you shouldn't be h-e-r-e

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

Alina had decided not to stay in the shed while Joyce, Mike, Jonathan and Hopper spoke to Will. She knew it was unlikely he'd recognize her—he didn't recognize Hopper, so why would he recognize her?—and found herself wishing the others good luck as she walked back into her own house. Gabe was sitting on the floor against the wall, Skywalker in his lap, Dustin found himself by the window, and the others were in random positions throughout the house. Alina did notice Lucas sitting near Max, though.

She found a spot on the couch and sighed, resting her chin on a pillow. Worry for Will and the three others with him consumed her, and she wondered what, exactly, Will was like now that he was basically full-on possessed by the Mind Flayer. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you saw it, she didn't have to wonder for long. For something happened as she closed her eyes, and suddenly she was standing up in a puddle of water yet again.

The blackness spreading around her was infinite, and there was no clear source of light. Yet, when she looked down on herself, she was able to see her hands and feet with clarity. Looking around, Alina took a deep breath, feeling freer than she had in ages. Well, this wasn't new. She'd been here before, in her dreams, when Eleven had spoken to her. But for some reason, it didn't feel like a dream right now.

Alina took a cautious step forward, taking another deep breath. She felt full here, in a way she hadn't before. Her cheeks weren't sunken in, her bones weren't jutting out, and she knew that it had gone away, at least temporarily. She bent down, swirling her fingers through the watery substance on the ground, sending her reflection into ripples. And then she saw him.

A little further away was a boy, sitting in a chair, rope binding him to a pole that had been covered by cardboard. Will Byers blinked wildly, his face still illuminated by the white light coming from nowhere now, and Alina found herself sprinting towards him. She stood in front of him, gasping, and looked into his brown eyes. But instead of the warmth she usually saw, Will's eyes were now cold, his pupils dilated. They were deep whirlpools just waiting to suck you in, and as Alina looked into them, she felt shivers run down her spine.

Will looked down at the ropes binding him next, and winced, struggling to get free of them. "What?" he asked, his voice quiet. "What is this?" his hair flopped around as he struggled, blinking against the harsh lights they'd set up. "What is this?" he asked again, and his voice sounded different. Less like Will's, and more like the Mind Flayer's, or what Alina imagined the Mind Flayer's to sound like.

Or perhaps not imagined at all.

"Why am I tied up?" Will continued to struggle against the bindings, but they'd done a good job is restricting his movements, and Will had never been that strong, anyway. As Alina watched, her breath catching in her throat, Will's eyes suddenly focused on something, and she realized that somehow, she could see what Will was doing. This was him in the shed right now, and somehow, she was able to watch.

It was like last year, when she'd thought she was going insane. When she saw Will singing Should I Stay or Should I Go in the Upside Down, his lips blue from the cold, his entire body wracked with shivers. Perhaps this was what Eleven could do, when she found people. And perhaps she could do it too.

Will moved his eyes away from where they'd previously been focused. "Where am I?" he asked, then shook his head at something Alina couldn't see.

"Will?" Alina cautiously took another step towards him. "Can you hear me? It's me, Alina. Your... your s—your friend."

Will didn't respond, his breathing getting heavier and heavier as the moments ticked by. He didn't show any signs of noticing her, and, after a couple more seconds, he seemed to snap. "Why am I tied up?" his voice was harsh, his breathing ragged, and at that moment, Alina didn't see Will anymore. She saw only the Mind Flayer inside of him.

"Get out of him!" she yelled. "You bastard, leave him alone!" Her palms started itching yet again as she stared the husk of what used to be Will Byers down. "I'm not kidding!"

You shouldn't be here, Alina Fairgrieves. You shouldn't be here. It reverberated through Alina's mind.

Will continued to yell. "Why am I tied up?! Why am I tied up?!" his shouts got progressively louder and louder, his voice dripping with venom, and Will Byers seems to get further and further away. "WHY AM I TIED UP?! WHY AM I TIED UP?! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

He continued like this for quite some time, thrashing against his bonds, and the invisible light on his face began to flicker. Alina let out a yell, tears spilling their way down her cheeks, and screamed. "LET HIM GO!"

Then Will turned and looked straight at her. His dark eyes bored into hers, a snarl forced itself from his lips. You shouldn't be here.

And then he grabbed her arm, and Alina watched in horror as Will Byers—plus his chair and the pole he was tied to—dissolved into wisps of smoke, just like Eleven had done. Tendrils of smokey grey floated into the air before promptly dissipating, and Alina was left with only herself in the deep, black void. The darkness around her was heavy, and what she now knew to be the Mind Flayer's words still echoed in her mind.

You shouldn't be here.

And then she opened her eyes. She gasped, tears streaming down her face, and found herself with her chin still resting on the pillow, sweat pooling on the back of her neck. Perhaps she would've thought it had been a dream—a royally messed up one, but a dream nonetheless—if not for the warm blood trickling from her nose. She raised a trembling hand up to it, suddenly feeling like she had been all week—empty and hollow and dead, with shadows under her eyes and a rotten force festering—and wiped the drops away.

Then she stood up. The others were all standing by the window, their eyes wide, and Alina assumed that the flickering she'd seen with Will had happened here as well. Lucas was still sitting against the wall in the hallway by her room, though, but he was now alone. Alina watched him for a moment, his dark skin shining with sweat as he stared at the ceiling, and then made her way over to him.

She slid down the wall until she was sitting beside him, and Lucas's eyes widened, and for a moment, Alina thought he can tell, he knows, but then he resumed his frowning, and Alina's heart dropped. With a sigh, she curled a lock of hair around her finger, thinking that she had to apologize to Lucas before it consumed her entirely. This was the one thing she knew she could do. Even though it hurt.

"Hey."

"What do you want?" Lucas asked, turning away from her slightly. Alina couldn't help but feeling a little hurt by this, especially since he'd been the one to hold her while she cried about Bob. She supposed she deserved this cold treatment, though. After what she'd said.

"Listen, Lucas." Alina took a deep breath. "I just... I wanted to apologize. For what I said on the bus. I still want to be friends with you, of course, I do. I was just being a jealous asshole and I took it out on you, even though you're perfectly entitled to do whatever you want with Max. I shouldn't be mad at you for finding new crushes. I'm really, really, sorry, Lucas. I..." she swallowed, more tears swimming across her vision, "I understand if you don't want to be friends anymore. You've seen a really bad side of me."

Lucas didn't say anything for a couple of seconds, but then he reached out, grabbing her hands in his. His thumbs brushed over her palms, tracing the individual lines and the scars, and then he spoke. "I'm sorry, too. I should've been more open with you about what I was feeling. I should've consulted you and Mike first about Max. I should've been a better friend." He smiled, a half-smile, at her. "You shouldn't say any of those bad things about yourself, Al. Just because I may like another girl—I'm still not sure—doesn't mean I've moved on from you. You're still... Al, you're still the prettiest girl I've ever met, and the smartest. You're a really, really cool person, Alina Fairgrieves, and I don't want to lose you."

Alina stared. "Really?"

"Really," he affirmed. "Listen, I just need some time to think about all of this. Preferably after this whole shitstorm is over. Is that okay?" Alina nodded. She'd agree to anything as long as they weren't fighting. Lucas's smile got bigger. "Okay. But... before that... friends?"

Alina smiled, too. "Friends. Always, always friends, Lucas Sinclair."

And because they were complete nerds, Alina Fairgrieves and Lucas Sinclair both spat into their palms before shaking hands. Alina was beginning to lose hope, but with Lucas's hand in hers and the warm nostalgia of a previously sad memory—the day the boys had explained to Eleven what a friend was—in her chest, she felt like she could even take on what was inside of her. Even as her arms burned.

Meanwhile, Gabriel Burton found himself running his hand through Skywalker's fur by himself. Alina and Lucas were talking, and the others were still shaken up about the previous flickering of the lights—apparently it was something the Demogorgon used to do—but he couldn't stop thinking about the way Will had looked in that chair. It really didn't feel like him anymore.

Then Max sat beside him, reaching out a hand to stroke the cat. Skywalker hissed, but eventually succumbed to the pats, and the two of them pet him in silence before she spoke. "How are you holding up?"

"Not too good," Gabe admitted. "This is all... it's all getting too real for me. And I'm... I'm really scared, Max."

Max put an arm around him, and he felt the pressure of friendship in that embrace. "I'm scared, too. Are you kidding me? We're all scared out of our minds, even everyone who's done this before. But they're going to find out how to help Will. We're going to save him, and we're going to beat the shit out of the stupid Mind Flayer, and we're not going to let him conquer us, too. It's okay to be scared, Gabe. But we have to help him. We have to. Okay?"

Gabe nodded, and Skywalker leaped off his lap. "Okay."

Before Max could say anything more, the door suddenly burst open, revealing that the others had come back into the house. Without a word, Hopper immediately sat down at the table, beginning to write something down on a scrap piece of paper.

"What happened?" Dustin asked, and Gabe and Max immediately stood up, crowding around the man. The others did the same.

Hopper clicked the pen. "I think he's talking," he explained, "just not with words."

He proceeded to draw an arrangement of dots and lines on the scrap piece of paper. Whatever it was, Gabe recognized faintly, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"What is that?" Steve asked.

"Morse code," the party responded promptly, as Hopper began to write letters underneath the series of dashes and dots. Gabe recognized it now. Morse code. Something the Mind Flayer wouldn't recognize (because why would a being from another dimension know that?) as Will trying to communicate. His lips parted as he watched Hopper finish writing the word.

"H-E-R-E," said Hopper, sucking in a surprised breath.

"Here," everyone echoed.

"Will's still in there," Hopper concluded. "He's talking to us."

That was the best news Gabe had heard this entire week.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: i am honestly beginning to get so emotional over this omg. this book is coming closer and closer to the end, and with everything that's going to happen... i think i'm going to cry when it's over, even though we've got a whole new book to look forward to after this. just idk, something about this chapter brought it out-- maybe it was the apology, or maybe it was alina seeing will in the void. idk.

(i remember while writing that bit i was watching the show and forgot it wasn't an actual scene lol, that's how good i am at visualizing things in my mind).

anyway, i hope you enjoy!! i'm so excited for the next few chapters, including eleven's return!! how do you think alina is going to react to that, especially when she learns that hopper was the one who hid el from her?? and do you think anyone is going to figure out about her whole mind flayer situation? i'd love to hear your thoughts!

'till next time!