wild | stiles stilinski ✅

| EIGHT |

Life before Eichen House had been somehow blurry for Ash. His childhood was loud and clear in his head, those beautiful moments with his parents which he had been missing so much, but that was it. The odd part was he never wanted to think about it ever since he started writing that story.

Their lives were too consuming for Ash to desire a free life for his own. It was as if he had been living inside a fragile bubble where he could live by only one friend by his side and the words lingering inside his head.

It only took an evil spirit to come around and snatch him out of his own safe heaven, forcing him to face his past.

Ash had to force himself that it hadn't been more than two days since he had encountered Nogitsune and his past had started to catch up with him. Although it felt a lot longer, his nightmares were mixed with reality where he slowly lost the ability of tracking time. As he sat his back rested on the cold wall, he was beginning to realize why he was doing all of this. The Nogitsune wanted to taste strife and pain but alongside with that the trickster loved being not one but multiple steps ahead.

What could possibly be a better way to do it than reading your future in to the smallest detail?

That made his blood boil with anger. Until it was the right time, Ash had to be the pawn inside the monster's hand. Ash had to give him some kind of leverage so he wouldn't suspect his end was near. The comfort from knowing the future was bound to make the Nogitsune sloppy, thinking he had already won. Meanwhile it meant Ash had to write some of it, he had to except that tonight Allison was going to lose her life to defeat the monster.

Only thing that kept Ash sane at the moment was the fact that his second time around in dungeon was shared with a friend. Technically, the strawberry blonde was his friend, only technically. Lydia didn't act all stiff around him but she wasn't relaxed or comfortable either. Given the situations Ash didn't blame her anyway.

She also had seen Ash give up some of his writings and Ash couldn't just explain his little plan when the bad guy was around. She must've been thinking about how weak he was to give up like that. Ash was weak indeed, weak enough that he felt like crying for days and all he wanted to do was to curl around his dad or hug Malia. Just not weak enough to give up on the people he cared about. Lydia did not register that she and her friends were classified as people Ash cared about.

His head and heart ached. Therefore he tapped his fingers gently on the cold floor to keep his mind preoccupied with something that will hold him back from drowning inside his thoughts, footsteps started echoing inside the building. Both fear and disgust rose inside Ash, because footsteps meant he was coming and over the time Ash learned that when he was coming to get what he wanted, and he would do anything to achieve his goals. The terrified look on Lydia's face showed Ash that she knew that as well.

The only difference was that Ash couldn't hide how scared and tired he felt while Lydia stood taller as the footstep got closer and clenched her jaw with grace. Fear was mixing with ambition and anger.

Ash tried to get up from his place with clumsy moves, even though a blurred memory of the Nogitsune giving him something to eat popped inside his head he also felt bodily weak alongside with his mixed emotions.

When the door opened, however, Ash realized he could stand a little bit taller with Lydia by his side. Ash almost wanted to smile, just couldn't bring himself to do so as he watched Stiles (Nogitsune) step inside, with a twisted look in his eyes and sick smirk on his face.

"Can you hear them?" He began while his smirk stretched into a mischievous smile , a look that Ash was pretty used to by now. "Louder than usual, isn't it? Well, that's because a lot of bad things happened down here."