SUCCUMB

CHAPTER VIII - STILES

The aside from the inaudible words he's been hearing, first thing Stiles noticed was the white ceiling and the bright LED light bulbs.

Stiles blinked rapidly and something beside him kept beeping annoyingly. "Huh?" he said almost unintelligibly, his throat feeling raspy as his breathing began to stabilize. "What—what happened? Where am I?" Stiles' head hurt, his chest ached, and his body was sore in all places, in general, and seeing the unfamiliar white room he was being held in didn't help ease his thoughts.

Slowly, Stiles' blurry vision eventually cleared out and soon, he saw outside the clear window and saw his father and his girlfriend. He wondered, at first, if the voices he was hearing earlier belonged to them before dismissing the thought when he turned his head to a side, seeing Melissa checking a monitor in front of her. "Woah, calm down, Stiles," she said, chuckling a but before giving the familiar smile that eased his thoughts drastically.

Trying to sit up, Stiles failed when he felt a sharp sting. Looking down, he lifted the covers and saw that he was dressed in a hospital gown and that he had bandages wrapped around his stomach and his arm was heavily covered with gauze. "We were in the preserve. What happened?" Melissa had a clipboard in her hands and she was writing something before she turned to his side.

"You were attacked by the coyote," Melissa pointed outside the window and when Stiles leaned forward, trying to get a better view. He saw Kira, pacing around, worry written all over her face. "You were showing the new girl around the preserve when you were attacked," Stiles nodded, the events and memories coming back to him when he saw the same shirt Kira wore except that this time, it had tons of dirt splayed across it.

Only then did Stiles' eyes widened. Isaac told them about the coyote being Malia Tate, the girl who went missing. "I've got to, uh, I need to get out of her," Melissa had this troubled expression on her face before she tried to calm him down, gently easing him back to the bed. "No, you don't understand, the girl, Malia—the coyote—Scott was battling her. I need to, I have to get back to the preserve, see if she's okay," Melissa slowly nodded at him before the door to his room opened, all of a sudden, his Dad and Lydia entering the room, obviously relieved.

Going to his side, Lydia took sat on a chair beside his bed and took his hand into hers. "It's okay. Scott asked some of the campers to call for your father," Stiles' eyes wandered to his Dad, seeing the the stains on his uniform and the dried blood that usually wasn't there. "We found her, Stiles," Lydia laughed, relieved. "Scott. . .he found a way to make Malia shift back to being a human," Stiles nodded at her, before someone entered his room.

It was Allison, with a worried expression on her face that melted into relief.

Stiles raised a curious eyebrow at his friend when Lydia gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "She figured it out when we were visiting her Mom in the cemetery, figured it out that we may have trashed this sort of grave for her mother and sister. She was so worried that you wouldn't get it in time," Stiles remembered it a whole lot clearly now. He remembered Scott running off, hearing Kira's name before his phone rang with a text from Allison.

When he received the phone call, Stiles realized it as well. He tried to run after Scott, warn him about what he knew about the coyote, about it being Malia when he heard rustling behind a bush. Stiles remembered calling out for Kira because she was injured and she was probably so freaked out about everything but it wasn't her. It was the coyote, instead, snarling at him.

Stiles held his hand in front of him, trying to appease Malia, the coyote who probably was unaware that she was about to murder her classmate back then in the 2nd grade back in elementary school. But his efforts were fruitless because he was attacked anyway. The coyote—Malia—went for his bag and had clawed him in the stomach in the process. Stiles then groaned in realization: his bag, his only decent bag was torn up and everything he had in there was probably lost in the woods.

"Why did it go for my bag?" Stiles muttered all of a sudden, wondering why did it go for his bag.

Lydia dropped his hand. "Yeah," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Why didn't it go for the kill?" Allison, who was beside his father, silently hid a laugh. But there was something to her, like something was off with his girlfriend's best friend and he couldn't quite point it out. "Isn't it a good thing that Malia opted to go and tear your bag apart instead of your insides?" it was a grim and gory vision, but Lydia had a point.

But still, Stiles had trouble trying to connect the dots as to why. "Yeah, and it is. I love living, but it's just too strange to have Malia tear out my bag when she could have easily gone for me," Stiles thought long and hard, his eyebrows furrowing.

"You didn't have your gym clothes inside it, did you?" his father joked and Melissa cracked a smile, but the tension around them weighed heavy again. Stiles didn't let the worried expression on Scott's Mom escape his thoughts.

"What?" Stiles asked, seeing everyone's solemn faces. "I don't cancer or anything, don't I?" Stiles joked around, trying to lighten the atmosphere like his father did but no one smiled. For a moment, he considered actually having cancer when he remembered that he and his Dad went for yearly check-ups at the hospital, making sure that if by some twisted fate, he'd end up having whatever his Mom had, they'd get to it before it would get out of hand.

While there's no cure for frontotemporal dementia, treating it while early could help ease symptoms and delay its progression.

"No, you're fine." Lydia answered seriously. "But Scott is missing." Stiles felt like he had ice water poured all over him. It was a rude awakening and soon, a monitor beside him started beeping madly.

There was this heavy look that was on Melissa's face, an expression that reminded Stiles of the time when he found their parents inside a root cellar and told her that his son had basically died. "We're all stressing the patient out," Melissa, from Stiles' angle, brought out a bottle of pills that seemingly materialized from thin air. "We need to give him some air and some space. And you," Melissa handed him two white pills that tasted bad, "need to rest."

Lydia and Allison backed into the door frame while his father went to his side, giving him a warm and gentle smile. "I'm going to check up on you after a few hours, that okay with you?" Stiles nodded, feeling calm and dizzy after drinking the pills.

Melissa finished tweaking some of the machinery beside him and when said her goodbye and went away, Stiles spotted the tears forming in her eyes.

The door clicked closed but they were all standing close to it so Stiles heard their conversation quite easily. "Though you've said that he's been getting better, Stiles is profoundly sleep deprived so I gave him Midazolam, helps relax patients before surgery," he heard Melissa's voice, sounding professional but when he concentrated, he heard a slight rift that he knew well. She was trying so hard so that the others won't notice but she's scared as hell for Scott.

A soft and strangled sob sounded and Stiles felt guilty. He was with Scott to help him get better and yet now, his best friend is missing in the woods. "I've got deputies searching the preserve with a fine tooth comb right now. We'll find Scott." Stiles heard his father's voice, some of the words drawing out longer than it should be. Immediately, he knew that the drug was already taking effect.

There was a soft shuffling of stuff when Stiles yawned against his will, his eyelids getting heavy. "It's a text from Ethan." Allison said, her voice slightly raspy. Stiles knew that she was worried about Scott. "He found something in the woods, a piece of paper," Stiles' vision blurred drastically as he fought to stay awake. He wanted to know what Ethan found. "He said that it smelled like Stiles' bag," then, everything fit into place as Stiles remembered Kira.

Kira had given Scott her number before they went into the preserve. Today, Stiles received a few papers from her. "My bag," Stiles groaned to no one in particular as his fingers felt numb. Slowly, Stiles was going in and out of conscience, but he fought sleep off because in the window, though very blurry, he saw Kira pacing around nervously. Stiles was no werewolf or werecoyote for that matter but he knew that she wouldn't so worked up about the incident.

Stiles mustered all of his remaining energy to prop himself up, taking a good look at the new girl. Kira was pacing around as her mother talked to a doctor and her father, Mr. Yukimura, was probably recalling the events to a deputy. The logical part of Stiles' soon to be asleep brain told him that maybe, like all normal people, Kira was shaken up from the coyote attack and was probably worried about either him, the one in the hospital, or Scott, the one who is missing.

Stiles wanted to accept that hypothesis, and if Scott were around, he'd tell him to drop his guard and think that maybe that was the case, too, so Stiles wanted to believe that but he had this gut feeling that told him otherwise. The look on Kira's face wasn't just worried or concerned. No, Stiles thought to himself as his eyes finally closed, his breathing coming to a regular pace. She's afraid of something but what?

Stiles woke up in the middle of the night, his blood pounding in his ears, and his room was dark, like pitch black.

Seeing the dark space in front of him, Stiles thought if someone as there but he knew that there wasn't. There was no person or figure or supernatural entity burning a hole in his mind because a stare, but still, something wasn't right. Listening close to the door—it was still left ajar—Stiles waited for a sound to come, but there was nothing and it felt wrong. The hospital, it was far too silent and the feeling that kept tugging at his stomach, churning wildly, wasn't helping ease that ominous feel.

Stiles saw the bottle of Midazolam placed on the nightstand beside his bed. A part of him wanted to take another dose and fall asleep, forget that he ever woke up in the middle of the night, not from a vividly scary nightmare—no, those days were over for him—but from his heart pounding hard against his chest and his body that was covered in a thin sheet of sweat.

Pushing himself up so that he would be sitting, Stiles tried to asses the situation. It was dark and scary, obviously not the time for adventures and death-defying acts but something told him that if he didn't, he would regret it. Looking out the window, Stiles saw the full moon and remembered the things that go bump in the night and how not all of them are as friendly as the neighborhood puppies, er, werewolves. Fear pooling in his stomach, Stiles' hand flew to his chest, were a vial of mountain ash would usually sit. It wasn't there.

Looking to the nightstand, Stiles saw it there, right beside his phone, which had two bars of battery left in it. "Fairly good," he muttered to himself, examining the phone and its casing. "Considering what we went through in the forest and here you are, not a single dent!" Stiles felt oddly proud of his phone before his eyes trailed towards the door. He gulped, pocketing the vial filled with mountain ash. It's time to face the outside, and probably not-so safe, world, Stiles thought to himself.

Pushing himself off the bed, the first thing Stiles noticed was the cold sensation of the tiled floor when his foot hit the ground. Looking around the room, a small sigh escaped his lips when he figured out that his slippers were no where to be found and that he'd have to go ghost-hunting without any footwear. Stiles looked over his shoulder and looked at the bottle of Midazolam before he shook his head and looked at the ceiling as if to ask why me.

Shaking his negative thoughts away, walked towards the door of his room and pushed it open, seeing a deserted hall with lights flickering on and off. Breathing in deep, Stiles tried to shake the ominous feeling off despite the hospital being abandoned and looked like a perfect setting for a horror movie, the kind of film where people die before the killer is caught.

Walking towards the another set of doors, Stiles tapped on his phone and flashed its light in front of him, spotting a map of the hospital. Looking at the detailed fire escape plan, Stiles didn't really know why he felt like looking at it—he's spent most of his childhood days in this very hospital for various reasons—but his eyes landed on where he was, the East wing of the hospital where the majority of the private rooms were located.

As he was about to walk away, Stiles noticed something etched into the glass that protected the fire escape plan. Flashing the light directly at the spot, he instantly regret the decision because the glare almost blinded him for a second. Taking the phone away, he leaned in closely to see what was etched and realized that it was two bands and that it was etched directly above the cafeteria located at the West wing, causing his stomach to churn and his head to turn to both of his sides, his cellphone lighting the hall as much as it could.

Stiles gulped when he saw no one around because he swore, at the moment, he was not alone.

"Scott?" Stiles called out in the dark as he continued walking away from the feeling of safety from the East wing as he pushed the doors open, showing a long hall leading to the rest of the hospital. A sinking gut feeling told Stiles to turn around and forget about everything because even though a part of his mind screamed that Scott needs his help, everyone knows about his tattoo and what it meant. Hell, Stiles thought to himself as he breathed in deep and crossed the hall, reached the other end, even Jared knew what it was about.

But still, without solid evidence that it was Scott who left the two bands, Stiles went on and flashed his phone's light ahead of him. The logical part of Stiles really had a point about it being most likely a trap but even so, if there was the slightest chance that it was Scott asking for help, then he's willing to take the chance.

So, instead of turning around and be intimidated by the empty nurses' station, Stiles checked it out instead, seeing the time. 3:21, the clock read and it was way too early in the morning but his arm still shook. There should be people around here, Stiles thought to himself as he noticed that some of the desktops were left on yet displayed a blank and blue screen, with a text in white, bold font in the middle that said there was no connection between the screen and the CPU.

Stepping away from the counters, Stiles continued walking towards the cafeteria when he suddenly felt cold. Rubbing his hands together, Stiles closed his eyes shut and breathed deep, wondering why it was cold all of a sudden when he heard a faint but alarming sound.

Stiles froze, standing still and not moving an inch, his feet were seemingly glued to the ground. His breath hitched and he started to feel scared and nervous. Although he didn't know where it came from or what it was, Stiles was vaguely reminded of a loud construction site that was going against practically every single building code known to man.

It was actually enough to scare Stiles away, it should have been enough to send him running for the hills but he walked towards the familiar double door entrance that lead to the cafeteria. Slowly pushing against the cold, metal surface of the door, Stiles found himself standing alone inside the isolated cafeteria, the light of the moon streaming in from the clear windows and he never felt so confused when he saw the hall empty and void of people.

Stiles released a sigh and turned towards the door. Maybe, he thought to himself as he began walking towards the double doors, it was nothing after all.

But then, the temperature, if possible, dropped even lower and Stiles saw in front of him as the light from the moon began to disappear. A part of him would have wondered how the light disappeared so quickly but he couldn't think of that at the moment, not when he turned around only to see two figures dressed heavily in black with masks that struck fear in his heart.

Stiles gulped as the figures took another step towards him. Is this the end, he asked himself as he observed the ninja-like creatures slowly walking towards him. Stiles studied the figures, and in the corner of his eye, he saw that they were like waning, in a sense, or fading. It was like, they were made out of smoke—Stiles shook his head, seeing the light seep through one of the figure, who then promptly faded.

But then, the light disappeared and the figure came back.

Not smoke figures, Stiles thought to himself as his hand found its way towards a pocket of his pants where the vial of mountain ash was. Shadow figures, he corrected himself watching the two mysterious and dark forms in front of him.

A moment passed, and the shadow figures were still watching him, surprising Stiles to an extent. He had half-expected them to attack him, end it quickly and easily but they didn't. Instead, they stood in front of him like they were looming messengers of death but in a less threatening way.

Suddenly, one of the shadow figures raised a hand and Stiles saw the form's hand glow golden in the dark. He squinted at the sight of the figure's palm, seeing something he would definitely classify as weird but relevant. "Self," Stiles said to himself as one of the shadow figures nodded and stepped forward, its hand reaching for the back of his ear. Oddly enough, he didn't feel threatened or did he feel like he was in any sort of danger.

Stiles closed his eyes, waiting for something to happen when there was a quick whoosh of air and when he opened his eyes, Scott was standing in front of him, where the shadow figures should have been. "Stiles, thank God, I've found you," his best friend breathed out, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Stiles looked around, searching for traces of the shadow figures when his eyes landed on the floor where two dead fireflies were splayed across the floor. Oddly enough, Stiles has this strong feeling that they were connected to the not-so dangerous shadow figures. Also, a part of him has this gut feeling, a strong hunch that told him Scott's sudden arrival wasn't so sudden and was actually linked to the shadow-y figures that stood in front of him earlier.

Stiles narrowed his eyes at his best friend, who unflinchingly stared back at him, confused. "What are you doing here?" Stiles asked sharply, though he never did intend to be rude in the first place. He didn't want any bad blood between him and his best friend but he has this little voice that kept yelling at the back of his mind to run because something wasn't right.

Scott tilted his head to a side. "What are you talking about, Stiles? I saved you from those. . .things," Scott said with a particular animosity that rang out differently. It rolled off differently and strangely from Scott, Stiles realized, because it was something so out of character. His best friend would never say something like that.

Stiles shook his head, taking a step away from Scott, wishing that the shadow figures were still around. "You're lost. Right after the coyote attack, you disappeared. Why are you here?" Stiles remembered his phone's screen back when he just turned it on when he woke up: there was nothing new with his inbox, which meant that Scott wasn't found yet. Allison and Lydia never found Scott in the hours he had been asleep.

Scott, for a moment, his brows furrowed together in confusion and Stiles, for a second, almost believed that the man in front of him is indeed his best friend but there was something wrong. His best friend had this air of lightness around him, this aura of goodness and positivity. The only aura around the man in front of him was darkness and evil. "Yeah. I had to take care of the coyote, had to make sure that it wouldn't hurt anybody anymore," Stiles didn't have to be a werewolf to know that the man in front of him was lying.

Scott didn't take care of Malia. Scott helped her turn back to human.

There was a strong, a firm look on Stiles' eyes that resembled an iron will. It was a steely gaze actually. "You're not Scott." Stiles didn't ask a question or say it as an accusation. It sounded off like he was saying a simple fact. Suddenly, there was a small spark of electricity above and Stiles' phone fell to the ground and a deep sounded form it.

Scott's evil twin, so it seems, just gave a dark laugh and an evil, twisted grin was etched into Stiles' mind, an image he wouldn't forget soon. "You're smart, Stilinski, perhaps more so than the girl, Lydia Martin, your paramour, is she not?" the voice was dark and eerie, taunting him to do something stupid but Stiles held back his anger but fear was radiating off of him. He smelled exactly like prey and the man in front of him probably knew.

"Don't hurt her," Stiles said curtly and his voice had this threatening edge to it. "I swear to that if one strand of her strawberry blonde hair is out of place, so help me God, I will—" he started but was cut off by the Scott's doppelgänger waving his hand dismissively in the air.

"Come on, Stiles, let's stop with the petty threats," the doppelgänger sneered at him, and while Stiles knew it wasn't Scott, it hurt him, causing a dull pain in his chest grow sharp again. "You're a mortal—a powerless human—what can you do to an immortal? Besides, why would I be interested in a puny, little banshee?" Stiles heard the man taunt but he ignored it and glared at the doppelgänger in front of him.

Stiles gulped and swallowed air, trying to calm his nerves but he still stuttered. "What do you—what do you want with Scott, then?" the man in front of him raised an eyebrow, painstakingly looking like his best friend.

"I am Scott," the doppelgänger mocked innocent, using this expression that almost made Stiles' resolution melt until he remembered that his best friend was possessed. Glaring more intensely at the man, the doppelgänger sighed. "Well, soon, I will be Scott and every trace of that poor, teenage boy will be erased from history because you just had to doubt yourself, Stiles." It was his turn, however, to be confused and Stiles felt his brows furrow together.

"What are you talking about?" there was this heavy feeling in Stiles' stomach that told him he knew what the doppelgänger was talking about.

The man laughed in front of him, but it was nothing like his best friend. Scott's laughs were genuine and real while the doppelgänger's was cruel and had a sense of being manipulative. "Have you forgotten about our first meeting back in purgatory? I swore, we had so much fun!" flashes of memories came streaming in Stiles' mind as he remembered that night they went under water and died to serve as surrogate sacrifices for their parents.

Stiles remembered seeing the Nemeton smacked right in the middle of the endless white room that looked like a parking basement for an apartment building. He remembered Scott having to be left behind because his anchor was damaged by a dark spirit, a spirit that was around him because—

"Ahh, the detective finally understood the mystery," the dark spirit had possessed Scott when he was revived but Stiles had to wonder, why it waited so long before taking over his best friend. "I'll give you a simpler explanation, right. Perhaps a door analogy, wouldn't that be fine?" the image of Scott's face laughing maniacally would never erase itself from Stiles' memories. An evil smirk, perhaps, but that face would terrorize his nights to come. "The door to Scott's mind was left unlocked. Your best friend Scott left it unlocked because someone broke his key," Stiles felt guilt pooling in his stomach.

He was the reason why Scott's being possessed by an evil spirit?

"Of course, you're not the only one to blame." Evil Scott dismissed right away before looking straight into his eyes. "I swear, if only you hadn't been such an introvert as a young boy, to have shunned the world and escaped to the world of Japanese animated-cartoon, we would not have this problem." Stiles remembered the shadow figures and the symbol for self, which was like an upside down 5. He knew what it meant because he had spent the better half of his 5th grade summer playing with Scott and watching anime with him.

Stiles stared as possessed Scott paced around him.

"The onis," Stiles nodded slightly. The shadow figures were called onis. "They're designed to find out the mischievous of the lot. The black sheep, in other words. The elemental kitsunes could be the white sheep while the slightly more treacherous one will be the black sheep. Let's give the odd one out a name, shall we? Nogitsune, Stiles. Void, at your service," Stiles continued to glare at Void as he mocked and bowed low.

"Why now? Why wait?" Stiles asked sharply.

"Because I couldn't, not at the moment, but you see you, once again, gave me the strength to push through young Scott's mental boundaries." Stiles faltered. How had he helped the villain again? "You see, I've been haunting our young true alpha with riddles of what I need and then you just had to accept Kira's papers, putting you in trouble, getting yourself injured and getting noble Scott to take your pain, and my was it delicious!" Void gestured to himself, to Scott before flashing red eyes surrounded by black sclera. It was a real demonic sight. "This, boy, is just the beginning."

It made sense to Stiles now, but a particular question burned in his mind. "Then why are you here? Why aren't you acting on your head start for world domination? Here to thank me?" Void waved his hands in the air dismissively, resembling a fox.

"Please, if I have anybody to thank, it's the Argent girl," Void chuckled darkly that left Stiles uneasy, wondering what was going to happen to him. In the movies, usually, once the sidekick learns of the villain's convoluted plan to take over the world, he dies. Stiles swallowed and stared at Void, wondering is his last moment on Earth was going to be filled with taunting and mystery. "But to answer your question, Stiles, I can't take over the world, not when someone is anchoring your best friend, Scott, to humanity." Stiles raised a brow at the statement.

"Scott doesn't have an anchor." Isaac said so himself. He and Allison were loose canons and they should stay away from Scott, which, of course, he didn't really pay much attention to and went with his best friend anyway.

Void gave him a look that seemingly made him think otherwise. "Oh, think again, Stiles. Scott isn't going derailed because he still have someone keeping him grounded, a woman who has his heart and soul keeping his humanity in check and because of that. . ." Void gestured to himself and Stiles understood what it meant: Kira was Scott's new anchor.

"You need Scott to lose his anchor, to turn off his humanity so that you can finally take over." Stiles stared at Void, who hummed happily, satisfied at his conclusion. "So this is why you lured me here, so you can kill me, so you can take control," Void raised a brow at him and shook his head, a sadistic grin on Scott's face appeared.

"No, Stiles, of course not. Let's go back to the door analogy, shall we? Scott's mind has a door that keeps all the evil thoughts out from his mind. The door, in a way, keeps his moral compass in check, but your best friend left it unlocked because you broke the key. Naturally, it would seem like it's your fault but it isn't, you have to think of the bigger picture—why does there have to be a door and why does there have to be an exit?" Stiles' mind was flooded with thoughts and he thought of one person and it wasn't Kira. "So, no, Stiles, I don't have to kill you. In order to take control of Scott, I need to take out his anchor, the girl who started it all." Stiles finally understood.

It was Allison, she's Scott's anchor. It was always Allison.

Stiles felt protective of his friend, Allison, now that he's learned that there was a red mark hanging over her head. "I won't let you hurt her." Void chuckled darkly, waving his hand in the air, dismissing the thought easily as if it was a stupid idea.

Void circled around him, studying him like he was some animal. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, isn't that right? Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories, that one was by Sun Tzu, is it not?"

"I don't understand." Stiles also didn't get why there was a need for quotations.

Void, however, didn't take his not knowing lightly. In a matter of minutes, Scott's face was inches away from his, a look of fury in Void's demonic eyes. "Pain, boy, is ephemeral!" and just like that, Stiles understood.

"My pain isn't enough for you to keep control of Scott's body," Stiles felt hope, suddenly. Things weren't as hopeless and bleak as they seemed after all as Void stepped away from him, calming himself down. "You need Scott to take more people's pain," Void shook his head, bending down on one knee to get one of the fireflies.

"Not more, per se, but instead, time." Void raised his brow quizzically that taunted Stiles. "Were you not listening to me? There's a reason why Scott is showering that girl, Kira Yukimura, his affection and it's because he needs to keep his enemy closer to him than his friends, to know her so that he could win against the kitsune." Stiles stared at Void as he held the dead firefly in his palm. "But, of course, your friend is unaware of his subconscious' true motive."

Taking a step back, Stiles' back was eventually pressed against the wall. "You want to know her weaknesses." He said blankly, his hand once again finding its way towards his pocket where his vial of mountain ash was. A part of Stiles wanted to pour its content down Void's throat when he realized that it was still Scott, just possessed. He couldn't risk hurting or killing his best friend. "That's why you need more time," Stiles turned his head towards the door and thoughts began racing in his mind. "I'll tell everyone. I won't let you get away with it."

Void smiled mischievously, reminding Stiles of a fox. A sly fox. "Oh, but I will, boy. Not now, of course, but eventually. And besides, who will they believe: the one who was marked by the oni or the one who was hospitalized?" Stiles raised a brow and checked the back of Scott's ear. There was no mark like the kanji for self.

"You can't mark yourself. Scott, he's your host and he's still a werewolf. He'll heal himself. You won't have a mark, everyone will know." Void was impressed and Stiles had this sinking feeling in his stomach when blood red irises looked him in the eye.

"You will get the vial and pour its content into your palm." Stiles didn't know why he was doing what Void was telling him to do but he did. Slowly, Stiles took the vial from his pocket and poured its content into his calloused hand. "Then, you will give me the empty vial peacefully." Stiles didn't know what was happening to him. "It's called compelling, boy. Vampires have the same ability," Void snapped sharply before breaking the vial in his hand, the shards now shining in the moonlight.

Stiles sputtered. "What are you doing?" Void took his free hand and pricked a finger, letting the blood drip into the pile of mountain ash in his other hand.

"You're quite right, see, Scott is a werewolf and any self-inflicted wound will heal quite fast but mountain ash, well, we all know its magical effects on all supernaturals," Void gave him a sadistic grin as he took one of the shards sticking up from his palm and dipped the piece of glass in the wet ash. "And a Spark's blood can do many things, Stiles." The glass smoked weakly, and for a second, Stiles hoped that it would be enough for the fire alarms to go off but it was silent.

With a flick of the finger, Void's hand was behind Scott's ears and marked himself, probably with the kanji sign for self. Void screamed in pain and Stiles inched forward, wanting to help his best friend when he remembered that it wasn't Scott.

Then, when the screaming died down, Void stood up and looked outside the window. "My time is almost up," Void looked at him in the eye, flashing the red irises and the black sclera that was far more scarier than any demon he's seen in the movies. "You'll make your way back to your room in the East wing, and you will go back to sleep, forgetting that any of this has happened." Stiles shook his head and tried to punch Void, but it was like he had disappeared into thin air!

"What the—" Stiles looked around and noticed that he was in his room and his eyelids were getting heavier, a yawn escaped his lips. Seeing the bed, Stiles walked towards it and sat on the edge before lying down on the bed. A satisfied hum escaped his lips, feeling sleepy when he remembered that Void was just there and Scott was possessed. Immediately, Stiles stood up and wanted to go when something red glowed in the dark and an eerie voice filled his ears, making him more sleepy.

"You will lie down again, Stiles," and he did, resting his head on the pillow. "You will forget about everything and you will close your eyes," a soft whimper escaped from Stiles' lips, almost sounding like a strangled sob as he chanted to himself a mantra, telling himself that he will not forget. "And when you open your eyes, you will see light streaming in your window." Stiles tried to fight the sleepiness but it was too strong when he suddenly remembered something.

His phone, he had dropped it. He had recorded their entire conversation!

"You woke up in the middle of the night and you got up, only to get a drink of water but after that, you fell asleep again." Stiles unwillingly closed his eyes half way, his mind chanting over and over again to remember something.

What should he remember?

"You will wake up in the morning, and your best friend, Scott, is found and you will continue about your daily life. So, sleep, Stiles." Stiles' felt the presence subside and he wondered, who was there with him.

Who was there?

Your phone. Remember. Stiles' eyes slowly closed no matter how hard he fought.

"Remember." And finally, when he couldn't take it anymore, Stiles' eyes closed but he continued to struggle to open his eyes. "Remember." Stiles' mind chanted the word over and over again until he could open his eyes.

Stiles sat up, awake, and watched the golden rays of the sun illuminating his room. His father, already in his uniform, was actually standing in the door frame with a bag of breakfast from the local diner. "Hey, Stiles, anything interesting happened?" Stiles knew that his father saw the worried expression on his face. His Dad was worried about him, but Stiles didn't should be worried. "You okay, kid?" his Dad asked.

Stiles grinned, dismissing the weird feeling he had earlier. 'Probably just a weird dream I'm trying to remember.'

"Yeah, Dad, I'm fine."

Hello, people of the internet!

Borrowed the concept of compelling from The Vampire Diaries and The Originals from the CW. Another one is that the way Void spoke, for me, would be like how Klaus would speak. Anyways, I like Scira and Scalia. Rather fond of the two ships but I will always go back to Scallison. Scott and Allison happened to be my first ship for the Teen Wolf fandom, even before my legendary OTP, Stydia, and I've got a soft spot for them (Scallison) so this fanfiction isn't a Scira fic, though I will probably make one when I have time.

So, let me know of your thoughts by leaving a short comment using the review section below! Also, don't forget to fave and follow!