The first time it happened, Stiles came too just as Scott climbed into the Jeep.
It was odd. For the life of him Stiles could not remember anything that had happened that morning. Actually, if he thought about it, a more accurate statement would be that he could not remember anything since around 8 o'clock the night before. But there he was, 7.00 in the morning, in his jeep, picking up Scott for school like he did every morning. His clothes were clean and changed from the night before, his hair was still wet from where he had obviously had a shower, and his stomach felt like it was just the wrong side of too much food, the ache telling him he had eaten breakfast already that day. But he couldn't remember it.
Scott, on his part hadn't noticed anything wrong at all. In fact he was strapping himself into the passenger seat mid rant over some English assignment, by the time Stiles paid any attention to him. Realising that the rant wasn't anywhere near over, Stiles pulled at the hand break and backed out of Scott's driveway, letting his friend's angry tones blur in his mind. He then turned his focus to the problem at hand.
He quickly realised that the memories were there if he looked hard enough, he could see every single one of them, but there was a distinct detachment to each of them. As if he were seeing a video of himself doing something, so he knew it had to have happened, but he had no recollection of ever having done it physically. All the information was there, all the time he had lost was there, Stiles just seemed to have fast forwarded through it all. And with it all came the familiar whiteness that had plagued him since he had come back the week before.
Every time he sensed it, Stiles felt as if he were missing something, like maybe he had forgotten a piece of a puzzle he had forgotten he was even playing with. But whatever it was kept evading him, slipping just out of his grasp, and the frustration hadn't been worth the effort so he had let it be. But now it was affecting him, and that just wasn't cool with Stiles. And he wasn't the Sheriff's son for nothing, so he was keen to figure out just what was going on. He just needed to pick a place to start.
Pulling into the school, Stiles let Scott jump out before slipping into a free space and following him towards the building. Instantly Erica bounced over, lips spread in a feral smile as she slung an arm over Stiles' shoulder. The weight was oddly reassuring, and some of the tension left his body as she and Scott walked him to his locker, chatting idly as he pulled out the books for his morning lessons.
When the bell rang again, Erica sauntered off and Stiles headed towards his classroom, dragging Scott away from where he had been unsubtly attempting to use a locker door to conceal himself while he mooned over Allison's retreating form.
The morning went slowly. Chemistry was the usual hell, but he spent the time swapping notes with Scott under the table, playing noughts and crosses with Isaac, and trying to throw balled up wads of paper at Jackson without attracting attention to himself. Econ followed much the same but without the throwing paper at Jackson, because after Chemistry Jackson had cornered him and threatened him with bodily harm if the paper siege were to continue. But if anyone asked Stiles was definitely going to say his lenience was because he was worried about hitting Danny. And Danny was lovely.
Lunch was a rowdy affair what with the pack eager to be as close to each other as possible. Stiles ended up wedged between Boyd and Jackson, who was still mad at Stiles, so Stiles had to spend the whole lunch period getting confused looks from Boyd as he practically sat in his lap to avoid Jackson's random kicks to his shins. But all the chaos meant he had little time to ponder the strange happenings of that morning. It wasn't until the afternoon that his attention was brought back to it.
Grabbing his books for the last two classes of the day, he made plans to meet Scott by the Jeep seeing as they had no more classes together for the afternoon. In fact, because his afternoon consisted only of AP classes, Stiles was pretty much alone for the rest of the school day. He checked his bag to make sure he had his pad of paper with him, already planning to doodle his way through the rest of school, when he felt an itching at the back of his head, and he felt the whiteness creeping in.
He squeezed his eyes closed, willing the whiteness away, and jolting whenever some other student collided with his shoulder. Through sheer force of will the whiteness began to recede, edging back to the corners of his mind. When it was all gone Stiles reopened his eyes and smiled proudly to himself, glad that it seemed he had some control over the oddity, before picking up his bag from where it had fallen when he had abruptly stopped in the middle of the hall, and carrying on towards his classroom.
When he reached the door of his English classroom, he raised a hand to push at the door frame. He could see the other students inside, chatting between themselves and he sighed, reasoning that he only had 2 more hours to survive before he got to head home and tackle the mountains of homework he had waiting for him. Joy.
But as he placed his hand against the peeling paint of the door, the whiteness swarmed his mind again, more insistent this time, and his vision blurred. He his felt his bag slip down his arm as he was swept away in the endless nothing that accompanied the whiteness. He tried to scream but the action escaped him. All he knew was white. Endless, empty, white.
Then he was walking towards his Jeep.
He checked his watch, startling when he saw that school was over. He swore when he realised that it had happened again, that the whiteness had taken over again. Once more, when he thought about it carefully he could remember everything that had happened in the time that was missing, but it all felt unreal. Digging in his bag he pulled out his note pad and he flicked through it until he reached the last page with notes on it. The paper was littered with scribbled notes and stupid doodles, and the top of the page was noted with the date. The information was from the AP English lesson he had been going into before he whited out, and looking at it he recalled all the information as if he had been there, but he knew that he hadn't, at least not fully.
Before he could think about it further Scott was there, pulling at his arm, telling him to hurry up, that he wanted to go to the nearest fast food place and scarf down junk food till he was sick. And as he was feeling rather shaken up, Stiles was in no mood to protest so he hopped in the driver's seat, leant out his window to shout down Erica, Isaac and Boyd to invite them, and then focused on driving, and only on driving. He knew that at that moment his mind was too frazzled to deal with anything more than crap food, monotonous mall music and light hearted banter with his friends. As he glanced over at Scott, who was smiling happily to himself, and at Isaac, who had crawled into the backseat, he realised that he already felt a little better, a little calmer.
That night was the third time it happened.
But it was different as well.
This time when he came too Stiles recalled something he hadn't before. When he looked through the whiteness to see what he had missed while he was out, he could hear a voice whispering to him, telling him things he half remembered.
And just like that the conversation came rushing back. Everything he had forgotten, everything he had half remembered, everything that had transpired in limbo, it was all there. And finally the white outs made sense, or at least they made more sense, they had a purpose.
They were a reminder, a reminder that this was all very temporary. A reminder that he still had a riddle to solve and he wasn't any closer to solving it, and that time was running out. It was a reminder that the whiteness was waiting there, in the back of his mind, to claim his again if he failed to do what he was destined to do. Or at least what the voice hoped he was destined to do.
But there was something else. Something about the white outs. Something that troubled Stiles. The whisper had told him to look closer at them, to consider them more carefully, and when he did he realised they weren't quite right. They seemed too systematic, too ordered, not random enough to not mean anything more. So, Stiles figured they had to be more than a warning.
He figured they had to be a clue.
Hmmm, I'm not sure about this chapter. Thoughts?
