TW and TMR - Newtmas

Part 10

Newt's POV

It happened just after midnight.

Thomas had fallen asleep against me on the couch. Lydia was dozing on Cora's shoulder. The rest of the pack and the Gladers were spread around the loft—quiet but peaceful.

Then the air changed.

Sudden. Cold.

It felt like pressure behind the eyes and weight on the chest. Like we all dropped five stories without moving an inch.

Thomas jolted upright, gasping.

Then everything snapped.

Scene – Inside the Dream Realm

Scott's POV

One moment I was sitting by the fire pit, and the next... everything was black.

Not just dark—void.

I looked around and realized I wasn't alone. Thomas, Newt, Minho, Isaac, Derek, and Lydia were all there. Each of us stood on fragments of something—old memories? Broken pieces of rooms, hallways, even parts of the Maze, floating like shattered glass around us.

It wasn't just a dream.

We were inside the Hollowing.

And it wasn't hiding anymore.

A shape stood at the center. Faceless. Towering. Shifting like smoke and static.

"You brought them here, Stiles," it hissed.

Thomas took a step forward, jaw clenched. "My name is Thomas."

"Not yet," it said. "Not fully. But I'll help you finish letting go."

It stretched one long finger toward Newt—

And the moment it touched him, he screamed.

Newt's POV

It wasn't pain.

It was loss.

My memories—mine and Thomas's, all the nights we fought to survive, our confessions, our first kiss—ripped out of me.

It was like forgetting who he was while still seeing his face in front of me.

Thomas grabbed me, pulling me behind him, his eyes wild. The Hollowing reared back like a snake, trying to tear through him next, but Lydia threw up a psychic wall so fast I thought her nose would start bleeding.

"This thing doesn't just take," she said, panting. "It rewrites. It's trying to make us believe we were never connected at all."

"It wants to isolate him," Derek growled. "To make him think he's alone."

Thomas' POV

It knew my name.

Both of them.

It knew my fears.

All of them.

It whispered, over and over again—

"You never belonged. Not here. Not there. You're nothing."

But then I felt it.

A hand in mine.

Newt.

And another.

Minho.

And another.

Scott.

And suddenly, the others were forming a circle around me, glowing softly. Lydia chanting in Latin. Derek growling low and ancient. Isaac anchoring the energy. Minho muttering something about how "Thomas doesn't run from shadows, he burns them."

And Newt—his voice in my ear.

"You don't need to remember who you were. You are who you choose to be."

"And we choose you."

Lydia's POV

I pushed the full force of my banshee scream at the creature—one tuned not to death, but memory.

It recoiled.

Writhed.

Fractured.

We were pushing it back.

But not banishing it.

"It's bound to this world now," Deaton's voice echoed faintly from the waking side. "You must sever its link to Thomas."

Thomas' POV

I stepped forward.

It tried to shift into my reflection. Into Stiles. Into some scared, forgotten boy in an old Jeep on a quiet road.

I raised the dagger Scott gave me—made from mountain ash and foxfire.

I gripped it hard.

"I'm not your hollow," I said.

And I drove it into the space where its heart would be.

It screamed.

Then the dream shattered like glass.

Scene – The Loft, Dawn

We woke up gasping.

Lydia collapsed into Cora's arms. Isaac was shaking. Minho looked pale but furious.

Newt's arms were tight around me, grounding me.

I didn't remember the scream the Hollowing made as it was pulled back into whatever shadowy hell it came from.

But I remembered the silence after.

For the first time... I felt whole.

Scott's POV

The Hollowing is gone for now.

But we all know the way things work here—it could come back. Or something worse could follow its scent.

But we'll be ready.

Because Thomas isn't alone anymore.

He never was.