A Strange Sort Of Afterlife

Chapter 1

A bullet ricocheted off the bricks beside his head as Scott skidded around the corner of the building and leapt over the hood of a car parked there... The hunters behind him couldn't run nearly as fast as he could but the rifle in their hands made up for their lack of speed. Darting across the street into the alley illuminated by the glow of an old street light the young werewolf pressed himself behind the dumpster and waited... he only needed to keep the men distracted long enough for his friends to get to the kids held in the warehouse and sneak them out.

Foot steps slowly approached his hiding spot and Scott held his breath. He could take the man easily but he would prefer not to hurt him if at all possible...

The shift was abrupt... the alley and the hunters vanished. A dark starless sky replaced the dim city glow and a thicket of old growth trees took the place of his hiding place. The air was suddenly damp and cool on his overheated skin and light breeze carried the scents of forest and a faint hint of something ... decaying...

Instictively Scott rose to his feet turning a slow circle...

"What the h***?" he muttered as he studied his new surroundings... cautiously he took a few steps to pear out of the thicket. The forest extended in all directions but just outside the grove a paved road divided the trees and on the other side to the road the lights of a lonely gas station glowed with a faint buzz.

Carefully he picked his way out of the undergrowth and across the road.

The door swung open silently and the interior was well lit but the station was completely abandoned... It looked as if it was open for business but there was no sign of anyone, employee or customer, either inside or out.

*******************

Stiles sighed... the line seemed to take forever. He was tired, beyond tired, after a day of classes and a shift in the FBI office, filing endless paperwork and fetching coffee...tired... and starving. He missed lunch because of the weird hunter with a switch blade after his biology class.

"Seriously what was that guy thinking." Stiles muttered as he remebered the moment. "I'm 100% human..."

Finally... Finally he reached the cashier and ordered his burgers. The bored girl behind the counter handed him his cup with a scowl. He tried to smile at her but she simply looked past him "NEXT!"

He stepped aside and sighed. His mind wandered to what his friends were up to tonight. Supernatural kids had been taken for weeks now and the FBI had a file on the missing kids... He'd passed the suspected location on the Scott. He and the others were staging a rescue tonight and Stiles had been stuck at work...

"Stiles" the guy called waving a bag. Stiles grabbed it gratefully and contemplated driving back to his dorm but... the food was to tempting so he diverted to a corner table...

The fast food place vanished suddenly... replaced by... a large open room dimly illuminated by emergncy lighting. He gripped his bag of food tightly and glanced around.

To his right several peopple were silhouetted against faint orange lights and to his left coming out tof the shadows was a large creature... black and sleek with sharp teeth and were those... wings? The beast was either a dragon or a giant mutated axolotl....

A sudden shout had Stiles shoving his sack in his mouth to free his hands to dive for cover... two people continued to shout in Dutch... Norwegian? As they attacked one of the other figures...