Chapter 1

It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.
-Woody Allen

If there was one thing Stiles hated, it was California winter. Technically it wasn't that cold tonight for California, or really winter yet, but Stiles woke up cold and shivering, which is a terrible, terrible thing. He reached out with one hand to find his blanket, eyes stubbornly staying shut, but found only leaves.

Wait, leaves?

His eyes snapped open and… crap.

Yup, leaves, those were definitely leaves, that was a twig near his head, two inches from poking his eye out, and he was definitely in Beacon Hills Preserve.

The teen sat up and slowly looked at his surroundings, trying to keep his fear bottled up so he didn't explode into a full blown panic. He strained to remember why he had woken up face down in the woods and… nothing came to mind.

He breathed in slow, in and out, the memories wouldn't come, but he could figure it out. Did he have amnesia? Did he get hit in the head or something? Did a werewolf steal his memories?

Stiles frantically looked himself over in the limited light from the waning moon that trickled down through the trees. For a split second he thought he saw blood running down his arm, then it was gone. Just shadows, trick of the light, everything is fine, Stiles. Shut your brain up.

Alright, fully clothed, shoes and everything, so sleepwalking could be safely ruled out. Probably. He would be in his pajamas, right? He didn't find anything, but his chest and left shoulder ached slightly, like a dull, far away pain and there was a numbness all over. Maybe he hit his head, that's why he couldn't remember anything. Temporary amnesia. Maybe. Hopefully temporary. He couldn't feel any cartoon-like bumps, so, there was that. His hand didn't come back sticky with blood, even better. No claw marks at the back of his neck that he could feel. His phone was nowhere to be found. That worried him, he never went anywhere without it. No car keys either.

Ok, adrenaline? What if he was in shock? From what? He couldn't find any visible wounds. It was still freaking cold. However he came to be here, he wasn't about to stay put. He got up on slightly shaky legs.

What else could it be? Was he out here because of some new beastie? Were his friends out here? Were they hurt? Why couldn't he remember anything?

The last thing he could remember was leaving school after practice. It was a fairly normal day, well, for Beacon Hills. Scott may have crushed a newly opened soda can during their off period together when the fire alarm went off right above their heads. (It was actually a surprise fire drill this time, Stiles checked.) It was the best thing ever. The Pepsi can did a quick impression of an exploding fountain, going well above their heads, in Scott's face, even up his nose. It was awesome. A little of it landed on Stiles, but the majority of it was on Scott and the floor. Stiles laughed, and by laughed, he means uncontrollable, head back, stomach cramping laughter. He couldn't remember the last time he laughed like that. Scott gathered up his backpack he had just sat down and pulled the laughing maniac down the hallway and out the doors. Lydia and Malia found them a few minutes later, Scott still dripping, Stiles still grinning.

"What happened to you?" Lydia asked, amusement clear on her face. Scott opened his mouth to speak but Stiles beat him to it.

"Scott decided his Pepsi needed to die. It was a bloody, gruesome battle."

Scott gave him his why do I put up with you face as the girls laughed. Scott cracked after a moment and joined them. Stiles could see the relief on his face that he wasn't the only one when Malia told the group she broke her pencil.

When they were allowed to go back inside, Scott changed into his extra set of clothes he kept in case of bloody werewolf emergencies, which Stiles had insisted on considering the number of supernatural events that happened at this school. It was a rare good moment these days.

The rest of the day was relatively normal. After practice Stiles remembers getting in his car to head home. It was still daylight then. He couldn't remember getting home, but he must have, right? It was blurry after that.

Looking at the position of the moon, he estimated it was about… Yeah, no idea.

It was late, he could feel it in his bones. Hours after he left school.

It was simple, he just needed to find out exactly where he was in the woods. He knew parts of the woods well enough, he had done enough stomping around in them with Scott over the years, before and after his buddy got turned into a werewolf. That didn't mean he knew exactly where he was with no point of reference. Or well enough to actually put the Nemeton on a map. He and Lydia had tried once, but the memory of where it was escaped them, after carefully trying to pinpoint exactly where it was on a map beforehand. Magic trees, whole or not, apparently can't be marked down on a map, it had to want to be found, according to Deaton.

So, yeah, simple, find a landmark, find out why he was here, find his friends if they were out here somewhere, avoid finding Beacon Hills latest monster of the week that may or may not have resulted in his recent memory loss…

Yeah, no problemo, piece of cake.

The preserve was eerily still. No wind tonight. The night time sounds of the forest seemed muted. He could hear very few nocturnal animals, some insects, nothing like it should be. It was way too quiet. That usually meant a predator was near. Or a rouge omega about to munch on his liver. That was always fun.

Stiles nervously ran his fingers through his hair and with a sigh and looked closely at his surroundings. Alrighty. Find the clues, what happened here? Was there some kind of fight? Was he running from something, or what?

He squinted in the darkness, trying to find tracks, scruff marks, his friends (if they were out here somewhere), something. Nothing, at least nothing that he could see, it was too dark and he was sorely lacking a flashlight. He thought that he would at least find something where he was laying, but no. Not much he could do without illumination on the subject.

He placed one hand gently against a tree. That numbness was still there. It was as if his hand was covered in a glove, he could feel the bark beneath his hand, but not as well as he should have.

That's just great.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, picked a direction and started walking.

When Stiles did eventually spot a familiar large rock jutting out from the ground, he broke into a run, grinning. Which may have been why he narrowly avoided tripping over a root sticking up from the ground by jumping over it at the last second. No, he fell after that, tripping over his own feet.

Stiles got up with the tattered remains of his dignity. Hey, all was good. He knew where he was now. From here, the road wasn't far, and he was closer to town than he originally thought. Actually, the hospital was maybe a mile or two from here, ish, once he got back to the road. He could go there, talk to Mellissa, and finally find out what was going on, he had to be out here for some reason. He could call Scott, or his dad... Scott might be best, for now, until he found out what was going on. No need to worry dad if he didn't have to.

Speaking of Scott, he hadn't found any evidence of the others out here. That didn't mean anything, he didn't have super hearing or smell, and the preserve wasn't small.

Get to the hospital and figure it out from there. That wasn't so hard, right?

When he did eventually find the road, he contemplated the pros and cons of hailing down the next car that passed. If one did, this was an out of the way backroad, there were not typically a lot of people passing through. With the exception of stupid teenagers with possible short term memory loss, goofy werewolves, and the occasional banshee. Just another night in Beacon Hills. If one did come by, was it worth the risk? Like any parent, Mr. Stilinski had warned his son of strangers and getting into vehicles with one, except maybe a little more than most parents, he even showed him an old case file- nope, nope, don't go there, not helping.

Ok, so there was that, and then there was being out in the woods, no idea why, no clue what's going on or who was out here with him… It's not like people have been dying out here in the last few years, right? Again with the not helping.

It didn't seem to matter however, one car did come by, it didn't even slow down a fraction to Stiles' thumb. "Oh, come on!" He said in exasperation. In truth, he wasn't sure if it was a bad thing or a good thing. Oh well, he didn't that have far to go, as long as nothing popped out and decided Stiles with a side of wild berries was on the menu.

It took a little while, but it was a beautiful sight when buildings finally came into view, and then the hospital. Scott was wrong, his sense of direction was awesome! He took off at a run again.

He burst through the hospital doors and skidded to a stop and quickly found Melissa.

Or that was the plan anyway. Before he got halfway there he ran out of breath and had to stop for a few seconds. Ok, so he walked the rest of the way to the front entrance. Shut up.

He reached the electronic sliding doors. They didn't budge. He waved his hands in front of the sensor. Nope. Looks like they need to check the sensors, another item to the list. With all the supernatural wonders, fights, what have you that happened here, it wasn't a surprise.

He was about to force it open when a man started toward the entrance. Stiles waved at him, a slight smile on his face and gestured towards the doors. The man didn't look his way but walked outside, without a glance toward Stiles, nor a word to his thanks as he left the hospital. How rude.

At least the doors were open this time and Stiles walked on in. Must be a glitch. He would tell Melissa about it when he found her. Was she even working tonight? That may have been something to consider earlier, but if she wasn't, he could still call Scott.

He sighed with relief when he found her at the nurses' station. At least something was going right.

He hadn't seen many people here tonight, and it seemed a slow night, which was certainly a plus. He stopped in front of Melissa who was working at her computer, yet she didn't look up.

"Hey Melissa, have you seen Scott tonight?"

She didn't respond. "Yo, can I borrow the phone? Melissa, are you listening to me?"

Melissa may have given him the cold shoulder once or twice, when he had gotten Scott into trouble, but she would never blatantly ignore him. He hadn't done anything lately that she knew about. She was always warm and open to him when he wasn't dragging Scott into something.

He reached down to wave in front of her computer to get her attention, placing one hand on the counter as he did so, leaning on it, and fell through the counter. He flailed and yelled out trying to hold onto something, right through Melissa and her computer with no resistance. The cold wave that passed over him as he went through the counter changed to a slight warmth as he went through Melissa.

He instantly got up and out of Scott's mom and scrambled away behind her. What the hell? What the fuck just happened?

The anxiety he had been feeling since he woke up doubled, tripled.

"Melissa? Melissa?! No, no, no, this can't be happening!" He said, pacing behind her. He touched the counter beside her again. That numbness feeling suddenly blossomed into something new, something horrifying. He hadn't pushed against that tree, but he pushed now. Instead of pressing against the cold, hard surface that wasn't meant to budge, his hand passed through it like it was nothing. He hadn't touched anything else, even when he had tripped it was over his own clumsy limbs in his haste not to trip over the exposed root.

With that thought, his feet started sinking into the floor. He jumped and screamed and this time his feet stayed on top of the floor. Thank God.

No one reacted. Not Melissa, not the other nurses, not the doctor going through a patient's files, not the patient he could see slowly walking down the hall with an IV, not the man leaning against a far wall, head down, no one.

This couldn't be happening. Was... Was he a ghost? Was he dead? Did he actually die somewhere out there in the woods?! This was why he couldn't remember. He was dead and… and…

He was going to have a panic attack, except can you have a panic attack if you don't have a body?!

At that moment, the emergency doors slid open again, this time, two EMTs came through with a stretcher, followed shortly by Lydia Martin and Scott McCall, worry written all over their faces. Except it wasn't just concern he was seeing, it was terror.

"Male, 17," Shouted one of the EMTs. She said more, but Stiles didn't hear the rest. The world slowed down, almost to a halt, seconds were minutes, and minutes were hours. Everything and everyone was moving in slow motion. He barely noticed. He was too busy staring at the body on the stretcher. The second EMT was holding a mask over the boy's face, but Stiles could still see the features. Brunette, moles scattered across his face, skinny, lanky body. His eyes were shut, unconscious but alive.

It was him. It was Stiles, he was staring at himself, again. Except, this time, it wasn't the nogitsune, it was his own body he was staring at.

"Oh my God."