Chapter Text
The first strange thing about dying is having your blood slowly but surely run out. He feels it in his fingertips, then the ends of his toes and the tip of his nose- they all feel lacking, numb. The Upside Down isn’t a warm place to begin with, but something about lying in a hot pool of his own blood makes him shiver. Eddie isn’t even in pain, really; there’s adrenaline coursing through his body, numbing the feeling of sharp teeth gnawing again and again and again into his skin. He tries to count how many times he’d been bitten thus far but he can’t, his mind feels too foggy, dazed and confused.
He’d always loved that song, Dazed and Confused. It’s not his favorite song, not by a long shot, but he likes it nonetheless. It was one of the very first riffs he learned how to play. Ma used to hate it, said it gave her a headache, which gave young Eddie all the more reasons to blast it even louder.
Frankie used to love that song too, he remembers now. The second strange thing about dying: little memories and facts Eddie hadn’t thought about in years float to the surface, occupying and taking over the forefront of his mind. He can’t think of the bats, or his friends, or the way the edges of his vision darken. He can’t think of anything but how Frankie used to love Dazed and Confused, but the original version of it, the one by that other dude.
Some memories stick and some don’t, he figures.
Eddie holds onto the memory he can remember hard enough he believes he can hum the melody. He can almost see it in his mind; he’s no older than ten, lying on his back in the lower bunk bed, staring up at the faded Dazed and Confused music sheet written in Wayne’s messy hand that he taped to the bottom of the upper one. He’s inexperienced still, his fingers struggling to reach the correct frets on his battered old guitar’s neck that lies across his abdomen.
“It sounds weird,” a child’s voice from the bed above says, “maybe you’re out of tune?”
“Stop telling me how to do my thing,” Eddie groans. “It’s my thing- not yours- for a reason.”
He thinks about his childhood bedroom, hears the other kid sigh, and there are suddenly hands running through his hair, bigger than Frankie’s hands ever got to be. Eddie wants to move his head, look at his brother once more, just once before they’re reunited again, but he can’t do anything but simply lie there in a pool of his own blood and uselessly wait it out. The adrenaline seeps out of his body, bit by bit, swept out by an unforgiving tide, which with it brings crashing waves of agonizing pain. He doesn’t even twitch, though, he isn’t sure he can.
He isn’t sure he’ll ever get to move again.
The third weird thing about dying: it doesn’t scare him anymore. He’s all alone, anyways. Everybody figured he was already dead and left him here by himself; he did nothing but watch as Steve Harrington barely spared him another glance after failing to find his pulse, focusing instead on grabbing Dustin forcefully and barking at everyone to run. No one’s coming back to save him, as they should, so there’s nothing he can do but accept it as what it is- the end of the road, Eddie Munson’s final destination.
And if it is what it is, he might as well enjoy the ride, right?
Eddie fights the heaviness of his lids and opens his eyes slowly to stare at the vast red skies staring back at him. He feels so tiny, so insignificant in comparison. He hears thunders but they’re muffled, as if he’s submerged in water. The pain comes and goes, waves crashing against the shore to the beat of his heart, and he’s drowning in it. Even as the waves dwindle down, his pulse weakening with them, he can feel each devastatingly painful crash.
He waits for the light, the one everyone says people see before they die, the one you’re meant to head towards, but there’s nothing he can see but the bleeding skies.
He kinda hoped he’d get to see it. He bets the brilliant white light is gonna be pretty beautiful to look at, considering it’s the last thing he’ll ever get to see, but instead he’s stuck with this menacing vision he fucking hates.
Eddie waits, and waits, and waits.
Nothing happens.
“It must’ve hurt,” a deep voice booms. Eddie had heard it before, he’s sure of it, but he can’t place it anywhere. “Getting left behind. Aren’t you tired of it, Eddie?”
I’m tired of everything, he wants to say.
“I know, but there are great things that you are yet to have done,” The voice says again. It sounds almost kind, tempting. “I can give you a world where you’re never left behind again. Would you like that?”
Come to think about it, he would, actually. He would like that very much.
There are strong arms that lift him up effortlessly. They don’t do it gently or carefully but for some reason Eddie feels safe, safer than he’d felt in months. Years. Maybe ever.
He looks down at the arms for a moment and they don’t look human; they are pink and veiny, bloodied and burnt. Eddie isn’t scared.
His eyes close again and he can’t feel anything anymore.
Nothing but bliss.
