ANCHOR ° S. STILINSKI

find your anchor

           Coach's class is never a class that people can go through without either being embarrassed, or laughing at other people getting embarrassed. Today was one of the few days where it was neither for most of us. Stiles was sitting next to me just staring down at his notebook, quickly writing down words that I couldn't see. "Stilinski! Are you paying attention back there!" Coach practically screamed at Stiles and then blew his whistle.

           His whistle pierced my ears and Stiles jumped slightly, shaking his head as he looked at Coach. "Uh-huh?" Coach sighed and stared down at Stiles. "I asked you a question." Stiles scratched his forehead with the tip of her pen. "Uh Sorry, Coach. What was it?" 

             "It was "Stilinski, are you paying attention back there?" Stiles nodded slightly, holding onto the pen. "Oh. Well, I am now." Coach rolled his eyes as he turned slightly. "Stilinski, stop reminding me why I drink... Every night. Does anybody else want to try the question on the board?"

        I looked towards him with my eyebrows furrowed. "I'm fine. I just fell asleep for a second." Shifting in my seat I turned towards him more. "Stiles. You weren't asleep." Stiles' eyes shifted into confused and I glanced down at his paper, which I still couldn't clearly read but I knew he wasn't asleep while he wrote it.

          After class, during our free period, we went outside and sat at one of the tables. Scott, Stiles and I squeezed on one side, Lydia, Allison and Isaac on the other. "Okay, so what happens to a person who has a near-death experience and comes out of it seeing things?" 

         "And is unable to tell what's real or not?"  

          "And is being haunted by demonic visions of dead relatives?" Isaac leaned onto the table slightly, sighing. "They're all locked up because they're insane."

          Stiles scoffed and leaned on the table, leaning his elbow on it as well. "Ha. Can you at least try to be helpful, please?" My eyebrows shot up as I propped my elbow on the table. Isaac squinted his eyes at Stiles which was usual when it came to the two of them. "For half my childhood, I was locked in a freezer. So, being helpful is kind of a new thing for me." Scott leaned his head on his arms, that were placed on the table as I sighed. "Hey, dude, are you still milking that?"

        Quickly I turned my head towards Stiles as Isaac nodded. "Yeah you know what, maybe we are still milking that." I slapped Stiles' leg and furrowed my eyebrows at him. "Stiles." He glanced at me and sighed."Sorry." He grabbed my hand as I rolled my eyes. "Hi. Hi, sorry. I couldn't help overhearing what you guys were talking about. And I think I actually might know what you're talking about. There's a Tibetan word for it. It's called "Bardo." It literally means "in-between state." The state between life and death."

          Like before my head shot up but it averted over to the girl standing in front of the table. "And what do they call you?" I folded my hands and lifted them to rest my chin on them. "Kira. Her name is Kira." Pretty much everyone's eyes turned  toward me and I smiled tightly. "She's in our history class." She grinned towards me and I nodded. 

       She glanced at the bench and I pushed as close to Stiles as I could, he put his arm over my leg and Kira sat on the edge of the seat. Lydia hummed slightly, looking at Kira. "So are you talking Bardo in Tibetan Buddhism or Indian?" Kira glanced around at the people at the table, and shrugged slightly.

             "Either, I guess. But all the stuff you guys were just saying? All that happens in Bardo. There are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations. Some you see, some you just hear. And you can by visited by peaceful and wrathful deities." Isaac rubbed his chin as he squinted, the sun going in his face.