Chapter Text
A deep growl reverberates through the remaining rubble of the Hawkin’s military base. Burrowing from 6 feet below where a trembling Byers stood above it all, face contorted in anguish and warm with blood that did not belong to him. Aching knees elevated the boy upwards, grounding him in whatever strength he had left physically. He shook his head, hoping to block his mind from the horrors.
Lucas hurriedly limping in the dirt tunnels, cradling his guts.
Robin and her wide open eyes, her face seemingly seconds away from screaming.
Mike lifted his hands to his face, fear struck and helpless.
The hollowed boy vigorously shook his head at the rapid visions, desperately whispering plights that seeped into small prayers, begging that none of this was real. But it was. And it was unfolding. All at once. All in front of him.
Flashing lights began to dance in his retinas, muffled gasps and gargled screaming unveiled, all while the boy could only make one thing out from this trippy vision — dark crimson flaying from open skin, coating the once neon-colored attires in devastating macabre. Cuts weren’t imposed surgically; they were messy and merciless. Will’s fingers elevated in heated temperature to the tip — as if they were clawing at a burning sensation, at pools of guts that were once intact and temperate with life. Indeed, it felt as though he was gnawing off a life that did not belong to him, but one that was taking the lives of others; tethered to the demogorgons so completely that their violence registered as if he was a catalyst and not an involuntary bystander.
The grisly sight of his friends stung his eyes with tears and poured down to the floor. Their screams thundered like turbulence locked in a dogfight, growing faster, louder, inescapable. Eventually, his scream tore loose and joined them, draping the military base in mourning — for he alone remained to witness the atrocity done in the Hawkins military base.
Sharp sirens wailed through the ruins, relentlessly drowning out the echoes that still rang inside Byer’s skull. The harrowing horrors had finally lapsed, grounding the boy in perpetual despair and quivering lips. His vision refocuses in sudden detail to the ruined surroundings and burning buildings — almost like a splash of whiplash. Slowly and lightheaded, Will looked around; first at the nearest tank that had tipped over, then at the large contraption that suspended the Upside Down portal. Upon seeing that portal, Will’s mind snaps back to an unwilling conscious realization.
Lucas… Robin… Mike… The children… Everyone. Everyone is all–
Just then, hands found him. They were strikingly cold enough to snap Will back to reality again. Snapping his head to the source of this cold that was now maternally guiding him forward as if his body were a thing that could be steered without his consent. The ground beneath his feet shifted from concrete to dirt, from open devastation to corridors still standing, blinking whites barely lighting his way.
“Will? Will! Look at me, baby.” Joyce’s voice broke through the noise. Wills’ continued wailing noise.
She was finally there, gripping her child's face with both hands, clammy thumbs smearing blood and tears across his cheeks. Joyce searched him desperately, cataloguing what was missing, what was broken, what was still hers. Will tried to focus on her; the shape of her mouth, the sound of her breathing, how a purplish bump had formed on her temple, how the dark in her eyes managed to glisten with naive hope. However, the world kept slipping, like his mind was lagging half a second behind his body.
“He’s in shock,” Someone whispered in careful mutters, as if anything more would have cracked the boy.
“Get them underground!" A firm voice commanded, suddenly snapping everyone in frantics of urgency and uniformity.
“Keep him away from the bodies.” Another had mandated.
They didn’t ask Joyce before moving them. They never did.
But Joyce kept one arm locked around Will’s shoulders as they ushered them down a narrow musky stairwell. The door they led them through was thick and steel-lined, humming faintly as it sealed behind them. “Safe”. That was the word someone used.
Graced with a moment to finally register his surroundings clearly, Will noticed just how small and confined the room was — or felt, like a makeshift bunker. It was solid concrete, with a few metal walls hoisting up shelves and levers. A single table bolted to the floor. Oil lights that flickered just enough to be noticed. Joyce pulled Will into her chest the moment they were alone, rocking him gently, whispering his name like a mantra.
“I’m still here, baby,” she murmured. “It’s going to be alright, I promise. I promise..!”
Will stared at the wall over her shoulder, a big visual that displayed the biology of a Demogorgon. The very sight of those things made Will’s breath shallow, his fingers trembling at his sides. The silence pressed in on him, loud in a way the sirens hadn’t been. He could’ve sworn that he could hear a fly buzz by, or sweat dripping from the surrounding men, or his heart beat.
Tick, tick, tick…
Then, somewhere deep beneath the base, something stirred. And this time, there was nothing left to drown it out.
Tick, tick, tick…
“Mom,” Will gently groaned. “Where’s Mike?”
“Mike?” Joyce whispered back until she tightened the grip on her son’s sweat-soaked back. She was rubbing circles that confessed a mortifying truth Will got immediately. “I don’t know, baby.” She admitted, but failed to bring any solace to Will, who was already crying.
“Lucas..? Robin..?” Will, for whatever reason, still had hope that whatever he was envisioning was just what they were: a stupid vision. A trick of the light. Vecna messing with him.
“Shhh.” Joyce softly urged. “Shhh…”
But Will hadn’t. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He definitely shouldn’t.
“Mom! MOM! WHERE ARE THEY!? OH GOSH!” Will slammed his forehead into Joyce’s arms, sinking his fingers into her jacket. “WHAT DID I DO?” Will spiraled.
“No, baby!” Joyce reassured, screaming over Will’s antics. “No! You couldn’t have. You never did that! Please!”
Even in that tight, cratered “bunker”, the world felt even smaller and suffocating. Air was thinning with every breath he stole from it. The combined must of everyone’s anxiety clogged Will from coherence or rationale — only madness. Will’s world was truly beginning to fall apart. Not in a way that shattered all at once, but in a slow, hopeless collapse. Each memory caving in on itself, each heartbeat reminding him of what had been taken and what remained tethered to him against his will. There was no edge to cling to, no corner untouched by loss; only the sickening certainty that everything he loved was either dead, dying, or slipping somewhere he could never follow. The agonized shrills of the people who he once shared a table with, a secret with, a life with — not just yanked at his heartstrings, it severed it to death.
Tick, tick, tick…
In a split moment of shaken silence, Will bit his lip until it bled. But then, succumbing to his pain, did he finally let out a furious wail — cursing at his own weakness, mourning the unjust loss, and damning the man who took his friends from him. His mother had long given up consolation, but instead mourned with her son. As the Byers cradled one another in shared turmoil, the men circling them had also seemed to let go of their classified duties; taking off their hats or kneeling down to respect this personal moment between mother and son. A moment that was far from beautiful, far from subtle, but far from the bodies being rolled into the hall above them.
Will’s world had truly fallen apart.
Boots and sneakers of fuzzy mud sloshed with fluids of who-knows-what left a nasty trail over the military base’s floors. The stench of the intoxicated vapors from the Upside Down made a few of the soldiers gag, but to the group that was being apprehended, this smell was nothing. Through the soldier’s rough checking and interrogation, confiscating their weaponry and flashlights, Dustin shot an annoyed face at Steve, eyeing his friend a “told you so” look. Steve scoffed, before being pushed against the wall by a soldier as they pried through Steves’ backpack.
“Dumbasses,” Dustin muttered, observing the soldiers who were naively fiddling with his makeshift bomb. “One wrong pull and we’re all fried.” A frightening thought. But the way the soldiers poked and tilted their heads at this oddball of dynamite still humored Dustin.
Meanwhile, Jonathan and Nancy were a few feet across from the boys. Nancy was handled with less scuffle compared to her partner. Still ,Jonathan yelled for the men to release her, mistrust burning in his chest at the way hands lingered too long beneath the pretense of “just making sure.” Indeed, the soldiers questioned how or why Nancy had so much ammunition strapped on/beneath her. Nancy relayed a sarcastic remark, before her eyes automatically met the eyes of a familiar dark pair, hauled towards a corridor.
Nancy’s heart sank to her stomach.
Like a drifting constellation, she saw a flash of something both indescribable and unbelievably horrifying roll past her. The sight was almost too bizarre that Nancy swore it was only in her dreary head from being exposed to the Upside Down for too long. Yet, she felt her eyes sink, her vision now becoming blurry. Her fingers twitching into an upsetting ball of rage. And her heart remained dead by her feet, flatlining in denial that the person who she saw getting rolled off on that bloody tray could not have been him. Slipping through the barrier of the soldiers, Nancy’s voice began calling. And calling. And then shouting. Jonathan noticed her suddenly landing hits and shoves at the soldiers, screaming for a name that sent chills up his spine.
Mike Wheeler.
The very call of his name sent the group into a panicked syncopation of turning heads, disbelief expressions, and gasps of horror. For what followed after seeing Mike’s body on the rolling tray were more bodies of their party. One by one, the bodies of Robin Buckley and Lucas Sinclair were rushed to the corridors by combat nurses and commanding soldiers. Dustin and Steve stood their ground, too stunned to move or revolt with Nancy — who was already chasing after Mike’s tray. Jonathan had attempted to flee, but was plummeted to the floor by a rushing combat nurse, breaking his nose when he landed. The snap broke Steve into a protective drive, pushing through the soldier’s grasp to pick up Jonathan from the cold hard floor. But as Steve lifted Jonathan up did his eyes regretfully meet the second body tray. Steve didn’t move at first. He didn’t breathe. His eyes fixed on the familiar mess of a light brown bob, the blood-darkened collar, the shape he knew too well to mistake.
“No,” Steve said quietly. He took a step forward, then stopped uncharacteristically. Steve reached with his free hand, then dropped it the moment his familiar partner on that tray was gone — like an eerie flash that stung Steve’s eyes. Disbelief locked Steve in place as he stared at her passing him, out of reach.
“Robin?” Steve whispered.
“Holy shit…” Jonathan turned his face away from the wretched state Robins’ body was in. Combat nurses moved quickly, efficiently, the gurney wheels rattling against the squeaky floor as another tray rolled past. Then Dustin lurched forward instinctively.
“Wait, wait, hold on, that’s—” The shakiness leaking from his mouth, and for the first time, there was no snark to hide behind. That cockiness he had with Steve a few minutes earlier was stripped to a naked panic for his childhood friend.
“Shit, shit, shit, SHIT! Lucas?!” Dustin’s voice finally broke.
“Dustin, no!” Jonathan yelped, throwing a hand to Dustin’s tail coat, only to tear a massive rip down it. “Dustin-! Wait!”
“No, no, no, no! This wasn’t—This wasn’t supposed to happen! No, no no—” His voice picked up speed as he shouted, words no longer comprehensible, unraveling, until all that remained was his name, broken and loud in the corridor. Henderson had disappeared into the infirmary along with Nancy. Jonathan and Steve remained with the soldiers all screaming at each other to do something. They had tried to keep them all back; declaring orders, open palms raised, rehearsed phrases meant for crowds, not kids who had just seen their friends perish.
“You need to step back, sir!”
“Let go of him! He needs to breathe!”
“Sir? Sir? I need you to calm down, sir!”
But no one listened.
Not a single soul cared. But voices rose.
Someone shoved forward. Someone else collapsed to the floor.
Such a catastrophe didn’t organize itself the way drills had, so the soldiers were quickly, visibly losing control.