Deucalion ambled the woods of Beacon Hills with a certain level of assuredness. He threw his cane forward before his feet over and over again. Not that he needed to use one considering he'd recovered his eyesight.
After he'd spent a decent amount of time walking there, he just stopped all of a sudden and spoke, "I see you made it here first,"
"That shouldn't really surprise you, I came here first thing after the signal," Aidan came around the tree he was standing behind. They stood in silence for a moment before Aidan spoke again," Why are you here?"
"Did you find it?" Deucalion asked a different question instead of answering.
"No," said Aidan simply.
"Well, here's your answer then," Aidan didn't say anything after that, he didn't protest in indignation, he didn't throw sarcastic remarks nor did he hurle insults at Deucalion, not even if he'd felt offended at the time. Deucalion expected one of those things to happen at the very least but... Nothing ever came his way. When he saw that Aidan started to head in a certain direction, he decided to stop him,"Where are you going?"
"To try and find this thing!" Aidan retorted at the verge of impatience.
"Have you forgotten everything I worked so hard to teach you?"
Aidan didn't even turn to look at him when he said, "No, but trust me, I tried so hard to erase it all," he put emphasis on the words "so hard" in that statement, but he didn't sound angry, didn't sound impatient, just bored and uninterested.
It was clear to Deucalion that Aidan did not want to be there in the slightest, "It's a beacon for supernatural creatures, it attracts us, but we can only see it if we truly want to," he attempted to segway into a new subject with that.
"That's just great... And how do I truly want to see this... Beacon?"
"You use your superhuman eyes," Deucalion switched his eye color from human to their supernatural crimson red ones.
He resumed walking, leaving Aidan behind him. The latter flashed his eyes to their usual werewolf blue shade, then began to advance as well, "I guess you're still an alpha... Even after rising from the grave,"
"That makes a lot of sense, when you understand that the process used to bring us back, rewound our physical bodies and mental states to the instant right before our deaths," explained Deucalion.
"How did they do it anyways? I only know of one person that came back from the dead, and it wasn't really a risk-free operation," Aidan was hinting at Peter Hale's come back from the grave sometime before the alpha pack had arrived in Beacon Hills.
"There are multiple ways to cheat death in the supernatural world, you just need to pick your...," Deucalion stopped dead in his tracks and waited for Aidan to get closer to him before completing his sentence, "Poison,"
When Aidan'd caught sight of whatever it was that Deucalion saw, his eyes seemed to be opening wider and wider, quite in shock, he looked a lot more shocked than Deucalion did. For good reasons, what they had in front of them was nothing short of uncanny.
They'd stumbled upon a small clearing. Right in the center of it stood a sizable tree stamp, only it wasn't an unsignificant one, this one was the nematon. That wasn't even the craziest part about it. Because all around it, a mass of human carcasses laid scattered, all mutilated, defiled and lumped one on top of the other with a disturbing lack of care.
Neither Deucalion nor Aidan could count their numbers. In the end, how many were they? Who were they? None of the answers to those questions really mattered, the bitter truth remained... They were pawns in somebody else's game of power.
****
Stiles walked towards one of the vending machines available there for a quick snack. Though he wasn't very sure what to pick initially, he did make up his mind eventually. But upon entering a coin and pushing the buttons he needed to push, he still didn't get what the machine promised. He scratched his forehead, signs of irritation gradually showing on his face, he began to shake the thing, with a little more force by each second that passed.
"Need a hand with that?" a feminine voice spoke to him. He froze. He knew that voice. He knew that young woman but... She was... Dead, "Stiles?" she nudged.
He turned her way slowly, as though he was taking the time to process the sound before adding the visual part to it, "Erica?" he finally said.
"Wow! Did you see a ghost or something?" she said half innocently.
Stiles looked past her, only to see Derek relying on Boyd to be able to stand, his injuries didn't seem fatal, but he still looked weakened.
"I thought Satomi was supposed to be here, didn't she say anything about us?" Erica pulled his attention back on herself.
"She is! But no, she didn't say any...Thing about you guys," he managed to say with difficulty, his thoughts were loud and distracting.
He never truly ever felt close to Boyd or Erica, but he did consider them to be somewhat his friends, he did care about them, and their deaths did leave a mark on him, even though he never stopped to openly address it.
Melissa Jostled him slightly as she rushed to take Erica in her arms, she hadn't seen her after she'd kissed her human life goodbye, but she did care for her back when Erica used to come to the hospital, and she did that quite often.
"So, you're one of the revenants, huh?" said Melissa with teary eyes as she broke the hug.
"I guess, I am," retorted Erica with a smile.
"What happened?" Stiles was able to focus again.
"Well, he," Erica pointed towards Derek as she spoke, then she continued, "Was attacked by other revenants, and we kinda saved his ass," she finished.
"I heard that," Derek interjected from a few feet behind.
Melissa waited for him to approche their group further before speaking, "Was it her?"
"Who?" said Stiles.
"Lydia and the other banshee were right, it was Jennifer, but she wasn't alone, she brought friends," said Derek.
Stiles felt lost among them, Lydia had begun to fill him in on what he'd missed since the accident but apparently, she hadn't gotten to that part yet, "Jennifer is back too?"
"Anas and Kali too," said Erica casually.
"What?" Stiles asked.
"Wait, you asked if she was back too. So, who else is back?" Derek butted in.
"The...Nogitsuné..." said Stiles sheepishly.
"The what?" Boyd finally spoke up.
"Oh! Hell," exclaimed Derek.
Their conversation was immediately stopped, since Scott had opened the hospital doors. All eyes fell on him, but also... On whom was walking behind him.
Allison Argent looked exactly like the day she died a few years before, with the exception of her clothes, she was wearing whatever she'd been buried in back then.