Stiles is floating.
He doesn't know how, but his body hovers above the snow. The flakes are falling fast; the wind whips around everywhere, a million tiny vortices trying to get under his skin and flay him alive. He is moving, somehow, the way the branches rush over him, even as he looks away, frightened they might reach down and claw his eyes out.
It's then that he remembers running from the creature. The hot putrid breath behind him, the snarling, the slobbering, the yellow eyes bright. Then the thud, the trip, the tumble, and the blinding pain as he slams into the ground. He tries to scream but there's no breath. He waits to die.
And then, he's floating, and the warm blood trickling down his shoulder and his arm reassures him he's still very much alive and getting queasy from the loss of blood and whatever's moving him so fast isn't helping either.
Then he sees him —the one who's been carrying him— just a profile, in silhouette, as the moon briefly peeks out from the clouds.
"Who... who are you..."
And then, the awful shriek of the creature in front of them, and they're falling, and now he has breath enough to scream...
"Stiles."
"Stiles!"
Mrs Stilinski shook Stiles gently by his shoulders. The scream was the same every time he had the dream, and after several times she and her husband had perfected the way to wake him without inducing too much of a panic.
Stiles's eyes shot open and he stared at his mother, shivering.
"Mama!"
Claudia Stilinski flicked on the night light and stroked her seven year-old son's arm.
"It's okay, Stilesey, it was just a dream."
"Claudia?" John Stilinski called sleepily down the passage. "Is he okay?"
"Fine, honey," she said. "I've got this one."
Stiles's rapid breathing slowed somewhat has he heard his mother's gentle alto. He fumbled around and found Mr Eddy, his teddy bear, and hugged him tight.
"Was it the same dream, sweetie?"
Stiles frowned and nodded his little head rapidly. His dark mop was damp with sweat and a spitcurl dangled on his forehead, so that he looked like a tiny Superman.
"But you got away from the monster," she said evenly. She knew the tableau all too well.
"Yes, Mama. He carried me."
"The man?"
The little boy nodded again. The man with the shining eyes had appeared once or twice in the past, but he hadn't featured this much before.
"Were you scared? Of him?"
"No. He was trying to keep me from... from the... monster...but I couldn't see his face. I wish I could have seen his face. I wanted to thank him, but then I woke up."
Claudia smiled gently and kissed her son on the cheek.
"Do you want to come sleep in the big bed with me and Daddy?"
The boy considered it for a while, then shook his head, smiling. "That's okay, Mama. But stay here until I fall asleep."
"Of course I will, sweetheart. And I'll tell Mr Eddie to be on watch the whole night."
"And T-Rex," Stiles chipped in. "His teeth glow in the dark. I'm sure they're poisonous to monsters."
Claudia chuckled gently and mussed her son's soft brown hair.
"Sing grandma's song," Stiles said, drawing himself into a little ball and yawning.
Claudia nodded, and sang the old song her own mother taught her:
All around my hat
I will wear the green willow
And all around my hat
For a twelve month and a day
And if anybody should ask me
The reason why I'm wearing it
It's all for my true love
Who's far, far away
He was out by the second stanza. She stayed a long while that night, watching the moonlight wash through the louvres of the window and paint her son with stripes of dark blue and silver. She sighed and absent-mindedly clutched her left breast, worrying her fingers around the small scar where they'd removed the lump six months ago.
It had all been caught in time, the doctors had said; there was no need for a mastectomy, and the course of chemo and radiotherapy she'd had was merely a precaution.
They'd pronounced her cured already two months ago.
But Stiles had the first nightmare the very day after she went home from the hospital.
And the nightmares weren't stopping.