Dreaming as if Death Itself Was Undone

He was running through the forest. His lungs were burning and his legs were starting to give. He didn't know how long he had been running, but he knew he couldn't stop. If he stopped he was dead. If he so much as looked behind him he was sure he would freeze in fear. The pounding of his heart, pumping blood through his veins, the very instinct to survive is what was driving him.

That and the snarling, inhumane sounds he heard not too far off.

He pushed faster, trying to keep going. He was fighting a losing battle. He knew he was.

He was going to die here, in this forest. Killed by the savage beasts his father warned him to stay away from. He stopped, bracing himself against a tree to catch his breath. In the distance, away from the snarling sounds of his possible death, was a voice calling out to him. The voice told him to keep running. It grew closer and he felt someone grab his shoulders.

"What are you doing? We must not stop here. They will catch us!"

They never should have come, he thinks as he turns his head, seeing the figures in the distance growling closer. They would die tonight. Both of them. He looked back at his companion. Frighten blue eyes and golden colored locks that framed his face. He shook his head.

If one of them was to die, he was almost sure it would be him. Not his companion.

He could not bare to lose him.

"We have to go!" cried the older man.

"I know. Come on!" he said and grabbed his hand, running through the woods. His breathing was still labored, his lung burning as they pushed what little oxygen it had been able to receive in his short break. He let go of his companion and watched as they rushed ahead, telling him to hurry. Warning him not to look back and lag behind. He kept going.

Movement alerted him out the corner of his eye. One of them had caught up to them. And it was headed straight for his companion.

No.

Not his brother.

He pushed, racing towards his sibling and as the beast snarled, its claws aimed right for his brother's throat. He flung out his arms, shoving his brother to the ground, as far away from the beast. Its claws caught him, tearing into his clothing and piercing through his skin. He felt the searing pain as he fell to the forest floor. The beast above him was in the former of a wolf, one larger and more demonic looking that any of the ones he saw roaming the woods at night.

Its golden eyes caught his and the emotions he saw struck his soul: savage, no form of human left in its depths. The beast was in control and it chilled him to the core. He turned his head, watching as his companion began to stir.

The words "Run, get to the village!" were there on his lips but died where they had formed as the creature above started tearing into him. He could feel the blood run down his form, smell the scents of the forest, the wolf and the bitter copper of his life essence as it stained his clothing and watered the dry grass crimson. He could hear a name being cried out over the snarls, over his own screaming.

His name.

His brother was crying for him, begging the wolves to leave him be.

He turned his eyes on his brother, brown meeting blue one last time. Weakly he raised an arm, his hand opening and fingers extending to try and reach for his brother. Do not weep for me, he pleads as the wolf raises its claws.

A name escapes his lips, his final breath, as the wolf's claws slash his throat.

Life fades from him slowly.

And he wakes up screaming.

"They're back aren't they?"

Of course it would be Scott who notices something is off.

Scott almost always seems to notice something is off about him. He just nods his head. The concern in Scott's eyes only makes it worse as they walk through the hallways of school. He's going to ask. Of course he's going to ask.

So to distract himself as his best friend gears up to pop the question, Stiles takes to opening his locker.

"How long has this been going on?"

As long as he can remember, he wants to say. But Scott knows that. Scott has always known that. He enters the locker combination and pulls out his History book. He turns towards his best friend, who is still awaiting an answer. He wants to know. "Stiles, how long has this been going on?" he asks, his voice raising just a bit.

Stiles hates that. He hates that now that his best friend has become an Alpha, he seems to have gotten it in his head that he can boss him around. He shut his locker door a little bit too hard, causing Scott to frown. "Stiles," he began again.

"Don't," he warns, his anger seeping to the surface. Coming back to life after dying to save his father, the still bitter reminder that he was the only human (Allison may have been a human but she has some fucking perks being a hunter) in a pack of werewolves, and of course the fact that he now had to worry about his dad possibly ending up dead due to his involvement in the supernatural, it all did not sit well with Stiles. He didn't need this shit.

Not now.

Not when he's dreaming about being killed by the very creature his best friend has become.

"Stiles," Scott said, his voice cracking softly. "I'm sorry, I just...I'm worried about you."

"Yeah well thanks for that," he said, sarcasm in his tone. "But I don't feel like talking about it."

Scott looked like he had just been shot with an arrow laced with wolfs bane and made of mountain ash. "Stiles please."

"Not now Scott," he said, his voice firm. "I just need to think. Maybe it's a side effect from what happened."

He brushes past Scott, past Lydia and Allison as they head his way, with not even a goodbye or hello.

"What can I help you with today?" asked Ms. Morell, her voice curious. She reached into her file cabinet, searched for his file and once she located, pulled it out and shut the cabinet with breaking so much as a nail. Her deep brown eyes were a mystery. It was like she kept a close reign on her emotions, not even letting anything other than composure show. She waves her hand towards the chair in front of her desk. "Have a seat," she tells him.

Stiles takes a seat, dropping his bag to the floor next to the chair and leans back. She reaches for the pen in her cup. She clicks it open with her thumb, pressing the point to her paper. She arches an eyebrow, waiting.

"I'm trying to figure out how to say this," he begins, unsure of how or why he can talk to her so easily. She had been a part of this whole ordeal. Of him coming close losing his dad, Lydia and actually looking Erica and Boyd. Her and that pack of Alphas with their red eyes that remind of the blood that stains his shirt in his dreams, colors the grass a shade of red. He shivers visually and Marin's mask of blankness cracks, concern showing in her face.

"Are you cold?"

"No," he tells her. It's not a lie. At least that's what he tells himself as a chill of death sweeps into his skin. "I've been having these dreams."

"A possible side effect of stress," she interjects as she begins writing it down. "What are these dreams about Stiles?"

"Death," he says, his voice suddenly thick with emotion. "A bloody, gruesome death."

"Hmm," she says and writes the words down. "Are you feeling it's a possible side effect of what's happened recently?"

She meant dying and coming back. He shakes his head. "I don't know."

She nods. "Maybe if you told me what these dreams are about."

He shivers. "I just told you, it's about death."

"Whose?"

Mine, he wants to say. A death he's been envisioning since he was five years old and he woke in the dead of night crying for his mom and dad. As he got older, the dreams began to expand. At first, it was just him lying on the ground and then getting his throat slashed open. But as he got older, he started the dreams running through a forest. And by the age of ten, a few years after his mother's death, he had been dreaming of watching transform, heard their agonizing screams and watched as they turned from human to beast. Heard their bones and limbs snap and rearrange them themselves as skin became covered with a pelt and their mouth falling open in howls. He also remembers running with a companion. His brother, a man with blonde hair and blue eyes.

"Stiles," Ms. Morrell calls, pulling him from his thoughts. He looked up at the guidance counselor, seeing the concern in her eyes. "Whose death do you see?"

"It's my death," he answers. "I've been having this dream since I was five years, always having my throat slashed."

"Slashed, like with a knife?" Marin asks. Stiles shakes his head and makes a claw with his hand, running it along his throat. "I see. A werewolf kills you in your dreams."

He nods grimly.

"You said you'd been having them since you were five, this dream."

"Dreams."

"Excuse me?" she asked, puzzled.

"It's not just that one," Stile tells her and takes a shaky breath. "I've dreamed about a family as well. A long time ago, I mean. I have four older brothers and a sister. She takes after our mother, hair the color of a sun beam and eyes that are bright and filled with the curiosity of a young girl. Our mother, she was a stern but loving woman. But I know, in these dreams, she's also cold and manipulating. Our father, he was a man of pride. He wanted the perfect family and for some reason, he always picked on one of my brothers. He always bullied him and I wanted to stop it but I can't. I can never open my mouth to tell him to stop."

"But they're just dreams," Marin interjects, although the unsettling of her stomach tells her another story. "Stiles that is all they are."

"What if they're not?" he shot back and ran a hand through his hair. "What if, when I died during that ritual for the Nemeton to find my dad, what it unlocked the things I wanted to forget? What if these dreams are a past life?"

Marin slips back into her blank mask. "Stiles reincarnation is nothing but a myth."

"So were werewolves and druids and kanimas but you've seen them walking around."

He had a point, she realized. "How can you be sure this past life is yours?

It felt so real, he wanted to say. He wanted to tell her about how he felt like these dreams were memories long since passed. But how long? From the looks of the clothes, the Middle Ages; years before Columbus discovered America.

He looked Marin in the eyes, the expression he let show was one of fear. She could tell, he was afraid. He was very afraid. She felt her heart go out to him.

"It just does," he answers after a long time. She nods.

She might not know of reincarnation, but she does know what it's like to walk around with the memories of a past life. Even if she had not died—she had simply buried them away.