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The darkness that overlooked him laying down here on the cold, hard ground was throttling, constricting, blinding, concealing him from a world that he prayed for his return to.
Stiles's hands were jabbed with stone and rubble, and A thousand invisible hammers were fighting each other in his head. He could feel the world blocked away with the curtain of his eyelids spinning with each breath he forced in. His forearm had gone numb from his weight being pushed upon it, and the thought of getting up and looking around frustrated him more than the pain itself because it only extentuated the levels to which discomfort, isolation, and unfamiliarity had refused to leave his conscience alone.
The thought of being helpless preyed upon his guts, shame and exhaustion holding him down like A monster under his bed whose face could never be as scary as its mere concept. Fear was an illusion he could not escape, and something gently unnerving told him to live in it under obedience and make peace with what haunted his dreams.
He hoped it was just A nightmare, just the Nogitsune tormenting him again, because atleast that was familiar. Atleast that was something there that he was sure of, unlike A million other things that he avoided the answer to while craving it like breath underwater.
Surety of what had led him here reached out to him in his mind, running in circles with the blind, red spots, blending right in, hope in the distance trying to hold his hand. And he didn't hesitate before taking the lifeline, recounting the same events he'd gone over A million times–again.
He was driving wasn't he? In that jeep, trying hard not to let the hail pouring outside blur his vision more than it already had. Sleep deprived, high, and most certainly exhausted. He just wanted to get home and lay on his bed.
And then the vehicle had come out of nowhere, knocking him out of his jeep. The last thing he felt before unconsciousness was A cold, thin strip of metal wrapped around his throat, slowly pulling him in.
His thoughts were interrupted by the creaking of hinges as the door fell open on the other side of the room. Or maybe he'd just imagined it. He didn't have the courage to open his eyes and find out.
"You're gonna be dead in A few days, you know."
A voice he'd never heard before, male, slightly robotic, melancholic in A scary, strange way. Something about it made him want to look.
Had he finally crept up to death's door, or could he really feel the pain disappearing as he opened his eyes to meet A stranger's icy blue ones. Those haunting eyes stared right back at him, as if challenging him to not break away.
"Is this real?"
"It most definitely is."
He'd woken up A lot of times here. Syringes, unlabelled medicines, stuff he'd seen in laboratories. His surroundings were strange, yet it wasn't the uncanny mechanism around him or the purple painted walls that bothered him.
It was the drawings hung up on the walls–children's drawings, the computers sitting on tables and monitoring every corner of whatever building he was in with cameras.
He'd tried to wake up fully on some unfortunate days, to find out where he was stuck. But every time, there would be this strange, mechanical sound behind him that Stiles just couldn't describe. And then something cold and steel would stab into his neck, knocking him out.
Except this time, it was this boy, not something invisible, with control to the syringe. And he stabbed it right in, his expression devoid of any mercy. Just A cold facade, cold just like his eyes.
And then he was out gain, lost in that world he hated.