The cool morning breeze carried the scent of pine trees and damp earth as I walked through the streets of Beacon Hills. Three weeks. It had been three weeks since my family had moved to this California town, and I was still trying to get used to the slower pace, so different from the hustle of San Francisco.
Beacon Hills. The name echoed in my mind strangely, as if I'd heard it before, but couldn't place where. Maybe in some random documentary or a news story that had passed unnoticed. My parents had been vague about the reasons for moving - something about "new beginnings" and "safer place to raise a family." At the time, I didn't question it much. At sixteen, moving cities seemed like just another inconvenience in life.
But there was something different here. Something I couldn't name.
I stopped in front of a small coffee shop called "The Beacon," with its rustic wooden tables visible through the window. The smell of fresh coffee drew me inside. The place was moderately crowded for a Saturday morning - some older people reading newspapers, college students with laptops, and...
That's when I saw them.
Two boys about my age sitting at a corner table. One was thin, with hair shaved on the sides and a wide smile as he gestured animatedly, clearly telling some story. The other was more athletic, with features suggesting Latino ancestry, laughing at whatever his friend was saying.
My heart froze.
No. It couldn't be.
The cup of coffee the barista had just handed me almost slipped from my grasp. Memories I didn't even know I possessed began to surface like a flood - not memories from this life, but from another. A life where I had a different name, a different age, a different world.
A life where Teen Wolf was just a TV series.
Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski.
The names surfaced in my mind with frightening clarity. I knew these faces. Knew these people. But how was this possible? I had... I had watched their show. Had followed their adventures, their dramas, their struggles against the supernatural.
But they weren't real. They were characters. Fiction.
Except they were there, sitting less than fifteen feet from me, as real as anyone else in the coffee shop.
"Sir? Sir, are you okay?"
The barista's voice brought me back to reality. I realized I was standing in the middle of the path, blocking the line, with an expression that probably looked like absolute shock.
"I... yes. Sorry." My voice came out hoarse. I took my coffee with trembling hands and headed for an empty table on the other side of the coffee shop, where I could still observe them without being obvious.
It had to be coincidence. It had to be. Two people who looked like characters from a series that I... that I had watched in another life?
Another life.
The memories kept coming, fragmented and confused. I remembered dying - a car accident, quick and painless. And then... waking up. As a baby. In this world. With different parents, a different life. At first, I remembered everything with crystal clarity. Knew I had been reborn, that I had a second chance.
But as the years passed, the memories from my previous life began to fade, like a dream upon waking. Eventually, they became just vague impressions, sensations of déjà vu, knowledge I couldn't explain where it came from.
Until now.
Seeing Scott and Stiles had been like breaking a dam. Everything came back at once - not in perfect detail, but enough. Enough to know I wasn't in a normal world. I was in the Teen Wolf universe.
And if this city was Beacon Hills, and those were Scott and Stiles, then...
Werewolves were real.
The supernatural was real.
And soon, very soon, Scott McCall would be bitten by an Alpha and everything would go to hell.
My breathing quickened. I gripped the coffee cup so hard my fingers turned white. I had to think. Had to process this rationally.
Option one: I'm crazy. I've had a nervous breakdown and I'm having elaborate hallucinations.
Possible, but unlikely. I felt sane. Everything around me seemed real - too real to be a fantasy.
Option two: It's a bizarre coincidence. Two boys who look like characters from a series.
Also unlikely. The resemblance was too exact. And the name of the city... Beacon Hills. How many cities with that name existed?
Option three: I really was reborn in the Teen Wolf universe.
The most insane option. And, inexplicably, the one that made the most sense.
If this were true - and every fiber of my being was beginning to accept it was - then I had knowledge no one else had. I knew what was coming. Knew about Peter Hale, about the Alpha Pack, about the Nogitsune, about all the threats these boys would face.
The question was: what would I do with this knowledge?
"...and then I told him, dude, if you think you can pull that off in lacrosse, you're completely crazy!" Stiles' voice cut through my thoughts. They were getting up, still laughing, grabbing their backpacks.
Lacrosse. Of course. Scott played lacrosse. This was the season before his transformation.
They passed by my table on their way out. Scott glanced in my direction for a brief moment, just a casual acknowledgment of another teenager in the space. He smiled politely - that open, friendly smile that was so characteristic of him.
I barely managed to return the gesture, still processing everything.
The coffee shop door closed behind them with a small tinkle of the bell. I sat there, alone with my cooling coffee and a whirlwind of thoughts.
If I was really in the Teen Wolf universe, then my family had moved to the most dangerous city in supernatural California. The Nemeton was here. The beacon for all supernatural creatures. My parents had brought our family to the epicenter of everything that was to come.
Why?
For the first time, I began to question the vague reasons they'd given. "Safer place to raise a family" - what kind of logic was that for moving to Beacon Hills, of all places?
Unless...
Unless they knew.
Knew about the supernatural. Knew what this city represented.
But that was impossible. My parents were normal people. My father was an accountant, my mother was a literature teacher. Completely mundane lives. There was nothing about them that suggested involvement with the supernatural world.
Right?
I finished my coffee in one gulp, even though it was already cold, and left the coffee shop. The morning sun was stronger now, warming the streets as I walked aimlessly, trying to organize my thoughts.
I needed a plan. If Scott was going to be bitten soon - and from my fragmented memories, it would happen at the beginning of the school year when they went looking for the body in the forest - I had maybe a few weeks. A few weeks before everything began.
Should I warn someone? Try to prevent it? But how would I explain that I knew? And more importantly, did I have the right to change what was destined to happen? Scott becoming a werewolf was horrible for him initially, but it also led him to find his purpose, his pack, his power.
Changing that could have consequences I couldn't predict.
As I walked, I realized I was unconsciously heading back home. Our new house - a two-story residence in a quiet neighborhood, with a small yard surrounded by trees. My parents had loved the place the moment they saw it.
When I arrived, my father's truck was in the garage. He was home. Both of them were.
I entered through the front door, announcing my arrival. "I'm home!"
"In the kitchen, honey!" My mother's voice came cheerfully, with no trace of tension.
I took off my shoes and walked to the kitchen, where my parents were preparing lunch. My father was cutting vegetables while my mother seasoned something on the stove. The scene was perfectly normal, perfectly domestic.
But something was wrong.
It wasn't anything I could point to specifically - just a strange feeling in the air. The way my mother looked at me for a second too long. The way my father paused while cutting vegetables when I entered.
"How was exploring the city?" My mother asked, stirring the pot.
"Good." I replied, getting a glass of water. "Found a nice coffee shop. The Beacon."
"Ah, yes! We passed by there when we were house hunting." My father commented casually. "Good place?"
"Seems to be."
I participated in the casual conversation, helping with small tasks while they cooked. We talked about the city, about school starting Monday, about weekend plans. Everything perfectly normal.
But I couldn't shake the feeling that something important had happened just before I arrived. Something they didn't want me to know.
Maybe it was paranoia. After all, I had just discovered I was living in a supernatural TV universe - my head wasn't exactly in the right place.
Or maybe it was instinct.
That night, lying in bed and staring at my bedroom ceiling, I couldn't stop thinking. The sudden move to Beacon Hills. My parents' vagueness about the reasons. The way they had chosen this house specifically, so close to the forest.
And that persistent feeling that there was something they weren't telling me.
I grabbed my laptop and, driven by an impulse, started searching. Beacon Hills. Nemeton. Hale.
Most of what I found were news articles about the fire that killed the Hale family six years ago. A terrible tragedy - nine people dead, including children. Authorities had classified it as accidental, but there was speculation in local forums that it had been arson.
I knew the truth, of course. Kate Argent. A hunter who seduced Derek Hale and then killed his family.
But what caught my attention was one line in the article: "The Hale family was one of the oldest in Beacon Hills, with records dating back over 150 years."
Ancient families. Territory. Protection.
The words echoed in my mind, mixing with fragments of memories from episodes I had watched. Werewolves operated in pack structures. They had territories. Ancient families, like the Hales, were respected.
And if the Hales were dead, the territory was... free?
I closed the laptop abruptly, heart racing.
No. This was crazy. My parents were normal people. They had normal jobs, normal lives. They couldn't be...
But what if they were?
What if I was?
I tried to organize what I knew:
Fact 1: I was in the Teen Wolf universe.
Fact 2: My parents had moved to Beacon Hills right after the Hale massacre.
Fact 3: There was something strange about the way they acted sometimes - small details I'd never questioned before.
Fact 4: Scott would be bitten soon, and it would all begin.
Moonlight entered through my window, casting strange shadows on the walls. Outside, I heard the distant howl of a coyote - or at least, I hoped it was a coyote.
In Beacon Hills, you could never be sure.
I turned on my side, pulling the blanket up to my chin. Tomorrow was Sunday. I had one more day before starting at the new school, Beacon Hills High, where Scott and Stiles studied.
Where my new life - my real life in this world - was about to get a lot more complicated.
And maybe, just maybe, I would discover I had been part of this supernatural world far longer than I imagined.
Something about this city seemed familiar, I had thought earlier.
Now I knew why.
This wasn't just a city. It was the stage. And I, whether I wanted to or not, had just entered the cast.
The question was: what role was I destined to play?