries to ignore the pounding in her head. Lack of sleep has taken its toll on her body. It's produced a killer headache that slams against her skull like someone is beating it with a hammer. Each slam of someone's locker or scuff of a shoe against the linoleum floor has her flinching.
