Telling Stiles about the shadow figures did not do much good. He was already jittery when he came home, and after that he looked even more pale. That night, every time I woke and looked to check on him, he was just staring up at the ceiling. At one point, he suddenly got up and walked out of the room. I expected him to go to the bathroom, but when I heard him walking down the stairs I got out of bed and quickly followed him. He made it all the way to the road before I managed to get to the front door.
"Stiles!" I yelled, running after him. Still, he kept walking. "Stiles!" I grabbed him by the shoulders. I figured he was sleepwalking, but his eyes were open. He stared directly at me, slightly tilting his head. I could've sworn I saw the corner of his lip tug up before he blinked a few times and nearly fell over.
"I've got you," I said, holding him until he was awake enough to stand on his own feet. He looked around, confused. "I think you were sleepwalking. You headed straight out the door."
"I- I don't…" he stared down at his hands and started slowly counting his fingers, but then he started shaking so badly I feared he would actually fall over.
"Let's go inside, then we can count."
"But-"
"Please? I'm freezing." That seemed to do the trick, though his eyes kept darting around, as if he expected something to pop out of the shadows any second. Once inside, we had to count his fingers three times before started to calm down.
~o~
When I thought it couldn't get worse, Stiles dragged Scott and I into the chemistry classroom the next day, claiming he'd gone back and found that the writing on the board matched his own. Only the board was empty. Panic set in on Stiles' face.
"The cleaning crew probably erased it," I offered. "They wouldn't know it was important."
Stiles nodded. "Yeah, right, and it doesn't matter, because I still have the key…" he walked to the closet and started looking through his keyset. "That's… that's weird. I had it this morning. I swear to god."
"The key you were talking about last night?" Scott asked.
"Yeah, I showed it to you. Didn't I show it to you?"
Scott hesitated. "No, you just told me about it. I never actually saw it."
Stiles' eyes darted around the room, and he once again explained how he'd come here, the handwriting on the board matched his, and that he had the key to the supply closet. In addition to this, the prank he and Scott had played on coach, a birthday present filled with nuts and screws and bolts, matched how William Barrow had made the shrapnel bomb all those years ago.
"That was my idea," Stiles said.
Scott eyes me for a second, but I didn't even know what to think. "Look," he said, "I don't want to sound like I'm trying to tell you that you're wrong. But I don't think that you're trying to kill people either."
An awful feeling started to form in my stomach. It felt like it was creeping up and shutting off my throat. Meanwhile, Stiles stared at the chalkboard in disbelief. "It was here, it was all here…"
"Maybe it wasn't Stiles," I said. Stiles and Scott turned to look at me, confused. "One of the first nightmares Stiles had after the Nemeton, he said 'don't let them in'. Then, he had the whole 'when is a door not a door' dream…" I could barely look him in the eyes. "Maybe you're… possessed?"
"Can that happen?" Scott asked. Stiles just stared at me, eyes darting around as he started breathing more quickly and shallowly.
"I think so? I haven't seen it happen before, but then again, I hadn't seen half the stuff that happens in this town before." Scott slowly nodded, but I saw doubt in Stiles' eyes. "Is there anything else?"
He shook his head. "No, no, nothing."
"You look pretty tired man," Scott said, "Why don't you go home? Take a sick day or something. Then Lora and I can look into any possession stuff."
Stiles nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good."
The bell rang. "I'll see you at home?" I asked Stiles, who nodded. "Okay." Knowing there wasn't much else I could do at the moment, I hugged him and headed off to class. On the way there, Scott explained that all the others -the werewolves and Lydia- except for him also got visited by the shadowmen at the party last night. They faded as the sun came up, but they were looking right at him as they did.
"Ethan and Aiden have assigned themselves to be my personal bodyguards," he said with a sigh. "Isaac, Allison and her dad are looking into the shadowmen. Chris had a run in with them years ago in Japan."
That sounded about right, looking back the clothes they were did somewhat resemble a ninja-esque attire.
"And Kira?" I asked, "She's supernatural too."
"She's some kind of… fox," he said. "When I look at her with my wolf vision, I can see the shape around her. Like it is protecting her."
I frowned. "Sounds like a kitsune… which explains the electricity. There's several types of them, I'm not too familiar with them, I'll need to do some reading. In any case, we might want to keep an eye out for them."
"She's staying with me tonight."
I smirked. "Get it, tiger."
"Not like that!" Scott whined, and I entered the classroom laughing.
~o~
After lunch I got a phone call from Melissa at the hospital. Stiles had checked himself in, convinced there was something wrong with him. She'd given him a sedative so he could get some sleep.
"He might be out for a while, I don't want you to worry."
"Thanks for telling me. And for getting him to sleep. He hasn't been doing much of that lately."
"No worries."
"So, you think it's just sleep deprivation?"
There was a pause. "The symptoms match, and he hasn't been sleeping. I think it's because of anxiety, with everything that has happened over the past months."
I let out a sigh of relief. "That's… very logical. For a second I thought he might've gotten possessed by something after the Nemeton. But the others are fine, or fine enough, so I'm probably just stressing out over nothing." We were both silent, and after a while I couldn't take it anymore. "Well, thanks again for calling. I'll swing by after I'm done studying to pick him up."
Several hours later, just as I had finished dinner and was getting ready to go to the hospital, my phone rang again. This time, it was Allison, and she was ready to shatter the small bit of hope I had gained from my call with Melissa.
"We talked to the person who escaped these figures with my father last time. They're called the oni. They're spirits, looking for someone with a dark spirit attached to them. A nogitsune."
"Shit."
"Could it be Kira?"
"What? Maybe… I- I need to go."
"Check what?"
"I really hope I'm wrong, but… they might be looking for Stiles."
I hung up and raced to the hospital, breaking several traffic laws along the way. When I came in, I didn't even bother questioning why Scott was helping his father to an emergency room.
"Where's Stiles?" I asked Melissa, grabbing her by the shoulders.
"Room 12B." she said with a frown. I ran for the room, but found it empty. I ran around, checking several corridors before I saw Stiles standing still in one, back turned to the door I was looking through. I cautiously opened the door.
"Stiles?"
He stood still for a second, and then turned around with what looked to be a genuine smile on his face. "Hey! How'd you know I was here?"
"Melissa told me. Are you okay?"
He walked over and put an arm over me. "Better now, I had some sleep. Are you?"
I nodded, just as Scott walked in. "You guys okay?"
"Fine," Stiles and I answered in unison. I hoped it masked the fact that I wasn't entirely convinced.
