I would like to make clear that this story is not really done by chapters, it's more of separate short stories that can be read together, but don't have to be. So basically this is a short series about Stiles' and how he is coping and not necessarily a 'chapter' story where every 'chapter' starts exactly after the past chapter. You can read it that way, if you'd like, but it is not necessary.

Riddles. He fucking hated riddles.

" Write down a riddle, and then read it aloud," his English teacher had said, and everyone groaned, and then he froze.

What did this pertain to English class?

" What belongs to you but others use it more than you do? " He heard from across the room.

" Your name," he mumbled, soft enough so no one could hear him. He glanced at the door, at the clock, tapped his pen quickly, eyed the door again.

" It's a riddle, Stiles," He heard the raspy voice, and a shiver went down his spine. He shut his eyes, tapped his pen faster; louder. A white backwards, chalk drawn five on a grungy, cold stone wall squeezed itself into his head.

" Not real," He mumbled, opened his eyes again.

At school. He was still at school. And riddles, they had to come up with fucking riddles.

He made to get up- because no, he couldn't do this. He couldn't.

" Stilinski," his teacher had shouted at his rude interruption, " What do you think you're doing?" She eyed him and Stiles gaped awkwardly. And great, he was making a scene. He just wanted to leave.

" I-I-uh," Scott was staring at him now, ready to follow him out the door," bathroom."

" It can wait." She folded her arms over her chest, glared when he let out a loud puff of air.

"But-"

"Sit!" She shouted, pointing to the ground, and great now he was sitting. And they were reading their stupid riddles again, and he blocked it out, blocked out the voice,

" It's a riddle, Stiles,"

He tapped his pen faster, bit his tongue.

Not real, Not real.

You're not real, he almost said.

" We're trying to sa-" and the voice was cut off when he could hear loud and clear, some stupid ass thinks-he's-a-genius motherfucker read out loud:

" Everyone has it, but no one can lose it,"

Shit, no no no, and a quick, fuck you dude, you couldn't have read a different riddle?

And maybe he was having a panic attack, but he couldn't tell and he didn't really care. Because he was back in that basement, not the hospital, but the basement, with him, and the smell hit him like a wave, and a familiar pain was searing through his foot. And it was dark, and he could see that stupid five, and then he could see all the bandages and no, please no, not real.

" Everyone has it, but no one can lose it," The Nogitsune had said as he scraped against the wall, and Stiles shouted, loudly, because this time he knew the answer and maybe, just maybe it could stop him,

" Shadow," He managed to get out before he screamed again, the pain on his ankle somehow increasing rapidly. The Nogitsune made no indication of hearing Stiles' answer.

" Everyone has it, but no one can lose it,"

" A shadow!" He screamed louder. Why was he acting like he couldn't hear him? He knew the answer, he was shouting it! There was no way he couldn't hear him.

" Everyone has it, but no one can lose it," and what the hell, he knew it, why wasn't he listening!

" Shadow!" He screamed, " A shadow,"

" I can't hear you, what is it Stiles? You're running out of time." Time? Running out of time, what did that mean?

" I've already told you, a shadow, it's a shadow!" Tears were making their way down his face, and he couldn't help but scream 'shadow' continuously.

" Ah, times up!" Times up, what did he mean, what did he mean? He had tried to ask that question aloud, but it died on his lips and was instead replaced with a rough scream. His ankle felt like it had been chopped off and something was burning in his chest, and he didn't, couldn't, stop screaming.

Scott watched as Stiles sat back down after being yelled at. He glanced as he looked aimlessly around the room, and couldn't help but cringe at the continous tapping of his pen on the desk. He reached over and poked his arm,

" Dude, are you okay?" And yeah, what a stupid question because it was answered with a lie ninety percent of the time, and he realized he probably wasn't okay, because they were currently talking about riddles, and the last time Stiles had been asked to answer a riddle, it had not been the best of situations.

Stiles had pushed Scott's arm away, mumbled lowly, " Fine," and then stared down at his desk. Scott sighed loudly as he slumped back down into his seat. He sat in his desk, bored, as he listened to the extremely stupid riddles, and honest to god, he himself was about to leave, because this is was ridiculously stupid, and then some idiot kid had to go and ask the riddle. He immediately straightened up, gawked at the kid and then snapped his head over to Stiles.

Stiles was rigid, the tapping had stopped and he just stared at his desk.

" Stiles, dude, are you okay, seriously?" Scott had reached over his desk and grasped Stiles' arm.

His hand was rudely shoved off and he was answered with the same quiet mumble, " Fine." Except now it almost sounded more agitated. He asked again, and was answered with the same thing. He huffed and sat back down in his seat, because if Stiles' said he was fine and didn't want any help, then that was fine with him. Let him be stubborn. He hardly ever wanted anyone's help these days, anyways. Everyone knew he was struggling. Something was definitely off with Stiles, but he kept quiet and seemed to try his best to act normal.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Stiles' writing very quickly, and sloppily. He tried to ignore it, because if this is how Stiles' copes or something, then fine, nothing was wrong with that, he guessed. After five minutes of listening to kids read their 'original' riddles, and watching that pen move a hundred miles per hour in the corner of his eye, he had had enough.

He reached over carefully and tried to grasp the top of the pen, but when he did so, Stiles' jumped slightly and basically shoved him away,

" Stiles' it's okay," Scott narrowed his eyes at his best friend, who continued to write on the...desk?

Stiles' mouth seemed to quiver, and Scott was sure he heard a low, scared, " Shadow."

"What?" He asked, as he leaned closer to Stiles again, kicked his foot to try to get his attention, but he got no answer, he just kept scribbling away. And then he realized, he was zoned out, completely zoned out, in his own world, like when he had wrote ' wake up' over and over. He then realized, crap, he needed to do something. As he went to raise his hand to ask the teacher for them to leave, Stiles' started screaming. Not one simple scream, but a full lasting bloody murder scream.

Scott nearly fell out of his desk, as did the others. The teacher seemed startled as well, muttering a ," What in the world?"

Scott had rushed over to Stiles, grabbed his shoulders, and did whatever he could to snap him out of it.

"You're okay. It's okay, it's okay." He had muttered as Stiles kept screaming, his whole body shaking. Scott didn't know what else to do, aside from yelling at everyone to stay back, that he was having a sort of panic attack, and that they needed to let him handle it.

At one point Stiles' screaming came to an abrupt stop, and in a choked breathy, deep murmur, out came, " Let me in." And then he started laughing, a menacing, mocking, laugh. Scott didn't know if he should hold Stiles tighter or drop him and get as far away as he could, because that was not Stiles.

"He's insane," A student had muttered in the background, right before Stiles' laughing formed into a slow sob, and then a full out scream again. Five seconds later Stiles opened his eyes, took in a big breath of air.

He looked straight at Scott, dead eyes trained on his, and stated,

" Run."

xxxx

Scott had immediately taken him out of the classroom after that. Scott asked him all sorts of questions, but Stiles didn't know what was going on. No, he didn't remember laughing, or saying " let me in". Yes he remembered saying "run," but no, he didn't know why he said it.

And hell no, he was not going to talk about it.

Scott didn't expect him to, though. It was probably best anyways, it could've set off another panic attack and they didn't really need that.

They had gone back to the classroom to retrieve their stuff they had left behind. When they re-entered the teacher had looked at Stiles, and he immediately barked, " Don't talk to me," and he hadn't meant for it to be so rude, but he didn't want to talk about it anymore, especially with his teacher, who was partially at fault for the panic attack, anyways.

They had walked quickly back over to their desks and Stiles froze. He swallowed nervously, and rubbed his hand over his face.

" No," He stated loudly, causing Scott to turn around and see what the matter was, " Damn it, no, no!" He shouted and when Scott looked down, he understood. What Stiles had been writing...it was all over the desk.

" Shadow" was now literally covering every inch of the desk, almost to the point of the word being un-legible. The further down you went on the desk, the more messy and scrawled out it got. Scott noticed in some areas, Stiles had been writing so hard, the word was actually engraved into the wood.

They spent thirty minutes trying to get off the words, but none of it would budge. Some of the letters ended up getting smudged, but it didn't matter. It was engraved, it was going to last forever.

A permanent mark of his insanity.

xxxx

Teachers and students began to notice words carved or written in random places all along the school. Teachers would come into school in the mornings with "Shadow" written on the whole surface of the black board, and it didn't quite make sense, because it was always before the school was opened to students, and it was there, almost every morning.

Students noticed the words mainly in the bathroom and library, of all places. The tables in the library had " Don't let them in" carved all over them, and it freaked the librarian out so much, she had the tables covered with paper.

"Wake up," had been written in sharpie on different areas of the mirrors in the bathrooms and it had taken a week to scrub it all off.

Within two weeks every inch of the school was decorated with the ( according to the students ) creepy as fuck messages. They had three different assemblies about them and who was the culprit. Stiles knew it was him, but he never remembered writing them, and he hadn't even realized he had been doing it, until other people had started pointing it out.

He and his dad went to the principle a week later, explaining it was him, and why he did it. He hadn't wanted too, but he figured everyone probably wanted to know who was leaving really weird messages all along the walls and tables.

From then on when anybody saw him sitting, restlessly scribbling away, they didn't say anything.

They didn't say anything because he saw his friend die, he blamed himself for her death, or so they heard, and he blacked out and wrote crazy messages.

They didn't say anything because they took pity on the poor insane boy.

xxxx

" Hello?" Scott tiredly asked as he answered his phone, trying to ignore the alarm clock that had its red numbers shining 2:13 AM at him. He was greeted with a low whimper, and, he knew, Stiles. " What's wrong?" He paused as he sat up in his bed, " Did you have the nightmare again, because it's not-"

" Don't let them in," Stiles interrupted shakily, his voice cracking slightly.

"What?"

" Don't let them in, Don't let them in," Stiles continued to chant through the phone, and Scott was really fucking confused. Stiles whimpered again before Scott spoke.

" What do you mean?"

" I can't-" He broke off, whimpering again, " I can't let them in. I can't. They're trying, they're-HE'S TRYING, HE'S TRYING," and suddenly Stiles was screaming and Scott was still confused, and worried, and what was he talking about, good lord.

" You're okay, you can do it, Stiles," Scott reassured him, because he had to calm down Stiles somehow, and this was the only way he could think of, " Just tell him to leave, scream at him to fuck off. Stiles, you're strong, you can-"

" I'm...I'm trying," and good, Scott thought, he was still there, " But he won't stop screaming at me, he wants in, he's trying, and I can't...I can't, but I'm trying, I tried, I," suddenly his voice cut off and Scott could hear him hitch in a breath, " no," he could barely hear on the other end, "oh god," and what the ever living hell was fucking happening, then a broken, " I'm sorry," and then the line was dead, and Scott was screaming,

" Stiles!"

xxxx

Scott had gone over to Stiles' house to find that he was asleep, with his phone barely grasped in his hand that was hanging off the edge of the bed. That's when he knew he had called him when he was sleeping, again. It made sense, and in a way it made him feel better, because whatever Stiles had been talking about was not real and had only been a nightmare.

He didn't wake him up because Stiles needed his sleep, even if he was having a nightmare. So, he sat carefully on the bed and sighed loudly. He glanced around his room and realized it was even messier than usual. Slowly his eyes landed on the back of Stiles' bedroom door, and his eyebrows went up in confusion.

" Fuck off, you're not real," was roughly carved on the whole back, and a pocket knife was still stuck in the 'l'.

Scott almost wanted to laugh, because this time the message Stiles had left behind wasn't some stupid mysterious sentence, it was a simple, I'm-tired-of-your-shit, response. Plus it was also what he had told Stiles to say to whoever he was talking about.

Scott froze when Stiles stirred in his bed and muttered, " We...we can't, I can't let them in."

xxxx

After several days of nightmares, he realized something. In all of his dreams the Nogitsune had either chose to ignore or pretend he hadn't heard him when Stiles' answered (correctly) his riddles or questions. Sometimes Stiles was simply unable to talk at all, and those were the worst. He slowly came to the realization that all of his answers in his dreams were the words carved all around his house.

So, after discussing with his father and Scott, they came to the conclusion that the only way he could 'successfully' answer the question was by writing it or carving it somewhere. When he couldn't say it, he wrote it over and over until the Nogitsune took it as an answer. It was a coping mechanism that just happened to make him look like a psycho lunatic.

His father gave him a big notepad and several pens hoping he would use it when he had his nightmares, instead of destroying half of the walls in the house. Scott made sure to note that it had been his idea too.

The notepad worked, and after a while, the whole notebook was almost filled, and slowly he stopped writing words altogether. There were no more new words on his bedroom wall, the kitchen wall, or anywhere at the school.

But there were the permanent ones, the lasting ones. The ones on the desk, the ones on the school walls, he could beg for them to throw out the desks, but he was always met with, " You wrote on too many, we can't get rid of all of them, we don't have enough money to replace them," and he had wanted to scream and punch the guy, because how expensive can a desk be?

He tried to avoid the desks he had written or carved into, but the dude had been right. He had destroyed a shit ton of desks. Every time he finally had himself convinced he was better, he would have to sit at one of the desks, and read his writing for half an hour, and it was like a punch to the gut. He had to walk in a place that would forever remind him and others, how insane he was.

But that didn't mean he wasn't better, or getting better at least, because he was getting better.

I'm better, I'm better, I'm better...I can't let them in, I can't let them in

xxxx

Buzzing sounded from the table and Scott quickly picked up his phone, reading the message from Stiles:

Run.

xxxx

He woke up, phone clutched in his hand, which was ringing like crazy, but he didn't care enough to notice. All he could do was stare at his bedroom wall, which was covered with his own bright red (not blood,not blood) handwriting. Forever scarred in his mind,

We kept our word, didn't we? We destroyed all of them. Destroyed us.

Hope you all liked it! I plan on there being three more parts after this, so if you enjoyed this, please review or favorite/follow