Teen Wolf: Second Howl Chapter 1 1 Problem Child

I am 15 chapters ahead on my patreón, check it out if you are interested.

spatréon/emperordragon

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Chapter One: The Problem Child

They say your life flashes before your eyes right before you die.

But that didn't happen to .

There was no slow-motion reel of childhood mories. No poignant last thoughts. No final goodbyes whispered to the void. Just a sudden, jarring stop.

One second, I was crossing the street like I had a hundred tis before. Earbuds jamd in, music blasting loud enough to drown out the world. I wasn't paying attention—because why would I? The walk sign was green. The sun was out. It was just another regular day in a long string of forgettable ones.

Then: the shriek of a horn. A scream that might've been mine. Tires scraping asphalt like nails across a chalkboard.

Impact.

And then—darkness. Cold, quiet, complete.

But it didn't last.

The silence cracked open with crying. Not just one voice, but dozens. Wails sharp enough to stab the eardrum. Babies. Newborns, screaming like the world itself was an offense to them. And then the light—white, blinding, hospital-white. The air reeked of antiseptic and latex gloves. Sothing pressed against my skin. A hand?

I opened my eyes, or maybe they opened on their own.

A woman hovered above , face flushed and soaked with sweat. Her hair stuck to her cheeks, her eyes wild and shining with sothing I couldn't place—fear, awe, disbelief. She said sothing I couldn't understand, and then I did what I was supposed to do.

I cried.

It wasn't a choice. It was instinct. A newborn's first breath. My lungs burned. My throat ached.

Because sohow, impossibly, I was alive again.

Not taphorically. Not so second chance or spiritual awakening. I was actually born. New flesh. Tiny limbs. Zero mories in my tiny brain—except I wasn't exactly empty. Not entirely.

The na they called at the orphanage was Lucas. No last na. Just Lucas. The file says I was found on the front steps of St. Augustine's Children's Ho at two days old, in the early hours of October 6th, 1995. No one saw who left . There was no note—only my na. No clues. Just a shivering bundle in a threadbare blanket, wailing loud enough to wake the entire dormitory.

The staff assud I was a fluke, another abandoned infant. The city has a system for kids like : a report, a file, a governnt-issued ID number. Then the waiting. Waiting for soone—anyone—to co looking.

No one ever did.

I don't rember my first few years, not really. But I rember feelings. The sensation of being watched. The strange sense that I didn't belong—not just in the orphanage, but in the world. Like I'd been cut from a different thread.

By the ti I was three, those instincts sharpened. By five, I was sure of it: I was not a normal child.

I could hear things. Not just the obvious—footsteps in the hallway, whispers in the next room. No, I could hear things no one else could. Thoughts. Regrets. Secrets buried so deep people didn't even realize they were thinking them aloud. I could hear Mr. Callahan counting coins in his jacket pocket, muttering about rent. I could hear the faint tremble in Mrs. Greene's breath when she read letters.

And then there were the slls.

Everyone gives off a scent, but not the kind you'd expect. It wasn't about shampoo or soap or sweat. It was emotional. Fear slled like copper and vinegar, sharp enough to sting. Anger burned like ash. Joy was like fresh-cut fruit. Guilt was mildew. I could track emotions like a hound dog—sotis before people even felt them themselves.

It was a curse.

Imagine living in a dormitory with twenty other children, all of them radiating noise and scent and chaos. Their moods flooded the air like secondhand smoke. I couldn't block it out. Not really. I tried plugging my ears. I tried holding my breath. I tried hiding. None of it worked.

Then ca the strength.

It started with small things—doors that slamd harder than I ant them to, toys that broke in my hands. But by six, I was different enough for people to notice.

One day, during a ltdown—what the staff called "an episode"—I snapped the tal leg off a desk. I didn't an to. I didn't even know I could. But in that mont, when the pressure inside peaked, it felt like sothing ancient was crawling through my veins. Like lightning had a pulse, and it lived in .

The staff panicked. The other kids scattered. They called a danger. Unstable. Violent.

They wrote it on my file in red ink: Problem Child.

And maybe they were right. I am a problem. I feel things too strongly, and when I lose control, things break.

But I'm not a monster. Not yet.

So I adapted. I learned to manage it the only way I could—by going inward.

ditation. Breathing techniques. Yoga routines from a book no one bothered to lock away. I made a little sanctuary behind the orphanage, where the grass grows patchy and a gnarled old tree stands alone like it forgot to die.

It's quiet there. Peaceful. My only safe space.

That's where I was when it happened.

Sitting cross-legged in the dirt, eyes closed, breathing slow and steady. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Repeat. My mind had gone soft at the edges. My senses dimd.

Then—snap.

A sound. A presence. Sothing slicing the air behind .

I moved on instinct, hand rising to sheild my neck. Pain blood in my palm. I opened my eyes to see it—a dart, black and sleek, tal tip catching the light.

Poison?

Sleep ca over in waves, fast and final. I tried to stand, but my limbs betrayed . The grass tilted. The sky lted. The ground yawned open beneath .

As darkness closed in, as everything went silent again, a single thought echoed louder than anything I'd ever heard:

What the hell is happening to ?