Visions of a Half-Sleep

The Arrival

"And as we can see here in the Bayeux tapestry, Edward the Confessor, the last king of the House of Wessex, is telling Harold to head to Normandy. Harol-" Stiles's mind couldn't focus. Well to be fair, he normally had a slight problem focusing his mind but years of practice and Adderall made sure he got by. Today though, nothing seemed to help. His eyes were heavy with sleeplessness and his neck ached from the weight of his head that just wanted to lay down on the desk.

The teacher kept talking, pointing to printouts of a medieval tapestry to a bunch of teens who could care less. "Harold and his army began his march south." The teacher turned then, no longer looking at the image but at the class. An odd smile on his face, like he was excited at the chance to yell at their distracted teens, "I like Harold. Harolds are good people, they announce what others want to ignore. Harold as president, The Herolds of conquering King, and especially Heralds of the apocalypse. They are the most fun."

Suddenly the door burst open, screaming bounced off the walls as kids fell to the floor. Guns were brandished and fired as two men came in, the light from the halls so bright Stiles couldn't make out their features.

Stiles fell to the floor as well, just as he could hear the sounds of werewolf growls. Lights flittered about, billions of little lightning bolts dancing around the sputtering light bulbs. Garble voices spoke above him, coming through the aging PA system. Lyrical and rhythmic, Stiles couldn't make you what was being said. All he knew was what was being said wasn't in English.

He could hear the sounds of a fight happening around him. The shouting, thumbing, growling, banging the firing of bullets that flew over his head. Desks were flipped as Scott and the Pack threw themselves at Sam and Dean. His brothers returned the favor by lobbing all kinds of silver and mount ash-filled weapons at them. It kept going, louder and louder, for hours. Stiles was shocked by the stench of blood and mountain ash, was this what it was like during a war?

Then, with no fanfare, it was over. The sounds just stopped. Everything froze. Peeking open on eyes Stiles surveyed the classroom.

Sam and Dean stood over him, kneeling Dean had the same sickly smile twisted on his lips, "Do you know most people thought that Heralds were crazy? That's because they have no vision. Us though, we see it all." Sam has pulled something behind his back. It was dark, black and blue and bloody. It landed with a wet thud, rolling to Stiles. He let out a strangled cry as Derek's head stared blindly back at him.

"And what a beautiful sight it is." A voice was suddenly in his ear, whispering just over his shoulder.

Looking down, Stiles was on his feet with the gun in his hand, blood and matter coated his palms. Dropping it, the metal didn't clatter on the floor, because too many bodies littered the floor. All around him were dead bodies, bleeding out. He saw the entire pack, his classmates, the sheriff's department Sam, Dean, and his Dad. All of them were dead at his hands. Their blood was a sea of blood that was rising and fast. It soaked through his clothes and chilled his skin, dying his shirt red and filling his mouth as he tried to shout.

Suddenly, he was jolted awake.

The bell was ringing. He was in class. Everything was fine. It was just another dream.

"Finally, free." Stiles threw open the front doors to the school and strode out into the afternoon sun. It was hot out and felt amazing after-hours trapped instead of the frigid halls of the school. Someone was really blasting the air-conditioning in there lately, he was surprised you couldn't see your breath in there. "I thought Math would never end," a pox on whoever scheduled his Trig class for the end of the day.

He was so tired by the end of the day he couldn't read the board most of the time. That terrified him. Between the nightmares and falling into sudden naps at school, he felt like the edges between dreams and reality were blurring. It was driving him crazy. He read somewhere online that you couldn't read in dreams so to be unable to read the board in what he thought was the waking hours. He now had to resort to counting his fingers, looking even more like the school freak.