Psycho Loving [Teen Wolf/Sterek]

Part 6

One foot in front of the other; move forward, breath, don't stop. Stiles could hardly register anything except for the thought to get away. It was fight or flight, and he was flying across the ground. Leaves crunched under his feet, in time with the steady pounding of his sneakers. Don't stop. 

Stiles didn't risk a glance back to see if the gauze wrapped figure was still after him. He could feel that it was, feel the presence. Like a phantom, after him.

The forest was dark this late at night; without his phone, everything melted into hardly visible shadows. It was a miracle he hadn't tripped over something yet. As he ran, the moon shone down, flickering through the branches of the trees, throwing off his vision even more. At first the flickering was constant, as the canopy above was rather thick. It was impossible to see more than eight feet in front of him, soon though, there was enough light to see the ground. Stiles concentrated on his feet, watching them fly, barely registering obstacles in time to dodge them. He wasn't in the best shape, but being around supernatural beings had at least got him to step up his game. By the time the heaving of his chest prompted him to stop, Stiles estimated he'd run at least a mile. He looked around, panting,scanning the now visible area behind him with frantic eyes.

There was no one. The figure was gone, and he was alone.

His entire body convulsed, letting out a deep shuddering breath, sounding as though he'd been drowning and was just now able to breath. Stiles hunched over hands on his knees, trying to calm himself, to control his breathing. Every breath scorched his lungs, he could feel his heart pounding throughout his entire body, in his ears like a drum. He'd gotten away.

The breeze of the night air swept a chill over his sweat damp body, causing a shiver to wrack his body. The icy feeling in Stiles' veins wasn't only from the cold. What if the figure hadn't been real at all? What if his mind was playing tricks on him again? Everything had felt normal at Danny's party- maybe this four day blackout and extreme paranoia was just his insanity catching up with him. Maybe he couldn't afford to be normal anymore. It was too good to be true.

Stiles straightened, finally having his breath back. It was still dark, but with the sparsely spread trees it was easier to see his surroundings. His eyes swept the area. Despite the fact that in a forest everywhere looked basically the same, he recognized where he was. It was the Cross Country trail, the 'track' a hardly visible stretch of dirt beaten into the ground, half hidden by a coating of leaves and dead shrubs.

A familiar scene should have brought some sort of comfort. Afterall, Stiles knew his way around the trail and could therefore navigate back to the school and then home. However. This realization of his location sent a tingle down his spine. Goosebumps rose along his bare arms and the hair rose on the back of his neck. Stiles let his eyes roam across the trees, over the leafy ground, trying to find where the feeling of dread running over him was coming from. The gauze figure was gone, so he had no reason to be afraid. It was like his body knew something, reacting in all the ways he would to extreme terror but for a reason his mind didn't know.

With shaking legs, Stiles took a step toward the trail, wanting to get on the right track to exiting the forest. His foot came down on something hard, protruding from the cold soil.

Thousands of alarm bells went off in his head, body jerking like he'd been electrocuted. A small part of his mind wrote the object off as a root or some other common find on the forest floor; the rest of his consciousness was positively screaming danger.

Stiles slowly looked down, lifting one dirty Converse from the object. A glint of steel shone back at him. He lowered himself into a crouch, watching his hand reach out like it wasn't his own, lightly tracing over a link of the chain. He'd known it would be a chain. And he knew what it led to.