Fear
Fear., the four letter word that his life seemed to revolve around his life for the past few weeks. Fear was the cause of his insomnia, fear was the cause of his now strained relationship between him and his father. Fear, was instilled in him at all times. It never failed to vanish between the walls of his existence.
Stiles couldn't help but wonder if this was how Scott, or Allison felt. But things were a different now, and adding another question would only be a bother, knowing if they did, it would be a subject they would want to avoid. He knew he wanted to.
He feels it every day. It's like he's looking into the heart of immense darkness, never ending and absolute. But most times, he simply feel's like he's drowning in a sea of black water, its only purpose to consume him whole.
Thalassophobia: the intense and persistence fear of large bodies of water. Swimming never bothered Stiles before the sacrifice, even if drowning was his ultimate phobia. It relaxed him, made him often feel like he was floating between a fine line of life and death. Now, it scares the living daylights out of him. Its not like he's an aqua-phobic; he's not afraid of water, just the immensity it can hold. Water can take all sorts of shapes and sizes, but he never though it could take the form of fear.
Baths are out of the question, especially in human sized metal tubs. He only showers now, to some its not a big deal. But to him, its everything.
It's not just baths that bother him now, its when he's in the shower and because the drain takes forever to disperse the rapid flow of the water, he feels the water begin to form and gather like shackles around his ankles, theres a part of him that slowly begins to panic.
He doesn't know how much longer he can take.
He's not as strong as the others. There's only one person in the world who can make him feel as strong as he wants to be, the only one who believes in him as much as he wants to be believed in. One person who can somehow make him smile throughout this endless torture; who can make his miserable existence have meaning.
Lydia Martin.
She has this peculiar effect on him. She carries this marvelous aura around her. She's almost like a breath of fresh air in the thick atmosphere that has become his life. Stiles feels whole when he's with her, he almost feels a sense of clarity—a sense of normalcy. Its strange, really, when they're together he doesn't feel the wrath of the impending doom he usually does. He's at peace. And its because of her there's still sliver of sanity left in him. She is his anchor, his ground.
His tether.
She doesn't even realize how much his whole existence is wrapped around hers.
He's lost it. He's not the same. Waking reality is subject to the laws of nature, he tries to remind himself. Dreams aren't. He used to be able to tell when he was dreaming and when he was not, when he would randomly lose his ability to read, or he had extra fingers he knew he was dream—some sort of twisted reality trapped in his mind. Problem is, everything was so realistic—so vivd, in both perceptions that he couldn't tell the difference between his dreams and reality anymore. He's lost in the full blown distorted labyrinth that has formed and shaped to become his mind. For all he knows he could be in dreaming right now. He's scared—terrified actually, he want's to reach out for help, but just doesn't know how.
Something's wrong. Something's defiantly wrong.
In reality, sensory input from a supposedly real physical universe places constraints perception. In dreams perception is constrained by only the brain and it's ability to experience. Stiles continues to remind himself. He's a logical person, his brain should absorb all this and follow his control.
But it doesn't.
In fact he's more lost than he's ever been before. His body is corpse, and is no longer in control.
There's something there. Something inside him. He can't take the silence anymore, because there is no actual silence, all he hears are the even breaths of the thing inside him—of the monster driving his emotions.
And he has no idea how to stop it.