For the first time in a long time, Lita was genuinely thankful to have met Malia under such circumstances. Throughout all the blonde's strange habits, animalistic behaviour & intolerance for just about everything Lita had to say, Malia never failed to pull through on a heist. It was almost inhuman, her quick reflexes & ability to snag keys from any orderly in the building; even Brunski.

Step one in Lita's plan was set into motion the moment she left Stiles in the boys' room & returned to her own, with a newfound arrogance now in every step she took. Of course, it was indistinguishable to the guards & orderlies, as Lita was always arrogant, but today, she went from ninety-nine percent to a hundred. A perfect plan had pieced together in her mind like a jigsaw puzzle by the time she made it back to her room, and once she explained it to Malia, it's expected outcome was chiseled in stone.

The blond was first going to start a distraction; they'd decided that because Malia was best at stealing, she'd be the one to grab the keys, before passing them off to Lita. It was almost scarily easy how they'd done it; all Malia had to do was tell Oliver the Eichen House staff drilled holes in the heads of patients, and that's why people went mysteriously "missing" occasionally. Lita hadn't even counted to five, and Oliver was already tackling Malia to the ground, screaming in her face; and another few seconds later, Brunski was joining the mix.

He was such a sucker for fights, and Lita knew it, too. Everyone did. Brunski was always the first one to jump in on a fight with a 5ml syringe of Haldol in hand, ready to stab anyone that got on a single nerve of his. It was almost treated as a rule by most of the Eichen patients; don't piss off Brunski, or you're dead meat. It was beyond expected when he roughly separated the two, opting to go for Malia rather than Oliver, simply because the blonde was too closely associated with his least favourite, Lita (who was watching from afar, a smirk set firmly on her chapped lips as she watched Malia take the keys from his pocket).

That'd been the turning point in the plan; once Malia had passed the keys off to her, Lita hurried off to meet Stiles at the door to the basement. She knew it wasn't likely that they'd make it without being caught, but she also knew that Stiles didn't trust her enough to wait until night, when the amount of orderlies roaming the halls significantly decreased. There was also the fact that a part of Lita didn't really want to wait either; she'd always been a little too curious of the basement, and getting to venture into the darkness with one of the most attractive lunatics on the premises was simply an added bonus.

"We don't have long, so be quick." Lita mumbled, passing the keys to Stiles. She would've done it herself, but knowing how much her hands shook nowadays, she didn't want to waste valuable time. It was one of the many side effects of being tasered so frequently. "Hurry."

"Alright, alright." Stiles huffed, turning to the door. He fumbled around with the keyring for a moment, in search of the right key, but couldn't seem to find one that looked like it'd fit. "I thought this guy had a key to everything."

"I do." A voice sounded from behind them, making Stiles jump. Lita, however, had been expecting it all along, and merely turned around with an expression that quite obviously meant something along the lines of "fuck my life." Another orderly was quick to grab her, restraining her arms to avoid getting punched (she'd become quite known for sucker punches). "But nobody has a key to that room."

Lita watched as Brunski dragged Stiles down the hallway, another orderly dragging her closely behind. She would've fought, but she was so completely & utterly done, she knew it wasn't worth it. It'd only make it worse, after all; instead of sedating her, like she knew they were going to, they'd taser her & lock her in the quiet room for hours. The brunette groaned as she was roughly tossed on the floor of one of the many quiet rooms, her eyes locking on Stiles for a split second more before Brunski dragged him further down the hallway & out of sight.

She would've felt bad, if she was capable of feeling guilt.

But she wasn't; nor was she capable of compassion or sympathy. She was a soulless being, one of whom only cared for herself- she was human, but so completely & utterly not, it could almost be considered supernatural. She was truly psychotic, and by no means could anyone ever come close to dragging her out of the darkness; because she was the darkness. Lita Mitchell was so far beyond saving, and it was times like these- times when she laid there like a catatonic invalid as the orderly jabbed a syringe in her arm & injected 5mls of Haldol - that made her realize how much she loved every second of it.

Most people would fight, most people would cling to every last bit of consciousness until the bitter end, but Lita; she welcomed the darkness with open arms. It was her friend, her other half; it was what kept the doctors & orderlies from ever getting through to her, and for that she'd forever hold it closer than anything. She didn't once consider willing herself to stay awake for seconds longer as the Haldol began to kick in & spots blurred her vision, slowly fading the quiet room to black.

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It only felt like seconds before Lita became conscious of her surroundings again. Her vision was blurry, even more so at the corners, as her eyes scanned the dimly lit room, only to find she was alone, as expected. The brunette exhaled loudly, her head lolling to the side as she took notice of just how she was positioned; she was sitting. Lita's brows furrowed as she glanced back at the padded wall behind her, confusion only growing as she tried her best to recall dragging herself to the side of the room, but couldn't recall ever doing it. The orderly had thrown her in the centre of the room. Her confusion only grew as she took notice of the icy metal encircling her wrists, a rusted silver chain connecting each of them to the wall behind her.

The quiet room didn't have chains.

Eichen House itself didn't have chains, as far as Lita knew; only leather bindings in the five point restraint system, and possibly a pair of handcuffs. But the chains holding her wrists appeared to be something used in a maximum security prison, when they were in need of transporting a high risk inmate. Last time Lita checked, she was in a mental asylum for the clinically insane; not a maximum security prison.

"Lita." A voice that could only be described as the sound equivalent of sandpaper called, instantly triggering the brunette's attention to shift from the chains to the direction in which the sound had originated from. Her eyes locked on one of the particularly shadowy corners, the one farthest from her, where she managed to make out a silhouette within the darkness.

"Who are you?" She questioned, tugging at the chains that bound her to the wall. "What do you want?"

"Chaos." The voice answered, stepping forward towards her. Involuntarily, Lita let out a quiet gasp as she took in the sight of the creature in front of her; he almost looked like something from one of the more psychotic patient's hallucinations. The irony nearly caused her to laugh, as she'd quickly come to the realization that none of this could possibly be real- but the creature, his face & hands covered almost completely in bandages - looked scarily real.

His bomber jacket & military attire looked borderline ancient, as well as torn & charred. Blood stained the bandages on his face, more than likely originating from his mouth; which contained more razor sharp teeth than Lita cared to count. He- it, whatever the hell that horrific creature was, looked like something straight out of a nightmare; which was exactly what Lita assumed all of this to be. A nightmare.

"Strife." The creature spoke again, taking a few more wobbly steps towards her. Lita backed up against the wall, her chains clanging against the floor each time she made a movement. She wasn't afraid, but she was certainly concerned as to what the creature's intentions were- was it going to kill her?

The brunette once again found herself furrowing her brows in confusion as the creature stopped, and almost seemed to vanish for a second before reappearing. To her, it looked almost like a computer glitch; like the screen (her eyes) had momentarily gone blank before flickering back on. Then, it happened again; and again, and again, and again; but so did something else. Lita swore that each time the creature seemed to glitch, she'd see something else appear in his place- something that looked an awful lot like Stiles.

It began to take a few steps towards her, continuing to do what she could only describe as glitching. Only now, the creature was appearing less & less; and Stiles was appearing more. It continued to glitch, slowly advancing forward & by the time it stood directly in front of her, it was no longer a horrific, grotesque looking monster; it was the innocent face of Stiles Stilinski, with a sickeningly evil smirk. Lita stared blankly, her expression of confusion never changing as she knelt down in front of her. She couldn't even manage to blink; she couldn't miss a second of whatever the hell she was seeing, because it was absolute insanity.

Stiles- more so, the creature who looked like him - extended a hand forward, brushing stray hairs away from Lita's face. It lingered for a second, tracing lightly down her cheek before moving to hold her chin lightly. Stiles leaned forward, so close that she could feel his breath fanning her face, and whispered the final two words of the creature's previous sentence. "And pain."

Lita froze in place, her thoughts racing to piece together an explanation for the bizarre nightmare as her gaze instinctively flickered down to his lips; which were stained with a substance as black as tar. When she looked back up, his eyes were also darker, almost as though they were bruised, but lacking the redness. In a way, he had begun to resemble what Lita could only think to describe as a decaying corpse. Stiles remained eerily still despite the obvious changes occurring, his eyes locked on hers. It almost felt as though he was staring straight into her soul- if what she had could even be considered that - and witnessing firsthand all the chaos, strife & pain she'd ever caused.

Lita swore at least five minutes had passed before she managed to speak again. "Why are you doing this?"

"I want you." He responded, his voice sounding identical to Stiles'. Lita's preexisting look of confusion only deepened, her eyes narrowing slightly as she attempted to decode the cryptic tone he'd used. The part of her mind that lived & thrived within the gutter was racing, as always, with various scenarios of how the situation could go forward; each & every one of them looking better & more promising than the last. "Help me, Lita."

"Help you do what?" She questioned, her gaze once again flickering down to his lips; which were more cracked than before. The black substance was more prominent as well, it's colour looking a deeper shade of black versus the faded greyish colour she'd seen moments ago. When she glanced back up, his eyes were even darker; in fact, the blackness now surrounding his eyes almost seemed to make his face look multiple shades paler. To add to her confusion, what appeared to resemble a crack- one you'd see in glass, or a porcelain vase -had appeared on his cheek.

"Help me win the game."

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um ok wow that turned out weirder than expected.

no, the nogitsune isn't going to possess lita. no, lita isn't supernatural. yes, i kinda (really) wanted them to make out. the "glitching" was basically like the dread doctors do; that creepy thing that makes them look like an illusion. only, it was flickering between stiles & the nogitsune. we've seen many times that it can induce hallucinations, and that's what it did. i'm aware the first part of the chapter is rushed, i had that prewritten & was too lazy to edit it c:

as always.. comment opinions?