— CHAPTER 9 —
UNLOCKED

( trigger warning: potentially distressing descriptions of possession )

THURSDAY 1st NOVEMBER,
1984

CATH has so, so, so many questions. As she jogs down the hallways behind Will and Mike, squeezing past floods of students going to their next period, her mind clouds over with this new information — Dart is, quite feasibly, from the Upside Down. Although she couldn't pinpoint how or why at the time, Cath felt everything about the creature was just... wrong. It didn't feel natural; or now that she thinks of it, of this world.

     But what does that mean for Will? For them? If Dart is a real, tangible entity from the Upside Down who managed to get into Dustin's trash, then clearly that horrible world is still bleeding into Hawkins. And as for Will... his increasingly frequent visions no longer seem as far-fetched or ignorable as before. Even he seems to be realising it now, an occupied expression solidifying in his features, like he is contemplating doom of some sort.

     What this will all evolve into in the long-term, Cath has no idea.

Reaching Mr. Clarke's classroom, Mike thrusts his full body weight against the door to burst in. "I'm so sorry Mr. Clarke, it was just a stupid prank!" he gasps breathlessly. The group stare back at him, perplexed and startled as the Wheeler boy abruptly seizes Dart's cage and shoves it firmly underneath his arm. "We need to go right now," Mike then demands of the others, "RIGHT NOW!"

Shocked by his urgency, Dustin, Lucas and Max follow the other trio all the way back to the A.V. Club, a much more pressing meeting being commenced — only this time, Mike starts shutting the door on Max before she can come in.

"Not you," he tells her bluntly. "This is for Party members only."

"What? Really?" Max complains, but her disappointed expression already gets cut off by him shutting the door in her face.

Her pulse still racing from all the running and the general panic, Cath perches herself on the side of the table. Will has fallen thoughtfully quiet beside her, as Mike relays to Lucas and Dustin what he had just told them about Dart. In the dimly lit lamp light, she watches the shadows on the boys' faces contort in their reactions to the shattering news. Then, while they process the information, she glances over at Will. His hazel eyes have fixated on a obscure pattern in the wooden table surface, anywhere but their faces as he squirms underneath scrutiny. Cath knows he has never enjoyed being the centre of attention — and now, with his experiences of the Upside Down, he has been thrust into the spotlight against his wishes. No wonder he wanted her to keep things secret...

     Max banging loudly on the door from outside makes Will start, drawing all their attention to the outsider still looming. "Hello?! Hello? Ugh, guys, can I come in yet?"

     "No!" Mike yells back, rolling his eyes.

     While a muffled groan comes from the other side of the door, Lucas presses his fingers deeply into his temples to form a coherent thought. "I don't understand..." he finally says, laser-focused.

     "What do you not understand?"

     "Will saw something in the Upside Down that looked like Dart last year?"

     "Kind of, but there was no tail..." Will murmurs uneasily, clearly disconcerted by the whole discussion. The look that plays across his features gives Cath the impression that he's replaying whatever he saw in his mind, freezing him in time.

     "But then he heard it yesterday," says Mike. "The exact same sound."

     "Then why didn't you tell us before?" Dustin asks pleadingly.

     "I... wasn't sure," Will mumbles.

"Then it's a coincidence."

"Or not," Mike interjects, glancing over at Will. "What if while Will was stuck in the Upside Down, he somehow acquired true sight?"

"True sight?" Cath echoes, puzzled.

"Gives you power to see into the ethereal plain," Dustin clarifies without missing a beat.

"... Okay, elaborate," Lucas pleads, looking as blank as he did before. Cath is right with him in his confusion — if the boys are going to keep using fantasy and sci-fi terminology to explain the paranormal, she really needs to brush up soon.

"Maybe these episodes that Will keeps having aren't really flashbacks at all," Mike explains. "Maybe they're real. Maybe Will can see into the Upside Down."

     Considering this, Cath glances across at Will as she remembers what he had told her about his visions the night before Halloween: "I know they aren't real, and I know I'm not really there anymore, I'm in the real world. But Cath... they feel so real." At first, she means to remind Will of this, but noticing he isn't in the mood for talking, she decides to take over herself.

"You might not be far off, actually," says Cath, grabbing the attention of the others. She locks eyes with Will for a moment, to check if this is okay to share; he nods gently, a sign of permission, so she continues carefully. "The other day, Will and I were talking about these... visions—"

"Hang on a second, you knew?" Lucas raises his eyebrows at her.

"Please, just... let me finish," Cath pleads, turning to Will. "You were saying about how real they felt, and how you knew you were on the right side up, but you couldn't quite get out. Like it was all happening inside your head... is that right?" To this, Will nods again, taking a deep shaky breath.

     "So that just proves it even more," Mike concurs. "Which means... Dart is from the Upside Down."

     In defeat, Dustin flinches and instantly shoots a defensive glance over at Dart's cage. Quite frankly, Cath knew there was something up with Dart — but now knowing he is from the Upside Down solidifies her distaste for the dishevelled, slimy creature even more.

     "We have to take him to Hopper," Lucas announces, which both Mike and Cath agree to.

     However, there is one defiant protestor in the room; "No," Dustin interjects, "No way. If we give him to Hopper, Dart's as good as dead."

     "Maybe he should be dead," Mike rebukes.

     "How can you say that?" Dustin asks, offended.

     "How can you not?"

     "Did you not hear us? He's from the Upside Down, literally everything we fought against last year," Cath reminds him incredulously, and gestures to Will beside her. "And he could be hurting Will. It would be crazy, beyond insane to keep him as what, a– a pet?"

     "Look, that may be, but that doesn't automatically mean that he's bad."

     "Dustin, I don't think those things have a moral code," Cath says, glancing distastefully over at Dart again.

     "Yeah, and that's like saying just because someone's from the Death Star, doesn't mean they're bad," Mike uses yet another analogy in exasperation, although at least this time Cath feels more educated on this one.

     "We have a bond..." Dustin murmurs, quietly under his breath, but just loud enough for everyone to hear.

     Mike blinks at him in complete, angered awe, the bridge of his nose crinkling. "A bond?!" he replies incredulously. "Just because he likes nougat?"

"No, because he trusts me!"

"He trusts you...?" Lucas repeats slowly, eyeing Dustin sceptically.

"Yes! I promised that I would take care of—"

"Okay, okay, everyone let's just... calm down," Cath insists, outstretching her hands in a peace-garnering gesture; although she herself is alight with panic inside, a festering inferno of resurfacing doubts and worries she thought had been put to rest after Will was found last year.

But the brief interval of quiet in the room is shattered by a loud shriek from inside Dart's rattling cage, repelling all of the group away from the edges of the table. The trembling appears much more violent than earlier, making Cath's blood run cold. Another loud bang on the door outside — "Guys!" Max calls out, "What's going on? Come on..." — charges her with even more jittery nerves.

"Whatever you do, don't come in!" Cath calls back, sounding more timid than she intended.

With a violent jerk, Dart rocks the cage so hard that it tips over onto its side — Mike lunges to grab the desk lamp as a weapon in retaliation, his knuckles whitening around it.

"Don't hurt him!" Dustin pleads.

"Only if he attacks," Mike responds, eyes fixed firmly on the cage.

     "Open it already!" Lucas demands.

     From a safe distance, Dustin operates the mechanism on the cage to open Dart's encasement; Cath instinctively reaches out for Will and grabs his wrist. She doesn't know whether it is more for him or for her. The black-and-yellow taped lid spits Dart out of the cage — it takes a moment for Cath to register how, in such a short time, he has grown. The bulging at the creature's sides has only intensified.

     "Holy... shit..." Lucas says.

     In fragile anticipation, the group hold their breath and watch Dart crawl out from the cage. As he emits another guttural shriek, much lower and hollower than his earlier ones, Cath is suddenly struck with deja vu; the piercing roar of the demogorgon rings in her ears in a ferocious memory. Of course he's one of them. How did they miss it? Writhing under their scrutinising glares, the bulges under Dart's skin suddenly stretch out until a pair of legs slice through, gooey pus exploding from the open slits.

     Not wasting another second, Mike brings his lamp-wielding arm down at full-force towards the table — but not before Dustin blockades his attack, allowing Dart a quick escape. Much swifter with his new pair of legs, the creature is already scurrying to the table's edge as the door suddenly opens. Max, a lock-picking paper clip in hand, stares in horror at the creature.

"What the—"

Dart flops onto the floor, and in the blind panic that ensues he hurtles past Max on her knees and straight outside into the hallway. The group lunge desperately to chase Dart, until Dustin trips over Max and ends up in a heap with Lucas on the linoleum floor. Mike pushes and hops frantically past them, whipping his head around in all directions to survey Dart's whereabouts. However, it seems futile, and his eventual dragged-out sigh of defeat.

"Shit, we lost him..." Mike seethes, glaring daggers at the trio getting up from the floor.

Before the group can become more splintered with accusations, whether at Dustin or Max, Cath intervenes with a suggestion. "How about we just split up and look for him? If we start now, he can't have gone far... right?"

With a nod and a sigh of exasperation, Mike reaches into his bag and pulls out his Supercom. "You heard her. We'll split up and search different areas of the school. If anyone finds Dart call the others, and whatever you do, don't let him out of your sight."

━━━━━━

     "ANYTHING yet?" a crackled voice, belonging to Mike, inquires on Cath's radio.

     In a defeated sigh, she responds, "No, not yet. We'll keep looking." It must have been a good fifteen minutes at least that she and Will have been scouring this specific hallway for, and that's just one part of their deep-search — at this rate, who knows where Dart could have gone? Part of Cath wants to believe it is a lost cause; but when she remembers the endgame of what the creature's evolution will be, it is like a defibrillator straight to her motivation.

     The halls are emptied of students, all contained in their classrooms for the last period (which fills Cath with the intense guilt of skipping class). Down this particular corridor, a large glass-windowed cabinet displays various achievements and trophies of the Middle School students. One of the photographs includes the Science Fair, in which Cath notices Will and the other boys are pictured.

"Hey, you're in this picture," Cath says, and hears Will chuckle weakly in recognition.

On the opposite wall, as she turns around, is a large display of class photos — children huddled together on the bleachers year after year, teachers stood at either end and a chalkboard indicating the date, as if the fashions and photo qualities weren't enough to tell. Cath spots herself in one of the latest ones from last year, hidden shyly in the crowd. If she goes back a couple more, to 1980, she even recognises Daphne in her last year of Middle School; much more fresh-faced and naive, as opposed to how grown-up she suddenly seemed yesterday on her eighteenth birthday.

     Cath doesn't even think about how far back she is going, eyes tracing rapidly along the hung photos, until she lands on a rose-tinted photograph dated in 1969. It takes her a moment to read the chalkboard, reading 'GRADE 6: MRS. DELANEY'S CLASS, 1969-1970' — and then to spot her mother standing off to the side. Of course she would be here. It is nice seeing her in colour too, for it brings out the rosiness in her cheeks, the sandy blondness of her hair, the emerald green of her day dress in the photo.

     But then of course, with the nostalgia comes that feeling again. The guilt, the yearning for what she never had.

     "Cath?" Will says from behind her, catching her attention again. "Should we... keep looking for Dart?"

     "Yeah... yeah, sorry, I was just... distracted."

     Fingers tightening around her Supercom, Cath falls into the rhythm of Will's careful footsteps, the only sound permeating the halls except for the muffled voices of teachers in every room they pass. She finds herself fiddling with a bit of red string at the end of her sweater sleeve, winding it anxiously around her fingertip.

"What was in the picture?" Will asks suddenly. When she glances at him, he falters self-consciously and adds, "I mean on– on the wall... the one you were looking at."

"Oh," says Cath, "it was my mom, actually. Did you know she used to be a teacher here?"

"Yeah, my mom's told me before."

"I don't know why, but I never noticed that picture before... have you?"

Will shrugs, as an answer of No. His wide hazel eyes blink at her with a sensitive curiosity for a few moments, Cath very aware of his gaze boring into her. "Is anything... up?" he finally asks, tilting his head in a gesture of approachability.

Inhaling through her nose, Cath shakes her head sharply. "No, all good. Besides, we have plenty more things we should be worrying about, like Dart... and you."

The boy looks off to the side, as if wounded by her statement — she knows by now that he clearly hates talking about everything Upside Down related, especially when it involves him. But as Cath sees it, how much longer can they keep brushing things under the rug? Maybe not so much anymore, although if he just trusts her enough, she could learn enough to keep things quiet a little longer...

"Will, why you didn't tell me about the whole... Upside-Down-slug-looking-thing?"

"I don't know. It didn't exactly come up," he replies lamely.

Cath sighs. "Look, I know you don't like talking about this stuff. You made that clear, I get it, and I've kept my side of the promise by not telling the others until now. But Will, you have to remember you made me a promise too — if things got worse, you had to tell me. I can't help you if I don't know the full story."

"Well it's not exactly easy to explain," Will responds, voice strangled slightly. "I mean, you probably think I'm insane already. I know I would."

"I never said that. And if what you're saying is right, about this true sight or whatever, then I guess... we're in a lot stickier of a situation than we thought."

"Yeah... it could be fine, though."

It could be, Cath thinks suspiciously. She recognises a little bit of herself in the way Will keeps deflecting her offers of help, so she knows just how humiliating it must feel inside for him. To make yourself vulnerable, to accept your defeat and step into the unknown. He manages to mask his flurrying worries even further when the pair stop at a crossroads in the hallways, corridors forking out like the arrows of a compass.

"Wanna split up?" Will suggests. "I might try heading South."

Cath nods in agreement. "Sounds good. I'll go check the North."

With their routes planned, the pair splinter and part like opposing magnetic forces. The halls are only dotted with a few students now, along with some teachers leaving at the end of the school day. Cath pokes her head into a few of the empty classrooms, now able to take advantage of them after they had previously been occupied.

"Dart? Where are you?" she whispers and coos awkwardly, then does a double take. He's an inter-dimensional baby monster, not your cat, she reminds herself. But how else is she supposed to lure him out?

Cath turns a few corners into another hallway, where she hears footsteps that end up belonging to Lucas.

"Any luck yet?" she asks him, falling into step with his brisk walk.

"Nope, not yet," the Sinclair boy shrugs. "I'm guessing you're the same?"

She nods in defeat. Another crackle on the radio alerts them; "East is clear. No sign of Dart," says Mike's voice in a stony tone on the radio.

"West is clear too," Dustin chimes in after a few seconds. "Will?"

"South is clear. Cath, where are you?" Will asks.

"I'm with Lucas," Cath tells them on her walkie, eyes locked in confusion on Lucas as he starts doing a run-up along the corridor. "We're still checking in the North, but no luck so far—"

All of a sudden, Lucas leaps in the air and drop-kicks down the door at the end of the corridor — Cath doesn't see anything that unfolds, but only hears the teacher inside's stern scolding of "Excuse me! Mr. Sinclair!" followed by Lucas's fumbling response of "S-sorry! I was looking for, uh, study hall... bye!" Only then does Lucas emerge from the classroom, completely mortified as he shuts the door behind him to seal that experience away forever. Cath can only shake her head slowly at him, pursing her lips to stop herself from grinning.

"Yeah, nothing up here," Lucas says coolly into the walkie, and then to an amused Cath: "Not a word..."

With a small chuckle, they split paths again, and Cath starts down another corridor leading to the South where Will should be. In all honesty, leaving him alone for too long makes her nervous this past week — especially with Dart on the loose. Row upon row of classroom doors panning past her in a blur, she picks up her pace once she passes the display of trophies and photographs again. It should be a warm memento, but instead it feels... haunting.

     At the end of the corridor in front of her, a figure suddenly walks briskly past. Cath only saw them from the side, but their appearance completely throws her. For a split second she had thought it was Mike, based off the head of brown curly hair, except that the shirts didn't match — and on second thought, it was a lighter shade of brown. The figure was definitely around Cath's age, similar in stature from the brief glimpse she got.

     Something about them seemed so familiar...

     Before Cath can start to approach the end of the corridor, in the hopes of locating this stranger, a voice on the radio alerts her attention — "Guys..." she hears Will say cautiously, sounding laser-focused. "I found him."

     "Where?" asks Dustin desperately.

     "In the bathroom by Mr. Salerno's."

     "Copy that," says Mike.

     When Cath mentally maps out her route to the bathroom Will mentioned, she realises she may well be one of the nearest to him. With a deep breath, she takes it upon herself to get there as quickly as possible, the idea of leaving Will alone with any Upside Down entity gnawing at her. Time to cage this ugly, slug-looking creature up for good...

     She is about to turn into the last corridor when she first hears the pounding of feet against the floor, followed by a flash of Will as he bolts straight past Cath. Puzzled, she blinks, and squints after wherever he is going.

     "Will? Will, where are you going?" Cath asks, starting to pick up her pace and jog after him; even after school hours, she is still self-conscious about running in the corridors.

     Will doesn't seem to hear and takes a sharp turn ahead of her, swinging open the doors to the school field. An epiphany occurs to her — maybe Dart escaped the bathroom, and he is chasing after him? After cantering down the steps, Cath speeds herself up to a fully-fledged run now, feeling the afternoon November air encompass her as she pushes the double doors open.

     "Will, wait up!" Cath calls out.

     Running in her flimsy brown Mary Janes was not a good idea, she realises, as she starts hurtling across the slightly-muddy field after Will; although that is also the last thing on her mind. At last, Will slows down to a halt, his shoulders heaving with his back to her. Cath also skids to a stop behind him, breathlessly clutching her abdomen.

     "Where's Dart, is he out here?" she pants while surveying the field for any sign of Dart, which proves to be a negative.

     Slowly, Will turns on the spot, his fingers clenching the fabric of his trousers. His pupils have shrunken to petrified pinpoints, fixated on something in the distance past where Cath can see. She even turns herself to have a look, but only the school building is situated in their field of vision — he seems to be absorbed by some invisible force in the hanging grey clouds of the sky.

"... Will?"

Then it hits her.

It's happening again.

"Will! Will, can you hear me? You need to snap out of it," Cath says, starting to wave her hand in front of his face, clap her hands, snap her fingers, anything.

"Go away... go away..." Will whispers absentmindedly, lips trembling.

The last couple of times this has happened, Cath prefers not to physically touch him, worried she might frighten him too much. But anchoring him back into reality is becoming far too difficult without it, as Will becomes more tightly entangled in the prison of his troubled consciousness. So Cath grabs him by the shoulders, firmly enough so he can tangibly feel her fingertips digging into his shirt, but tenderly enough so he should know he is safe.

"Will, come on!" Cath pleads, raising her voice a little. Can he hear her? Could he ever hear her? "Whatever you're seeing right now, it's not real. It's not real. You're here, on the field, with me... Cath... you know me, right? You can do it, you can fight it! It's not real! Will, please, come back... come back—"

With a sudden, muffled jerk of his head, the terror that had him frozen and trembling moments ago vanishes — instead it becomes replaced with an eerie, absent numbness. Will's eyes lull into the back of his skull, his eyelids flickering rapidly and out of control. Horrified, Cath slowly lets go of his shoulders, which have gone completely rigid with some invisible tension underneath his skin.

This is new.

Seized with sluggish panic, Cath stumbles back and scrambles for her walkie on the grass. "Help!" she chokes out in a hurry, "Please! Any of you, help—"

"I'm right here!"

The reply comes not from the radio, but from behind her; she turns and sees Mike on the steps, the door just closing behind him. Cath has no idea what she looks like right now, only knowing it must be some version of utterly terrified, because it clearly takes a split second for Mike to sense something is wrong. His face contorting into unfiltered worry, he falls into a sprint across the field to reach the pair.

"What happened?" Mike asks, out of breath.

"I-I don't know," Cath blurts out frantically. "Will ran out here so I followed him, 'cause maybe he found Dart or something, but then– then he was actually having an episode again, so I tried to get him out of it like last time, but– but then... then he started doing this, and I didn't... I didn't know what to do—"

"Will? Will, come on man, it's me! It's Mike!" Similarly to Cath, he goes to grab Will by the shoulders, but pulls away in uneasy horror after feeling the rigidness.

"You felt that, right?" she asks, her voice trembling. "How... tense he is?"

Swallowing thickly, Mike extends the antenna of his walkie. "I'm gonna call the others. Keep an eye on him."

Although it's only a small duty, and probably a futile one right now, Cath nods gratefully at any opportunity to feel less helpless right now. While she continues to try and coax Will out of his episode, Mike calls the others, some of whom have already started running across the field themselves — "Will's having another episode. School field," he tells the others, trying to stay as calm as possible, but Cath can hear the fearful uncertainty in his voice. "Lucas, stay and look out for Mrs. Byers when she gets here..."

"Will? Will please, just snap out of it..." Cath pleads Will, knowing she sounds like a broken record, but she can't stop trying now.

So far, it proves no use. Will Byers is more securely locked away than he has ever been.

━━━━━━

     WHEN it comes to the Upside Down, Will Byers is no stranger to running for his life. A demogorgon, although bloodthirsty nightmare fuel, he could remember outrunning when he had more energy. He was nimble and quick. Will had lived out the Jack and the Beanstalk tale, had been the David conquering the Goliath although only small and so strong.

     But this... thing, the shadowy entity that haunted his true sight. This was different.

He saw it at the arcade, on Halloween night and maybe a handful more times. The shadow monster. It took up the whole sky — all-consuming, all-conquering. It was a force of nature. And the scariest part of it all, is that it was inside him... somehow. Or however his true sight was working. Whatever it was, Will wanted out.

So when Will feels himself slip again, back into that world and watching a tsunami of shadow cascade down the corridor, he does the only thing he knows how to — run. With each winding corridor and pounding of his feet against the vine-smothered linoleum floor, he feels the shadows lapping at his heels and charges further, lactic acid burning his insides. For a brief moment, he wonders... is he actually running? The real Will, on the outside, is he too sprinting like his life depends on it? Or is he merely running around the empty vessels of his paralysed mind?

Will swings the doors open to the school field, yet another dark-infested mockery of the world he knows; the one he should feel safe in. Of course, that's a lie. Will Byers has never felt safe since the night he disappeared.

He keeps running, running, running.

Only the dark abyss of the Upside Down-woods lies ahead, when some unfounded courage in Will stops him. He slows to a halt, freezing on the spot. Of all the memories to flash before his eyes, the one he remembers is some imparted wisdom of Bob Newby on the drive to school. They had talked about fears, and subsequently standing up to those fears. To this, he remembered Bob telling him how he summoned the bravery to conquer his fear, even if Mr. Baldo was much tamer than this shadowy mass:

"This time, I didn't run... this time, I stood my ground. I just looked at Mr. Baldo, in his stupid face, and I said 'Go away! GO AWAY!' And just like that, he was gone."

     Holding this firmly in his mind, Will clenches his fists at his sides. Slowly but surely, he spins around and listens to the sound of his own trembling breaths. Through the perilous snowflakes of the Upside Down, the shadowy arachnid rumbles as it consumes the sky, blotting out every particle of light possible.

     "Go away..." Will murmurs, nearly choking on each syllable as he shakes. "Go away..."

     The shadow monster emits something between a roar and a cackle — unless he is losing his mind, Will swears he hears hidden in the guttural sound a mimicry of his "Go away!" cry, like a mockery of his weakness. It is this that pushes him to the chilling, overwhelming realisation that he is outnumbered on all counts. He is so small, and the shadow monster is so big...

     "Go away!" Will half-yells, half-gasps as he feels tears threatening to surface.

     Like an extended claw, the shadowy towers multiply and float over him, roaring in his ears. Pushed over the edge now, Will feels tears of desperation stream down his face as an unutterable terror paralyses him on the spot.

     "GO AWAY!" he screams this time.

     The shadows spiral down into torrents that hit the ground, then fester into fierce shadowy whirlwinds that drown out his screams and threaten to pull him under.

    "GO AWAY!! GO AWAY!! GO AWAY!!"

     Will blinks through teary eyes, and opens them to an eerie quiet — he stands in the eye of the storm, shadow closing in all around him. All he hears are his hyperventilating breaths, anticipating the impending doom of whatever happens next. Maybe if he shuts his eyes, it will go away. He will wake up from this horrible nightmare.

     But he doesn't get time. Not before shadowy tendrils start invading him.

     First through his mouth; then his nostrils, choking him from the inside; then his ears, a deafening roar that rattles his head; then into his tear ducts, making his eyes throb. Coming from everywhere in every direction, Will feels it everywhere — all-consuming, all-conquering. He convulses under the sickening, gravity-defying force of the shadows, unable to do anything else. He can't think, he can't breathe. Part of him wants to choke, cough, throw up, anything to purge this rotting entity filling every particle in his body.

And that isn't even the worst part. The worst, by far, is that he feels it in his brain.

When will it stop? When will it stop? Please, make it STOP—

In a flash of daylight, Will feels his eyes shoot open; feels the prickle of autumn air on his skin, sees the fading green of the trees before his mother's eyes. "Oh, Will!" she cries out, holding him a little closer. "Honey, are you okay? Talk to me!"

"I... I'm..."

Completely dazed, Will looks around him, not even sure this is real. He is met with the faces of his friends — Mike, Cath, Dustin, Lucas... even Max — all contorted into intense concern and, perhaps worst of all, terror. He finds himself lingering on Cath, whose hand fiddles with anxious relief at the skin of her neck, the usual gentleness in her blue eyes intense and panicked as they glisten with tears. Next to her, Max stares at him wide-eyed, completely dumbfounded.

She thinks you're a freak, he taunts himself, from some invisible dark corner of his mind. That might have been his worry a few hours ago, but not after this. Something feels different after this episode. Something isn't right. But he just can't place what.

"Come on sweetie, let's get you home," his mother says, wrapping her arm around his shoulders. Will numbly walks with her to the car, but his mind is elsewhere.

His mind... that's what's different. The last times he broke free from his episodes, he felt the release of the Upside Down's eight as he realised he was safe. But now, even after waking up, Will still feels half-sleepwalking in that realm. Either that, or the thing he fears more — part of the shadows have woken up with him, and stayed with him. Part of him is angry at himself for not standing up to it, or thinking he could stand up to it.

Will swallowed the darkness whole; as much as it petrifies him to admit, he has a feeling it will leave him forever changed.

━━━━━━

A/N;

we're REALLY getting into the nitty gritty of season 2 now. writing will getting possessed was so heavy going, god damn, it had me STRESSED OUT 😭

posting this chapter as a kind of "celebration" of season 4 volume 2 coming out tomorrow! as per last time, NO SPOILERS in the comments for those who cannot watch immediately. what i will say is i've never been so scared going into a season finale, and i'll most definitely be setting up a bajillion prayer circles for all the characters i adore (which is most of the cast, so i'm stuck, oops). good luck guys *uneasy salute*

thank you for reading as always, and hope you have a lovely day/evening!

— Imogen

[ Pre-written: June 28th, 2022 ]
[ Published: June 30th, 2022 ]