𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 ▸ Stiles Stilinski ²

34

thirty four
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Stiles awoke with a start, looking around anxiously at the unfamiliar place he found himself trapped in. It looked to be some kind of locker, judging by the small lines of light that was seeping through on the door.

Why was he trapped in a locker?

He started banging the door, in attempt to free himself. It didn't take long for the door to fly open. He was in the boys changing rooms, in the school.

It was dark, he wondered why he would be in the school, alone, at night. He would normally have Brie with him, at least.

He left the locker room, walking with caution through the halls, trying to find someone, or something. But the building was completely deserted.

He noticed a nearby classroom door was open, so he slowly made his way over to it, he palms sweaty with anticipation of what could be.

Once he reached the door, he noticed it wasn't a normal classroom. There was a huge three stump in it. The Nemeton, to be exact.

He walked around it, eyeing it suspiciously. He finally placed a hand on the tree stump. Without warning, the stump suddenly grew vines and grabbed his hand roughly.

This caused him to wake from his nightmare with a start, sitting up straight on his bed with a gasp. Sweating from his dream.

"You okay, baby?" Brie asked sleepily from where she was laying beside him on his bed. Getting up with droopy eyes to comfort her terrified boyfriend. "Stiles?"

She rubbed up and down his tense biceps in attempt to calm the boy while he let out a sigh of relief from hearing his girlfriends voice.

"Yeah, I was just dreaming," he stated, blinking as he remembered it. "It was weird. It was like a dream within a dream."

"A nightmare?" Brie asked, placing a hand on his knee and another on his shoulder, looking at him intensely.

"Yeah," Stiles reached down, rubbing her hand that was on his knee. The realisation suddenly hit him in that moment. He turned his head to look at the girl beside him and she gave him a soft smile which he returned with a confused glare.

He didn't remember Brie staying the night.

He cocked his head to the side in question. "Wait a sec. Brie... what are you doing here?"

As those words left his mouth the door creaked open, very loudly, making the pair snap their attention towards it. Brie's face contorted to worry.

"Hang on," Stiles said, going to move away from the girl and the bed.

Brie panicked. "Stiles, where are you going?"

"I should close the door."

"Just go back to sleep, my love," Brie tried again, this time pressing her head into his shoulder and holding him close.

As much as Stiles always listened to and trusted Brie, he felt a strong feeling telling him he needs to close the door.

He gently put her arms down and got up from the bed, keeping his eyes trained on the door. "No, no. I should close it."

"Don't worry about it," Brie continued. "Don't you want to stay in bed with me?"

He almost faltered at that but somehow managed to keep his focus on the door. "What if someone comes in?"

"Who's gonna come in, Stiles? You dad?" She watched in horror as he kept making his way towards the open door. "Just go back to sleep, Stiles."

"No. What if they get in?"

"What if who gets in? Stiles..... Just leave it. Please. Stiles. Stiles, come back to bed," Brie pleaded from Stiles bed but he continued to raise his hand to the doorknob. "Stiles. Please."

He opened the door, ignoring the girls pleas from behind him. "Don't, Stiles," she continued to cry out. "Don't! Don't go in there, please, don't. Please, Stiles. Don't!"

He didn't listen to her, he only kept walking forward. Into the darkness hat was beyond the door. His surroundings suddenly changed to the forest. Exactly where the Nemeton was. Brie had disappeared.

He walked towards the Nemeton, even though bright lights were blaring in his face from every angle, almost blinding him.

"This is just a dream," he said to himself. "It's just a dream, get it out f your head, Stiles. you're dreaming. All right? So, wake up, Stiles. Wake up, Stiles. Wake up!"

Suddenly, all the noise that was happening around him making him unable to even hear the sound of his own thoughts stopped.

He felt a hand gently grab his chin, forcing his head to look up at it. Or rather, her.

Brie was staring at him, with dark eyes, devil horns and two dark feathery wings extended from her back. A smirk played on her lips.

"Wake up, Stiles," her voice came out demonic. It wasn't the Brie he knew. "Or don't."

~~~

"And you couldn't wake up?" Scott asked Stiles after hearing his story.

Stiles was telling Brie and Scott all about the dream he had last night as the trio walked into school together, telling them every detail of how terrifying it was. How real it felt.

"Nope, and it was beyond terrifying," Stiles said. "Ever hear of sleep paralysis?"

"I would actually rather die then experience sleep paralysis," Brie said.

"I haven't heard of it," Scott looked between the two. "Not sure if I want to, though."

"Well, have you ever had a dream where you feel like you're about to wake up, but you can't move or talk?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I've had that," Scott nodded along.

"It happens because during REM sleep your body is basically paralysed," Stiles went on.

"Muscle atonia," Brie added, remembering how she had read about it once. "It stops your body from actually running in your bed if you are dreaming about running, to name an example."

"That makes sense," Scott listened carefully, following along.

"Sometimes your mind can wake up before your body does," Stiles continued, nodding to Brie. "So for this split-second, you're actually aware that your body is paralysed. And that's the terrifying part. It turned your dream into a nightmare. You feel like you're falling, like you're being strangled, or, in my case, like you're at the centre of a grove of magical trees where human sacrifices took place with a demon version of your girlfriend."

"I'm still trying to wrap my head around why I appeared. Twice."

Stiles shrugged in response, opening up the front doors of the school.

"You think it means something?" Scott asked.

"What if what we did that night..." Stiles said. "What if it's still affecting us?"

"Post-traumatic stress?" Scott said.

"Or something," Stiles nodded. The trio walked into their first class together, quickly finding seats next to each other. "You want to know what scares me the most?"

Brie and Scott both turned to the boy, prompting him to go on.

"I'm not even sure this is real."

"Because it's not," a familiar voice came from behind him.

Stiles turned around and saw the demon version of Brie standing at the back of the class smirking at him.

He woke up with a start, screaming as loud as he possibly could, until his dad came in to comfort him.

What was happening to him?

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