'Stiles, wake up.'

Stiles blinked his eyes open. The blinding whiteness that greeted him made him rethink that choice and he slammed them closed once more, his hands coming to rub his watering eyes, trying to get rid of the sting. He groaned.

His body ached all over, and his head was throbbing in time to the beat of his heart. There was a spot on his chest, about where his heart was, that felt like it was on fire, but he couldn't for the life of him remember why.

His eyes slowly became accustomed to the whiteness, and he hesitantly looked around. There was nothing. Literally nothing. Just white, endless, timeless, white. His head span.

Where the hell was he? The last thing he remembered was…

Getting shot in the chest. That must be why his heart felt like it was on fire, but then shouldn't he be dead? Or was that where he was? Was this heaven? More likely hell. A place with nothing to do and no one to talk to, that was definitely Stiles' definition of hell right there.

But wait.

He'd heard a voice. It had woken him, called him to wherever this was. So then, there must be something here, the whiteness couldn't be all there was.

'Hello?'

It was strange calling into the nothing. It just went on forever. He had expected an echo, there were always eerie echoes in the movies, but his voice just carried off into the distance. Somehow that was worse.

'Hello Stiles.'

Stiles jolted, hand pressing to his heart as he puffed and looked around. It was a female voice; at least he thought it was. Strong and warm but he couldn't work out where it was coming from, it seemed to be coming from all around him, and yeah, that wasn't creepy at all.

'Er, hi. Where are you? Wait no, first, where am I? And am I dead? Because I thought I died, I remember dying, but I'm here now, and I'm pretty sure that this isn't heaven because it kind of sucks, and if this were hell I think I'd probably be suffering more than I am, and I'm not really sure what purgatory is exactly, so this might be it, but I don't know. And I don't like not knowing.

I don't like not knowing if my friends survived, or if they won the battle, I don't like not knowing what they told my dad. I really don't like not being able to comfort him, and god, I was all he had left, this will kill him-'

'You sure do have a lot of questions, but if you want me to answer them then you will have to give me time to speak, can you do that?'

Stiles nodded, not trusting himself to stay silent if he opened his mouth again.

'Firstly you are not dead. Well, not really. You are… on the brink. We stopped you from crossing over because we do not think that it is your time, but we cannot make that decision so we brought you here to let you choose yourself.

Furthermore, your friends survived the battle, and victory was theirs, but injuries were sustained although that is of little consequence to their kind I should think. With time they should all be physically fine. Mentally however, your death has had a rather dire effect on them, and I cannot say whether or not they will recover from that any time soon. Your father has not been informed of your passing yet, and should you choose to return we will try to get you back before he is told, to minimise the problems you will face. As for who I am or where I am, that should not be of any importance to you, it might be wise to let that one go. Do you have any other questions?'

'Why can't you tell me who you are?'

'Me Stilinski.' The response came as a growl, a clear warning and he sighed.

'Fine. How about this then? Why would you save me? Why, out of all the people who die each day, would you save me?'

'As we said it is not your time. You are a brave and stupid boy Mr Stilinski. Even the fates themselves did not foresee you throwing yourself in front of that arrow. Of course the fate's sight is always somewhat impaired when it comes to werewolves, but you, you make it impossible for them to see straight. Everything you do seems to be riddled with spontaneity, it is very annoying, and so is your death. We feel it might be better in the long run if you were to return to the living, and that is why we saved you.'

Stiles was silent for a short while, mind racing at the new information. Somewhere inside of him his pride was flaring, Stiles Stilinski - the boy who cheated fate, but that was quickly overshadowed by his confusion. Finally the voice spoke again.

'We feel that we should be straight with you however. We cannot return you to the living without reason. Not even we have that power. So we will have to trust that you can find the key to your permanence yourself, or you will have to pass over and we won't be able to help you.'

'Key to my permanence? What does that even mean? That there is something I have to do, some destiny I have to fulfil, in order to come back to life permanently?'

'You seem to have understood us perfectly. It is one of the paths fate can see you travelling, but unless you pick it we cannot justify your return because bringing you back would not have changed anything. We cannot tell you what it is however, only that it is something close to you, something you want, but something you are too afraid to pursue. Once you have the key, once you find that which is your destiny, then fate can follow its true and righteous path and you can stay with your friends and family until you true time comes. Without you, a sadder, more destructive path will have to be taken, it is up to you to stop that from happening.'

Stiles laughed.

'So no pressure then?'

'Oh no, there is pressure. You can only stay alive for however long our power holds and we do not know how long that will be. Find the key. For your sake as much as ours. The lives of your friends will be unbearably dark if you do not live up to your potential. Will you go?'

'You really aren't giving me much of a choice are you? Yes, yes I will go. But please, can't you give me a hint, a clue of some sort?'

The whiteness seemed to be moving, edging into Stiles' mind. He panicked, shaking his head, trying to remove it, but it just kept coming.

'Give into it Stiles, the whiteness is your friend, let it take you home.'

And really, he was never going to beat it so he did what he was told and stepped into it, let it wash him away in its currents. And right before the whiteness melted into blackness there was a flash of scorching red and the voice said,

'You're special, they need you, he needs you.'

And then the blackness took over again.

I don't even know what this chapter was. It feels like this is going to be a really bad story. I hope not, I like what I've got in my mind, it just won't come out when I write it. Grrr! Oh well, please tell me what you think.