Disclaimer: I don't own Glee

A/N: holy crap I didn't expect so many reviews! Thanks so much guys! I'll try to keep updating when I can; unfortunately I have to focus more on my studies right now with the new trimester starting, but I'll do my best to keep writing. Thanks again!

Chapter Two

Alice

It was the first time Finn was afraid of being home alone. After Kurt called the school, he pushed him back in bed with an order to go to sleep, get proper rest and drink lots of liquids. With the horrible image of the headless children still fresh on his mind, Finn was afraid he would see something worse if he was left by himself. He didn't want Kurt to leave him.

But after Kurt gave him a childish pat on the head, and urged to him to sleep, he didn't see anything weird for hours, and eventually he did go to sleep.

He didn't dream of anything this time. He didn't know what time it was when he woke up, but when he did all he saw was a corpse with dried out hair, rotting skin, glaring eyes and maggots crawling out of its mouth.

"Honey?" the corpse reached out to him, its putrid bony fingers crackling nastily. It sounded like his mother. Finn shut his eyes and counted to ten, forcing himself to stay calm. He was still dreaming, it would go away when he'd open his eyes.

He slowly opened his eyes, but the corpse was still there.

"Are you feeling any better?" its hand touched his forehead, dead skin chipping off and falling over his face, the rancid smell of death invading his senses, "you still look a little sick."

He wanted to scream, but he lost his voice. He tried to move, but his body was paralyzed. Before the corpse came any closer, Kurt rushed in breathlessly with a bag of medicine.

"Hey, how's he doing? I bought some medicine," he was by Finn's side in an instant, "feeling any better?" he pressed his warm palm against the frozen teen's forehead.

The corpse disappeared, Carole taking its place, looking very worried. Finn was so relieved that he let out a big sigh and leaned against his stepbrother, who had taken it upon himself to sit beside him.

Carole and Kurt exchanged looks.

Realizing he must have been acting weird, Finn quickly sat up and gave his mother a smile, "I'm fine, you just startled me. Is dinner ready?"

His mother raised her eyebrows in surprise before laughing cheerfully, "I made chicken noodle soup, I'll bring it up."

"No, I'll go downstairs, I'm tired of lying in bed all day," he pulled away his sheets and slipped out of bed. Seeing that her son had recovered, Carole smiled and left for the kitchen. The two boys followed her downstairs.

Finn looked around cautiously. There were no little elves, dressed bears or headless children wandering about. He didn't expect their presence.

The quarterback furtively glanced at his stepbrother. He didn't have the answer for why he was suddenly seeing things, but for some reason they seemed to disappear whenever he touched Kurt. What was also weird was that the short teen always remained the same whenever Finn started seeing things.

He was still riding on the hope that eventually the images or visions, whatever they were, would stop. In the mean time, he had to be sure that he touched Kurt as much as possible. A pat to the head would be enough.

What mattered most, though, was that no one, especially his mother and Burt, would never find out what was happening to him. Finn heard nightmare stories of kids who went to see the shrink, the teasing they got, the looks of pity, and whispers behind their backs. He did not want to be a part of that list. No. He could fix this on his own.

He wasn't crazy. He couldn't be.

…

Mr. Schue walked around the classroom handing out sheet music for everyone to practice. He wanted to step out of his comfort zone, do something that the club could be happy with. It was too late to change the songs for sectionals, but regionals was still far away, they could do whatever they wanted.

Rachel, of course, suggested songs Finn or half the group couldn't recognize, and was shot down pretty quickly. Everyone else spouted songs at each other as well until they settled on three songs that weren't trashy, too girly, or too manly.

Finn was pretty sure Kurt would have protested to the worlds end with the list of songs they chose. Even Mr. Schue was reluctant to do the songs; they were just too weird and risky.

That wasn't what was bothering Finn at the moment though. What was grasping his attention was the gigantic fly the size of an average backpack perched over Mr. Schue's head and slowly eating his face.

It had been a week and Finn was still seeing things.

As much as he tried to ignore the bizarre creatures or monsters, they were too real to look away from. Which was why he hadn't had a solo for a while. He was too distracted to sing like he used to. Sam was now taking his lead role.

He gave his girlfriend a glance, hoping the horns poking through her skin like acne had disappeared. She gave him a smile, her skin cracking as more horns grew out. Finn looked away.

These hallucinations. They weren't drifting away, they were becoming stronger. It was interfering with his life. He couldn't play football without being afraid that the football would bite him, he couldn't sing because he was so distracted, he couldn't kiss his girlfriend because she had huge fangs, and he couldn't even talk to his friends because they were too scary to look at.

There was no way no one didn't notice his change in behavior. They always asked him what was wrong, but he just couldn't tell them. Telling them that he was seeing things was as bad as telling his parents. He didn't want them to think he was going crazy. He was fine! He was just…seeing things…

But he was fine. He had Kurt to take the visions away; he would survive a few hours of seeing monsters.

"Finn?" Mr. Schue was at his side, his bug eaten hand on his shoulder. Finn jerked in surprise. Now his teacher's face was nothing but a skull, "is everything all right?"

'Don't touch me,' he wanted to say, wishing this 'thing' would go away. Instead he nodded, looking away, not having the courage to smile convincingly. The others had grouped together to practice their songs, so they didn't notice Mr. Schue talking to Finn.

"You haven't been acting yourself lately, during school your fine, but in glee meetings you're all tense and quiet, I gave practically all the solos to Sam, you should have been protesting by now," the Spanish teacher said in that quiet concerned tone, "not that I'm saying I want you to, I just find it a bit strange. You know you can come to me if you need someone to talk to right?"

Of all people, he really didn't want to tell his teacher, who was like a father to him, that he was seeing things. As cool as Mr. Schue was, he knew the man would send him straight to a shrink. He didn't need a shrink; he needed Kurt, as weird as that sounded. Why the hell did Kurt transfer now of all times!

"I just need some sleep," he replied easily. It was the same excuse he'd been using since the start of the hallucinations, and he knew damn well that wasn't the case anymore. "I'm fine."

Mr. Schue wasn't convinced, and he wasn't dropping the subject, "Finn, you've said that all week, how much sleep are you getting?"

"Not a lot," he lied. He'd actually been going to bed around eight, much to the surprise of his family. It wasn't because he was convinced that sleep would get rid of the visions, it was because he was worn out from seeing the monsters and scary images. Kurt may have been able to get rid of them for a few short hours, but they'd always pop up again in the middle of the day when he was still in school.

Mr. Schue sighed, and although he was concerned, Finn couldn't see that expression through the grinning skull staring back at him. "Okay, I'm letting you go home early, there's not much to practice right now, so it's not a big deal." Finn thankfully grabbed his bag and stood up. Mr. Schue patted his shoulder, "get some rest, glee needs you."

Nodding, he left, not noticing the rest of the glee members staring after him with worry.

"So?" Rachel asked Mr. Schue, "did he say anything?"

The Spanish teacher shook his head. "No, you saw him, he was terrified. Are you sure he hasn't said anything to you?"

Rachel shook her head; the pain she'd been feeling ever since her boyfriend started acting weird finally showing through. "We should tell his parents, I'm starting to think this is serious." At this almost everyone started protesting.

"Are you kidding me, he'd flip," Puck argued, "if he did that to me I'd kill him!"

"No, I agree that it sounds like tattling, but I'm getting worried too," Mr. Schue said darkly, "he might not be having problems but…you guys have seen the news right?" At this the group silenced. "Right now we can't take things too lightly, I'll feel much better if we tell his parents about his behavior even if it really is just some sleep deprivation."

There was an uncomfortable silence as everyone reluctantly tried to see that they had no choice in the matter. It was true they were worried for the Frankenteen, but to tell his parents on him not only made them feel like tattlers, it made the situation more real, that maybe there really was something seriously wrong with Finn.

"What about Kurt?" Artie suggested quietly, "He's Finn's family now right? Maybe he can do something to help him." Mr. Schue opened his mouth to argue, but bespectacled teen continued, "It's not that I don't want to tell his parents, I mean, if it's not that bad, we can fix this without worrying them, Mr. Hummel did have a heart attack recently you know. And I don't want to sound like a know-it-all but," he shook his head, "I don't think Finn would go that far like those kids in the news."

"That's true," Mr. Schue said uncertainly, "I'll give you guys a day, if Finn's not back to normal by then, I'm calling his parents."

The club nodded happily. With their argument won, they returned to practice, the only one not paying much attention though was Rachel.

She had a really bad feeling.

…

He found Kurt in the living room when he came home. Relieved to see him, Finn hurriedly grabbed his shoulder, the scorpions and snakes crawling around the walls and floors vanishing. His stepbrother jumped in surprise.

"Finn! You scared the shit out of me!" he shouted angrily, smacking his hand away.

Too relieved to finally have normalcy returned, Finn just laughed at Kurt and went to the kitchen, the smaller teen's swearing trailing after him. The day had worn him out, he needed a snack.

Huffing, Kurt got out of his comfortable position from the couch and entered the kitchen, "why do you have the need to do that?"

"Do what?" he pulled out a hot pocket from the freezer and opened the package. He set about getting it in the microwave. Kurt almost stomped his foot.

"Every time you come home you always grab me whenever I don't notice and scare the crap out of me," he crossed his arms, "I'll be suffering from paranoia by the end of the week!"

Finn winced; he didn't mean to frighten his stepbrother. "I like scaring you," he said lamely, "It's fun…"

Kurt arched an eyebrow, "if you're going to lie, you might as well try to sound convincing." Finn laughed sheepishly. "Look, if you're going to greet me every time you come home from school, at least do it when I see you, I prefer to have my nerves intact."

Embarrassed, Finn nodded mutely. Satisfied, Kurt went back to the living room, mumbling something about 'crazy jock's'.

With the world back to normal at least for a few hours, Finn grabbed his hot pocket once it was hot and ready, and left for his bedroom. He needed to continue researching about his problem, maybe he missed something.

He wasn't the greatest researcher in the world, but he knew not to trust Wikipedia or sketchy sites that looked like a four year old created it. As much as he hated it, he found most of his information on hospital sites, and places solely dedicated to mental health. All sources pointed to a series of illnesses that didn't serve to put any cheer in Finn.

Schizophrenia. Dementia. Epilepsy. Brain Cancer.

They all said to go to a mental health professional in order to cure the problem or at least help him deal with it. Brain Cancer was the most frightening of all, so he looked it up and was relieved to see that he didn't have any other symptoms related to it. He was pretty sure he didn't have Epilepsy either.

What was strange was that his only problem was hallucinations. Nothing else was wrong with him, he could think clearly, his motor senses were perfect, his memory was…well it wasn't perfect, but it wasn't severe either. What's more, why was Kurt the only person who could take away the hallucinations through touch? Nothing in his research explained that.

Finn leaned back in his chair. He couldn't lose hope yet. There must be something he missed. Perhaps he ate something old or had an allergic reaction to something in the house. This whole thing started after moving into the new house after all, maybe ghosts were possessing him or something.

He didn't know when he fell asleep, but he woke up to a hand gently shaking his shoulder, his face pressed against the keyboard. At first he was scared that it would be another monster, what with that always being his wake up call. He looked up and visibly relaxed. It was Kurt.

"What is it?" he mumbled, rubbing his eyes. He could feel the indentations of the keyboard's keys on the side of his face. He hadn't meant to fall asleep.

"Dinner's in a few minutes," Kurt said softly, watching him closely. "Rachel visited. She says you've been acting weird in glee meetings?"

Finn stiffened. Shit. "What do you mean?"

Kurt crossed his arms, "I don't know, she said you weren't acting like yourself, is it true you haven't gotten even one solo?"

Finn shrugged nonchalantly, "I can't be in the spotlight all the time, I'm cool with it."

His stepbrother nodded. There was still something strange in his eyes. He watched Finn as he stood up and stretched. Rachel had said more than her boyfriend acting weird. She was pretty good at putting ideas into people's heads, and even though Kurt was sure nothing was wrong with Finn, for the whole glee club to be concerned made him give it a second thought.

"Finn," his stepbrother turned to him, rubbing his indented face grumpily. "I know we're not that close and I'm probably worrying over nothing, but we're family now and…if there's anything bothering you, you know I'm here right?"

His worry quickly disarmed when Finn gave him a smile, "yeah, I know. I'm fine, though" he gave his shoulder a squeeze before leaving the room, "what's for dinner?"

Grinning, Kurt followed Finn, "there's steamed vegetables, baked rosemary chicken, and –"

"Vegetables?" Finn whined.

"Don't complain, a growing boy needs his veggies," Kurt teased motherly.

…

When Finn went downstairs to the kitchen the next morning he discovered that Kurt wasn't there. He wasn't in the living room, in his room, or even outside. Finn was starting to panic. Kurt never left early for school.

Should he call out for him? He wouldn't sound too scared if he did right?

He went upstairs again. The black and white clown he dreamt of days ago stood in the middle of hallway, black lips turned up in a secretive grin.

"He's not here," he said softly, "he left early."

Finn took a step back. He remembered this clown clearly, the one who killed him in his dream. The teen hesitantly took a step back. "L-leave me alone," he trembled.

The clown straightened up in surprise before breaking into a high pitched cackle, his squeals of laughter ripping through Finn's ear drums. Then all too soon he stopped laughing and stared at him with his vicious crimson eyes.

Finn waited a heartbeat before the clown broke into a run after him.

He let out a shout of fear, and ran back down the stairs. He rushed blindly past the front door, pulling his car keys from his pocket, the clown hot on his heels. He reached his car and ripped the door open, scrambling inside just as the clown was centimeters from grabbing his shirt.

Finn shut the door behind him, his shaking hands fumbling to put the right key in the ignition. The clown punched and kicked against the windows, giggling and screaming.

"LET'S PLAY!"

His hands were shaking so hard. Finn let out a frightened and frustrated sob, forcing himself to steady his hand.

The car roared into life. Finn shifted the gears and pressed hard on the gas. The car screeched backwards, sending the clown to the ground. Not looking back to check if he was gone for good, Finn sped down the street, panting and sobbing from what had just happened.

That was the first time a hallucination tried to attack him.

"Damnit!" he punched the wheel. He couldn't do this anymore. Seeing things was one thing, but getting attacked by them was another. He needed help. He had to tell someone or these things would end up killing him.

Kurt. He had to find Kurt.

With that small bit of hope, Finn was able to calm down, wiping the snot and tears roughly from his face. Changing directions from McKinley to Dalton, Finn drove at a calmer pace.

He clutched the steering wheel, another sob threatening to rip out of his throat.

The streets were littered with zombies, and they were all coming toward him.

The closest ones were pawing at his windows as he drove past them, their dead eyes locked on him. He was tempted to drive faster, but he knew they weren't real, what if he accidentally hit a real person?

Some were starting to run blindly at him now.

"Leave me alone…" he said shrank away from the windows. He screamed when a tiny hand closed over his.

"It's okay!" a little girl with blond curly hair crawled over from behind, and slipped into the passenger seat. "I'm here to help you."

She felt real. Finn looked her up and down. No missing body parts or bugs crawling over her. She was just a cut little girl in a light blue summer dress and Mary Janes.

"How'd you get in my car?" he quivered.

"You wanted help, so I popped up," she said cheerfully. Finn glanced around the zombies surrounding his car, but they were no longer there. "I got rid of them," the girl nodded proudly.

"Are you an illusion?" he asked quietly, parking his car on the side of the street. He was too frazzled to continue driving.

"I guess you can say I'm your subconscious," the girl shrugged thoughtfully. "That doesn't matter though. You want to get rid of the monsters right?" Finn nodded mutely, "I can help you. I know this magic shop, they have special candy that gets rid of the stuff you've been seeing," she looked up at him with her big blue innocent eyes, "wanna go there?"

There was no way that magic candy existed, but after seeing all these crazy things, getting attacked by them, and even feeling them, Finn was ready to try anything if it would mean returning to a normal life.

He started the ignition.

…

Kurt came home completely exhausted. He had to leave a bit early in the morning in order to practice with the Warbler's for regional's. His father was in the living room watching the news, and he could hear Carole in the kitchen making dinner.

"Where've you been?" Burt asked conversationally as his son shut the door behind him.

"Sorry, the meeting with the Warbler's went longer than I thought," Kurt replied, slipping off his bag, "I'm beat."

"Oh, Kurt you're home," Carole peeked out from the kitchen door, she greeted her stepson with a kiss on the cheek, "dinner's almost ready, why are you so late?"

"Glee meeting," he shrugged with a tired smile, "I'll go get out of this uniform and help you out, okay?"

Carole was about to protest, but the look he gave her made her shut her mouth and smile thankfully.

"Another one," Burt shook his head grimly, "the numbers just keep climbing."

Kurt looked to what his father was watching. There was the picture of a smiling teenage girl on the screen. Her name was Jennifer Grey, seventeen, and from Montana. Kurt frowned as the picture was cut off to show her parents crying in a humble living room.

"The victim was found hanging from the oak tree in the backyard of her home," the reporter said importantly, the camera switching to her as she waved to the crime scene surrounding a large oak tree. "This makes eleven in the alarming increase of teen suicides occurring the past month…"

"I'll be back in a minute," Kurt gave his stepmother a smile, and left for his room.

"Oh, do you know where Finn is?" Carole called after him, "he hasn't come back from school and he's not answering his phone."

"No," Kurt blinked in surprise. Carole sighed and shook her head.

"He's probably at Puck's playing video games again, I'll just save him a plate," she shrugged, returning to the kitchen. Kurt glanced back at the news report of the recent teen suicide, Rachel's visit from last night still ringing in his ears.

"The whole club's worried; we're scared he's going to do something stupid. I want to help him, but he won't talk to me."

He went to Finn's bedroom. It was open. He flipped the switch, there was no one inside, yet it was messy as usual. Kurt cringed at the pile of laundry growing at the corner of the room.

"He's at Puck's," Kurt tried to reassure himself. He turned to leave, but a blinking light caught the corner of his eye. It was Finn's cell phone. "And he forgot his cell, of course," he mumbled, picking it up.

There were about ten missed calls from Rachel and Carole. At that moment, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He fished it out. It was an unknown number, he was pretty sure it was Rachel's. He changed phones recently and forgot to reinstate her number.

"Hello?" he sighed, leaving Finn's bedroom.

"Kurt? Oh my god, do you know how hard it was to get your number from Mercedes? It's Rachel."

"Yes, I know," he went further down the hall and entered his room, slipping out of his jacket, "Finn's not home by the way, he left his cell," he checked through the list of unread texts, they were also all from Rachel. He could hear the girl huff angrily through the phone.

"Do you know where he is? I'm going out of my mind here; he usually calls me to say he's not going to school."

Kurt froze. "He didn't go to school?"

"No! I called Puck, but he hasn't seen him, has Finn said anything to you? You've got to have some idea you live with him!"

A bad feeling was gripping at his stomach. "No, I haven't seen him all day," he muttered guiltily. "But calm down, I'm sure nothing bad has happened to him. Finn's forgetful; he probably went out for a drive or something."

"Then why didn't he go to school?"

"That's…" he bit the corner of his lip. It was weird for Finn to skip school, he couldn't deny that. With the news report on Jennifer Grey still fresh in his mind, all sorts of ideas were popping up in his head.

Finn wouldn't…he couldn't have…He was fine yesterday!

"Kurt?"

His reassuring words died in his throat. He wasn't sure what to say to Rachel, he was starting to worry too. He hadn't lived with Finn for long, but to go missing all day wasn't normal. And what about Carole? She thought Finn was at Puck's playing video games. Puck had no idea where he was!

"Kurt, please tell me Finn's okay."

He couldn't let himself think the worst just yet. For all he knew, Finn was probably at a convenience store getting junk food or something. That had to be it…

"Rachel…" he couldn't finish. There were flashing red and blue lights coming from his window. At first he didn't pay much attention to it, it wasn't common, but it wasn't alarming to see patrol cars driving down the street. It was when the lights persisted that he started to worry.

He walked to the window. There was a patrol car parked in front of the house. His self assurance that Finn was buying junk food instantly snuffed out.

"Kurt? Are you there?"

"I'll call you back," his voice sounded alien to him. He hung up and rushed out of his room just as the doorbell rang.

He was at the stairs when Burt answered the door.

His father took one look at the grim cop standing at their doorstep, "can I help you?"

"Are you Finn Hudson's father?"

Kurt joined his father at the door, Carole trailing after him. He snuck a peek at the patrol car for any sign of Finn. He wasn't there.

That was a bad sign.