Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf, although I do have the ownership of creating Ever. Jeff Davis has all rights to the characters not named Ever in this story, even though I wish I owned them so I could save Aiden and Allison from their heartbreaking end. Rest in peace, warriors. I will do my ultimate best to give you both the justice you deserve as heroes.

PROLOGUE

00

His heart was racing, beating faster than it should have been. Looking down at the ground, he noticed that his beige carpet had been replaced with grass. Panic shot through his spine, and he spun around to check his surroundings. He was in the forest- the freaking forest. Barefoot and freezing, Stiles took a few steps forward until his vision was clouded by lights, ones that were used to brighten the lacrosse field. His trembling hands found their way to his neck, and he rubbed it hard, trying to tell himself something. He walked closer, his free hand making a visor to shield himself from the glare of the lights.

"Stiles!" His head shot around, and he squinted his eyes to look across the field of grass. When he saw a distinct figure of a human, he found himself subconsciously moving toward it. His pace continued to pick up, and so did the body reflecting his movements. When he got closer, the face of the figure was clear and recognizable.

It was himself.

"Wake up, Stiles. Wake up. Wake up!" The reflection screamed at him, and he gasped for air, stumbling until his back hit something. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he rotated his body until he saw what was behind him. A tree stump, a very big tree stump. Stiles almost cried out at the sight of it, remembering when his father had been locked below the damn thing. Inching more towards the nemeton, he looked at the center of it, and his mind went back to Scott's tattoo.

Reaching forward, he got closer and closer to touching the wood on the stump, but before he could, it disappeared. He knew what was happening, it had been happening for the past few days. He knew that he was waking up. The scenery got hazy, as if it were all a blurry picture, until he felt himself screaming.

"Stiles! Stiles, please wake up! You need to wake up!" The voice was the first thing he heard, followed by rough shaking on his shoulders. His body felt paralyzed, and when the another round of shaking came, he found himself gasping for air as if he were a fish. Looking around, eyes wide, he noticed that he was in his room again. That was when he became aware of the voice he heard while he was in his state. Whipping his head to the right, he saw a brunette staring at him, tears running fresh down her face. He didn't know her.

"Who are you?" He asked, twitching and trying to unravel himself from the mess of sheets he was trapped in. Her eyes widened at the question, and she jumped up as well, grabbing his face in her hands. Unaware of what to do in a situation like this- when a strange girl is crying in his bedroom- he pushed off her clingy hands, and took another step back until he hit his desk. "Who are you?" He repeated.

"Oh thank god! You hear me!" She blubbered, reaching to take another step forward until she realized what she was doing. Then with her own wide eyes, tears still streaming from them, she answered the question. "Oh, oh. I forgot you don't know who I am! I am so, so sorry! You just wouldn't wake up this time! You're still not awake and I'm not completely sure what to do now because technically I'm not awake either-"

Stiles cut the girl off mid-sentence by clamping his hand over her mouth. His head was still pounding from the previous scene he just experienced. Her tears fell onto the side of his hand, but he ignored it and raised his eyebrows as he waited for the girl to calm down. He was surprised, too. Stiles wondered if this is what Scott goes through when it comes to calming him down from one of his spaz attacks. If it was, then he really needed to make Scott an apology letter for the last fifteen years of their lives. "Can I let go now?"

She nodded, and when he did she exhailed deeply. "I'm Ever."

"Ever?" She nodded again, and wiped her tears with the back of her sleeve. He realized that she was pretty, and normally he would be stuttering over his words or embarrassing himself in some way, but he was too exhausted to care about her looks at the moment. He remembered something though from her rant, and his eyes narrowed in on her. "What did you mean you're not awake either?"

"The darkness? The one that's around your heart?" She started, making the sentence as more of a question than a statement. Stiles felt his heart skip a beat as she mentioned the darkness. He knew it was there. He knew that was why he wasn't waking up right now - why this girl was in his dreams. But he didn't know how she knew that.

"How did you know about that?" He spat, getting defensive. Instead of flinching like he expected from her, she took a step forward, hands up in surrender. What made him freeze was the small hand that reached out to grab his own. He furred his eyebrows as he watched their hands trail up until she positioned it right where her heart was located.

"Because it's around mine too."