Chapter Text
The thing that would strike others as startling, as somehow worse than when Will disappeared or what had happened to El, was that Mike Wheeler should not have been in those woods that night at that time.
Lucas still claimed he didn’t believe in coincidences. That Mike’s simple explanation wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t acceptable. It wasn’t!
But by that time, Mike felt too exhausted and strung out to argue. He probably shouldn’t have kept it a secret as long as he did, though he hadn’t intentionally been keeping it from them. He had no intention of it even being a secret.
“Things simply got out of control,” he said, the ever-constant pain between his eyes threatening to consume him whole. “If I thought that it would turn out like this, then I would have told you.”
Would he, though? Mike liked to think he would, but didn’t he have plenty of previous opportunities? Weren’t there all those times where he looked at one of them and thought: I should tell them?
Even as he thought it, he doubted it would have made a difference. The thing happening to him wasn’t like with Will, where there was a clear monster and a literal point of focus (compasses, ha!!), or with El, who had been running from that abusive and cold place.
Mike didn’t go anywhere. There were no monsters.
It was just him and—
The thing was, the problem with it all was, the actual point where it all went wrong had no monster or evil man or government conspiracy attached to it.
It started, somewhat paradoxically, with Will Byers coming home from college.
Mike remembered being excited. He had been the only one to stay in Hawkins. Steadily, they had begun returning for summer break. Will would be the first, having finished his finals and managed to snag a ride from Jonathan in his return.
Joyce and Hopper waited for them at home. A nice home, too, and after an extensive two-week honeymoon who-knows-where, they were ready to fill it with the boys. Lucas and Max were to come later. Thursday was what Mike marked on his calender. Dustin Friday.
All four ready to share daring tales of their college experiences.
Mike had dropped out of college. Or, no, he didn’t ‘drop out’ as Nancy had. He never made it to his first class or orientation or anything. He wasn’t even sure why he applied—or what pushed him into submitting his short horror story to that magazine Mom was subscribed to.
He’d just seen the ad promoting the competition and recalled the little story he’d written a few weeks ago, so he sent it. Then he promptly forgot about it until a few days later, when he received a letter saying that his story was one of the best they’d ever read and that they’d like to give him two hundred dollars to publish it.
Mike never told anyone about that, but they all found out. He always thought Max or Lucas was subscribed to the magazine and probably saw it. At least, that was what made sense to Mike, who suddenly woke up to the phone ringing and all his friends insistent on congratulating him.
His cheeks had darkened. He’d ducked his head, staring at his striped socks, and thought: why hadn’t I told them?
Mike knew why, but thinking about it reminded him too much of why he had even written it.
Then Max said, “You and your happy endings, Wheeler.”
And Mike decided he no longer liked thinking about it, so he pushed it all away with his happy smile and earnest thank-yous. Mom called him her ‘bright little author.’
Dad said, “I don’t care for horror,” and Mike left it there.
Until Will Byers came home.
Joyce had called that morning, asking him to come over for the welcome-home party she and Hopper had planned. For a brief second, he considered telling her no. Then the thought passed as quickly as it came, so quickly that he almost missed it. He blinked, furrowing his brow, as he pushed for that single, betraying thought to return.
No? Why would he say no? He loved—Will was his best friend. He missed Will, like he missed Dustin and Lucas and Max and El and
(no, not exactly like them)
they wrote frequently, but it hadn’t felt enough. It never soothed the gaping hole that had opened up in Mike’s chest. He couldn’t remember when it happened, exactly, only that it started before Vecna died.
“Mike?” Joyce’s half-distracted voice asked, her voice sounding thin over the telephone line.
Mike blinked. His head turned, something akin to pain threatening his temples, as the blurry image of his parents’ basement flickered back into view.
He’d moved out at the start of college, but found himself over here more than his apartment.
“Huh?” Mike asked. Then recalled her question and hurriedly said, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be there.”
A pause.
Mike briefly thought she might have hung up; then she asked, “You feeling alright, Mike?”
“Uh-huh. I’m great. I’m,” a lump swelled inside Mike’s throat, but he swallowed it down and finished lamely, “great.”
Joyce sounded unsure as she said, “Okay. Oh, hey. I read your little story. It was great. Real scary.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“All you kids have gone through so much. Each of you is so strong.”
Mike closed his eyes. “Yeah. What time did you say?”
Then came the problem. The coincidence or curse or whatever, which Mike knew wasn’t fair, but he hadn’t been feeling right before Will came in holding hands with a boyishly handsome college boy with bright, blue eyes and cute dimples and said—
“Boyfriend?” Mike asked, sitting and staring at the quarry. From so high up, the dark water looked like a black void. “Boyfriend?!”
Tucker Bradshaw had smiled, showing his dimples, as he had reached out a hand and said, “You must be the infamous Mike Wheeler. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Oh? Really?”
Tucker had frowned, though probably less from the words than the wary way Mike regarded him. He still hadn’t taken the offered hand.
Instead, his eyes flickered over Tucker’s shoulder and caught a glimpse of Will’s wide-eyed face. That more than anything compelled Mike to accept the firm handshake.
“I read your story,” Tucker had later confided, cornering Mike in the kitchen while washing dishes.
Joyce had told Mike not to worry about it, but he’d felt so out of place and weird during dinner. Besides, Will hardly noticed, whispering privately to Tucker. Joyce had probed Jonathan about school, leaving Hopper to stare knowingly across the table at Mike.
So by the time it had ended, his skin still crawling, he’d been desperate for an out. He had no idea why Tucker followed him into the kitchen when everyone else moved to the living room. At least, not until Tucker had opened his mouth.
“Oh, yeah?” Mike had asked.
“Yeah. It was cute. I was so shocked when Will told me he knew the guy who wrote it.”
“Uh-huh.”
Tucker had paused, but not in consideration. Mike had known what he wanted to say, even before he said it. He could feel it, like flowers budding underneath his skin.
He did have a brief, hopeful moment where he thought Tucker had changed his mind and wouldn’t speak. That he’d realize Mike was uncomfortable with the conversation and was clearly pulling away, already looking for an escape, but then Tucker had opened his mouth and said…
Overlooking the quarry, Mike screamed. It was loud and angry and didn’t stop. He screamed and screamed
(I wasn’t so sure about the ending, though. Does every story really need a happy ending? Especially one like that?)
until his voice turned hoarse. His entire body shook, and he had problems keeping his legs underneath him. Eventually, the screaming stopped, and the tears came.
Mike collapsed to his knees. It wasn’t graceful, no more than a sad slumping, as he dramatically crumpled over. He dug his fingers into the dirt, pulling up loose rocks. There wasn’t a purpose to it. Only that it made him feel marginally better, giving his hands something to do.
It should have ended there.
Realistically, Mike had no idea that it wouldn’t have. Nevermind that there had been strange things happening in the woods of Hawkins since he was in middle school. They’d stopped those things, though, and Hawkins Lab had closed when the government took over.
So he had no reason to expect the group of masked figures to step out of the woods. Even then, teenagers at Hawkins were weird. Mike hardly glanced at them, while he curled long, skinny arms around his stomach and stared down into the water.
One asked, “Do you see it?”
“No. Wait. What’s that?”
Their flashlights swiveled, thin beams of light cutting through the darkness. Mike, somewhat curious about the franticness in their voices, glanced over. But even then, with three flashlights blinding him, he hadn’t felt scared.
“Is that a kid?”
Mike’s chest ballooned with indignation. He wasn’t a kid. He hadn’t been a kid in a long time!
“Yeah,” one of the strangers said, then turned away. The light swiveled over the quarry, getting lost in the darkness of the trees. “Do you think he saw something?”
“Doubt it. Look at him. He’s too calm.”
“We should go.”
Then, as if answering the unasked question, the wind started blowing. It funneled between the trees, sending plumes of leaves and sticks in an almost whistling gasp. It was a little odd, sure, but not so much so that it should send the three strangers into hysterics.
Mike’s stomach dropped.
He recognized their frenzy. It’d been the same kind that evil man had regarded El, or how Doctor Kay chased Kali and El across Hawkins. They’d never cared about who they hurt. They wanted to leave Barbara and Will in the Upside Down. They imprisoned everyone within the town and didn’t let them leave.
They hurt, and they killed, and they never cared.
Mike scrambled to his feet. His legs shook, not quite stable, just as the wind stopped. It gave one mockingly victorious lap around the quarry before everything went still.
Three beams of light snapped to him.
“Ah, shit,” one said.
“Hey, kid. We just want to talk.”
Mike took off running in the opposite direction. He didn’t have to look to know they instantly followed. He could hear the drumming of their boots, growing nearer and nearer. Their breathing practically brushed the back of his neck.
He should have worked out more. They hadn’t trained since stopping Vecna, and even then, that had primarily been El.
It took less than a few thundering steps before hands grabbed at his arms. One snagged his elbow, jerking him so hard he felt his elbow pop.
Mike cried out, but he had been here before. He twisted, using his weight to his advantage, and swung out. The hands released him. He stumbled back, but regained his footing quickly and bolted for the woods.
Outnumbered or not. Quicker or not. The woods were easy to get turned around in, and Mike spent most of his childhood running around them. If he could get to them, then he could escape. He could duck and hide and wait until they grew tired of searching. He could
Something knocked against his back.
It wasn’t a full tackle, more of just a shoulder knocking into the small of his back. The air left Mike’s lungs. The dirt felt cold when he struck it, desperately attempting to scramble back to his feet, but then more hands were holding him. Pinning him. Dragging him.
“Let me go,” Mike screamed, fighting against the arms, but they locked securely around him. They practically lifted him off the ground, legs flailing. “Let me go!”
“What now? We can’t just keep him.”
“He’s seen too much.”
“We can’t keep him!”
“Shit, guys, this is bad. This is really, really bad.”
“Fuck, oh fuck.”
“Don’t just stand there, idiots, throw him off the cliff or something.”
The hands dragged him back. His arms were pinned to his chest, and two more grabbed his legs. The other held the flashlight, no more than a slight, glimpsing light from the corner of his eye.
“No. No! Let me go! Let me go!”
They did not, and it was surprisingly quick.
One moment, he was screaming, staring up at the starlit sky; the next, gravity had taken hold. He fell, spinning. Air whipped around him.
He’d been here before, hadn’t he? He’d done so willingly last time, so maybe not exactly the same, but it felt familiar. Every possible last thought he could have had, and that was it. It felt familiar. It felt familiar. It felt
cold and wet. The sun had just begun to rise, painting the sky brilliant shades of golden orange and burnt red.
Mike gasped, sputtering. His entire body felt sore, which hadn’t been the most concerning realization, considering the lungs full of water he coughed out. It almost choked him, the ferocity with which it all came up.
Then—seconds or minutes or hours later—when it finished, he remained there, flopped bonelessly over. His throat hurt. His chest hurt. Everything had some form of ache to it.
Mike took several long moments to catch his breath. To stare hazily at the sloping entrance of the quarry’s bottom, brain still struggling to piece together the vague shapes of rocks and trees and the hill that circled to the top.
It wasn’t Tucker’s fault, Mike blearily thought. Then he grimaced, hating that his first thought after thinking he would die being about Will’s boyfriend. It felt icky. It made him feel worse than he already did.
Mike sat up.
It turned his vision and threatened his dinner. His entire body protested the action, but Mike forced it to cooperate. He practically dragged himself upright. His legs wobbled; his vision spun and spun and—
Mike did lose it, then.
After he finished, feeling considerably worse, he straightened back up and walked, cold and shivering, back to his apartment.
It wasn’t a large apartment. Mike didn’t need much space; the fleeting moments he spent inside it were primarily used for eating and sleeping. Sometimes, when he got stuck in his head, he’d pull out a notebook or some loose-leaf papers and start writing.
Last week, he saw a typewriter in one of the storefronts’ windows downtown. He couldn’t yet afford it, but it gave him a goal. Which was good, he thought, something to work towards.
All thoughts of goals and future plans had left his mind last night. It fled him suddenly, as he stared up at the sky and thought
(It felt familiar.)
Mike closed his eyes, pushing the memories away.
All he wanted to do was take a quick shower. Crawl into bed and sleep this new headache off. Maybe he should look into getting glasses. Headaches were becoming increasingly more common.
Mike managed to finish his shower, but not the sleep. He’d gotten caught in the mirror, staring at his pale reflection. He had always been pale, but something about him now looked ghastly. A weird thought to have, considering nothing outwardly looked different.
He had the same dark eyes. The same unruly curls. The same freckles that stuck out against his fair complexion.
But there was something—something not right. Something—something—something—
Pounding at the door.
It caught him off guard. Mike leapt, swerving towards the sound. He ducked, curling his shoulders. Numb fingers scrambled across the porcelain countertop in search of a weapon, and all he could think about were the masked figures, the sharp cut of the flashlight. The way the air whistled as he tumbled downwards.
The world had gone silent when he went over the edge. Everything turned impossibly still, almost stuck, and it obviously hadn’t lasted, but Mike couldn’t remember that part. He couldn’t remember hitting the water or how it must have hurt.
All he could think about was—
Jim Hopper’s voice shouted, “Mike! Open the door!”
It was perhaps the absolute shock at hearing his voice, then the words or the tone that spurred Mike into moving. He crossed the short distance between the bathroom and the front door. His fingers trembled as he opened it.
He couldn’t tell who was more shocked—him or Hopper—but they must have made a comical sight.
Mike, freshly showered and dressed in grey sweatpants and no shirt, stared wide-eyed at the town’s sheriff, whose fist was still raised to further his angry knocking. They stared at each other, confused and expectant.
Then, unprompted, Hopper scooped him into not quite a hug but certainly an embrace. A painfully tight one, so tight that Mike could feel the slight trembling in his arms. A large hand cradled the back of his head, forcing his face against the older man’s chest, where he could make out the faint, erratic beat of Hopper’s heart.
Mike went still.
His entire body stiffened, eyes wide, as he stood awkwardly in the hold. Then Hopper pulled him back, grip painfully tight around his biceps, and there was fear in that gaze, too. A weird, disconcerting thought to have considering his morning.
Immediately, Mike’s mind turned to the Byers. Fear spiked his chest, causing nausea to pool in his throat and mouth.
He sounded as frantic as Hopper looked when he asked, “What happened? Is everyone okay? Will—?”
“No, no. Everyone is fine. Everything is fine,” Hopper said, sighing as he slowly released Mike and straightened. He glanced around them, though not self-consciously. “I just…got a concerning call at the station.”
“Oh.” Mike thoughtfully scrunched his nose. “Do you…want to come inside?”
Hopper scooted by him. He made a show of it, too, calloused palm setting against Mike’s shoulder. It was a weight he didn’t entirely know how to handle. When El and Mike started dating, Hopper never became a positive relationship. And Dad…
Mike awkwardly stood in his doorway, fingers clasped on the doorknob at his back; he watched Hopper glance around the apartment. It was nice, in a minimalist way: an old couch, a patterned rug, and a bookshelf filled with more pictures than books.
Then Hopper turned a scrutinizing stare at him and asked, “Did you come home last night?”
“Where else would I have gone?”
“Did your neighbors see you come home?”
“I don’t know.” A warm breeze blew through the still open door; Mike shivered, closing it. “What’s this about? You said everyone was fine, yet you’re acting like—”
Something else had happened.
Mike’s brain turned back to the quarry, but Hopper could probably smell those thoughts on him, so he shook them free. Hopper’s eyes narrowed.
He turned to the bookshelf. He explained, “I got a call this morning at the station. Coupla kids said they saw someone jump at the quarry. Tall, skinny. Pale skin. Dark curls.”
Mike raised an eyebrow. He did not say that it could be anyone or ask how those things meant Hopper needed to check here. He didn’t because he knew who they were talking about. Only he hadn’t jumped.
“They described his outfit, and it sounded exactly like what you were wearing yesterday.”
“Hm.” Mike agreed. “Spooky.”
“You have anything you’d like to add to that?”
“Add to what?” Mike inhaled deeply, lowering his tone to something more reasonable. “Did you find him? The guy who jumped?”
Hopper looked at him. For a long time, he just stared and stared. It was a bit unnerving, but Mike spent years beneath the critical eye of Jim Hopper. He didn’t bow. He didn’t back down. He didn’t break eye contact.
Then, finally, Hopper looked away.
He paused a moment longer, as if contemplating saying more, before he sighed and walked back to the door. His palm settled back against Mike’s back before he left, and his eyes looked so severe.
“You see something strange, you start feeling the tiniest bit off, you call me. Okay?”
Mike swallowed, but something solid had lodged inside his throat. So, shakily, he nodded.
Hopper left. Mike waited, counted to five in his head, before he allowed his body to resume its shaking. He leaned back against the wall, sliding slowly down it, and stayed like that for a long time. Long enough that the shadows had grown when he blinked back into awareness. His stomach audibly growled.
Rising, he moved to the kitchen. He’d been needing to go to the store, though kept putting it off in favor of visiting his parents’ for dinner.
One of his hobbies he’d taken after
(Graduation, college acceptance, everyone moving away, El’s death, El’s death, El’s death)
everything was cooking. He’d collected several beginner cookbooks and would frequently bring his parents meals. Dad had turned his nose up the first time.
“Men don’t cook, son,” he had said with a serious gravitas that sickened Mike’s stomach. “They find nice, polite wives to do it for them.”
“Then why did you marry Mom?”
Dad had narrowed his eyes, considering him darkly.
Mike held it. Perhaps he had always been more like his father than he would’ve liked, but, in the moment, it was the only thing allowing him to stand there and face it.
Mom broke the impasse by saying, “Tom, if you don’t like it, you’re more than welcome to eat leftovers. I think this is a lovely gesture, Mike. Thank you.”
He closed the fridge a tad firmer than necessary. He closed it and swallowed down the nausea and the dizziness. His temples throbbed. A sharp pain blurred his vision, so he reached out, squinting.
Mike had been reaching for the cabinet where he kept his cups. For water, he blearily thought, but then his hands brushed something else.
It squished under his fingers. It made a sound Mike had heard before—at the age of twelve—as he sat in a room trying to block out the noises of screaming men and the wet squelching of throats and hearts being ripped out.
Dying, he had known then. They were all dying.
Instinctively, he stumbled back. He tossed his hand in the air as his pulse jackrabbited, throbbing in his throat. Gone was his apartment. Gone were the familiar wooden cabinets and retro wallpaper. Gone was his refrigerator with its cheap magnets he used to pin up need-to-know dates. Gone were the clippings he’d collected of his friends’ lives and their successes and—
Mike was not in the Abyss. It was not the Upside Down or that terrible lab.
He was in what he was almost certain a stomach. He opened his mouth and
(Do not scream.)
Mike choked. He gagged, coughing, watching the walls of flesh pulse. It had a steady rhythm, akin to a heartbeat. A good, strong heartbeat with a good, strong flow. He instead turned to heaving. Nausea clogged his throat. The corners of his eyes prickled with unshed tears.
The voice, a deep baritone that sounded similar to how nails raking a chalkboard sounded, said, “Do not panic, Michael Wheeler.”
“Panic?” Mike demanded, a hard, high-pitched twange to his voice. “What the fuck?”
“There is an explanation,” assured the voice.
Mike glanced around. The fleshy walls secreted mucus in long, thin webs. It seemed to cover everything, though his hand remained dry—as had his shoes.
Slowly, the panic began to leave. In its place came clarity. That tiny, categorizing part of Mike’s brain that shoved aside the horror in favor of picking out the logical bits.
The room? cavern? chamber? wasn’t overly big. It seemed smaller than his kitchen, which always felt tiny. It curved, more like an oval than a rectangle, and something about that made Mike think of a seed. Like he’d opened his eyes and found himself in the middle of a seed, stuck without an exit.
The walls pulsed. More filmy mucus oozed out.
Mike glanced up.
The room tapered to a single point over his head. The seed imagery returned as he considered the puckered flesh. A ring of muscle pulsed. It looked no more than a half-inch in diameter, and behind it lay more darkness.
Mike’s heartbeat quickened. His palms started to sweat, so he curled his fingers in, contemplating the hole.
The voice warned, “You will not fit.”
Mike clenched his jaw and stepped forward. The ground squelched, but he pushed aside the memory of demi-dogs and dead scientists. Of curling tentacles, and how they always seemed to reach towards him.
Touching the wall was worst.
His fingers curled around wet, clammy heat. The invisible heartbeat continued to pulse against his palm, and suddenly, he felt like he was one of those monsters that haunted their childhood. Bile crept up his throat, but Mike swallowed it down.
He squared his shoulders, thought of what he’d looked at to distract himself back then
(Will’s pale features. The dark circles that lined his eyes and the way his long, straight hair flopped to the side. It reminded Mike of how expressive Will was while awake. The way his eyes shone when he smiled and how he’d always tilt his head when thinking.)
he started to climb.
He should have continued working out. He should have worked out more back then. He should have—
His mind lit with noise. It crowded his brain, crowded the backs of his eyes, and filled him with such blinding pain that he lost momentary awareness.
When he next opened his eyes, he was lying on his kitchen floor. He lay on his side, knees slightly bent. One of his cheeks was cushioned by his arm, and there was a slight tingling in the tips of his fingers.
He groaned, thinking how he’d probably need more than glasses, when he slowly righted himself to his knees. A dark figure sat several feet in front of him, legs crossed and details obscured in a shadowy mist. Tendrils of darkness oozed from the broad features, leaving only two glowing yellow eyes staring back.
“Hello, Michael,” the voice said. “You handled that better than most.”
Mike backpeddled until he hit the wall. He sucked in a breath, but it didn’t properly come. It continued to vibrate inside his sternum, erratic and panicky, as he stared.
“Relax,” said the voice, “We have found ourselves aligned, I fear.”
“What,” Mike heaved, eyes bulging, “the hell?”
“Careful, Michael,” the thing said; it didn’t cast a shadow, despite the bright fluorescent lights buzzing above them. “You may hurt yourself.”
Mike, head still spinning, shouted, “Hurt myself?”
He went to rise, though the movement must have been too sudden. The world twisted. All the colors left their lines, blurring into a massive blob, as it spun and spun and Mike tipped over.
When he blinked back into awareness, the windows were dark, and the thing was gone.
:: ::
“Your tests will take a few days to come back,” the doctor told Mike a few hours later, going through the papers attached to his clipboard, “but your vitals seem normal. You have a good, steady heartbeat, and your complexion looks normal.”
“Yeah. Okay,” Mike said, fingers picking at the jean fabric over his knees.
“We will stay in touch,” the doctor continued. “Is there anyone else you’d like to add as your emergency contact?”
Mike thought, briefly, of the hospital calling his parents’ house and one of them answering blindly before being told something drastic was wrong. The nausea returned. It pooled in his stomach, crawled up his throat, pulsed behind his eyes.
“Mister Wheeler?”
“Huh?” Mike blinked, realizing the doctor was peering at him in a way that indicated it hadn’t been the first time he called for him. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m not feeling right.”
“Well, until your test comes back, we won’t know anything for certain. Until then, try to get some sleep, and call if you have questions or if anything else comes up.”
Mike numbly accepted the business card. Back at his apartment, he set it on his counter and flopped onto his bed, jeans and all, and woke sometime later to his phone ringing. He huffed, rolling over, and shoved a pillow over his head. His eyes, which itched from their dryness, throbbed in rhythm to his pulse.
The phone stopped. Started again.
Groaning, he rolled out of bed. His feet struck the ground, sending lightning bolts of pain up his legs, as he gracelessly toppled over. Then, weakly, he rose to his feet and went to answer the phone.
It stopped before he got to it. He waited for the person to try again.
Do not answer it, the dark one’s voice echoed.
Mike jumped. Ice plunged down his spine, dropping his body temperature, and he thought, slightly delirious: Is this what shock feels like?
No.
“Shuddup,” Mike gasped, just as the phone started ringing again.
He jumped back, so startled he nearly lost his balance and tipped back over. Something internal, though Mike thought he could differentiate it from him, surged back to the forefront of his mind. He wavered, wobbling, then answered the phone.
Will’s pleasant voice asked, “Mike? You there?”
“I’m here.”
“Oh, good,” Will said, clearly nervous; Mike hated it. “I thought I’d call to check on you. You seemed kind of quiet yesterday.”
Mike’s hands felt cold. His face burned.
He pressed it against the wall, shifting it so it was against his side and temple. He wrapped his other arm around his stomach.
Mike said, “Sorry. I must’ve been tired or something. How about I make it up to you? We can go get dinner or something, my treat.”
“Oh, well, Tucker and I have a reservation at Enzo’s tonight, but we can—”
“A raincheck, then.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. You need to show him all the amazingness of Hawkins,” Mike said, thinking of the quarry and how he woke up twice on his kitchen floor. He thought of the tiny business card sitting on his countertop, and the pleasant way the doctor said they’d be in touch. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re sure?”
Mike hummed.
Will sounded considerably more relieved as he noisily sighed and said, “Oh, good. I thought for a moment you might be angry with me.”
“No,” Mike vehemently swore, “We can do something when the rest of the Party shows up.”
“Yeah,” Will agreed; the pressure atop Mike’s chest lessened until Will added, “Tucker’s eager to meet everyone.”
His apartment tunneled. Darkness ate the edges of his vision, crowding into the tiny space as it once more threatened to envelop him.
Will’s tiny, mechanical voice asked, “Mike?”
“Yeah,” Mike forced out. “Yeah, that sounds great.”
The line went silent. For a moment, Mike thought Will had hung up, and it was just him hanging onto this tiny thread of normalcy, the last piece of the life he had always known.
Then, Will asked, “Have you been feeling okay?”
Mike could have laughed, but he didn’t. He could have cried, but he didn’t do that either. His knees shook. His shoulders ached. His head continued to pulse, unpleasantly overcrowded.
Hang up the phone.
“Mhm,” Mike said to Will. “Just tired. Like I said.”
“Well, okay. I hope you start feeling better.”
Hang up. The phone.
“Hey, Will.”
“Yeah?”
“Take care of yourself, okay.”
Will paused another moment. Mike could hear his contemplation in the silence; he gnawed on his lower lip, considering if it was too late to take it back. Though Will knew him too well that he’d immediately grow suspicious if Mike started trying to laugh it away.
So he waited and waited until Will finally said, “Okay. You too, Mike,” and then hung up.
Mike’s vision didn’t immediately fix itself.
He blinked, feeling water trickle down his cheeks. It was cool against his burning skin. It did nothing to ease the ache in his eyes, nor did it appease the heat swelling under his skin. It ballooned beneath it, filling up space that wasn’t there.
After a few more blinks, it still hadn’t cleared.
“Great,” Mike murmured, frustration burrowed so deep in his bones that his entire body ached.
A few hours later, he was back in the hospital waiting room. He sat in a chair crammed into the corner, leg bouncing, as he attempted to distract himself by flipping through a glossy magazine. His vision had cleared somewhat, though the edges of things still looked blurred.
A hole burned in his stomach. His head ached.
What if the glasses made him look like his father? That would, perhaps, be worse than him actually needing them.
You do not need glasses. Your body is simply adjusting to my presence.
The words were accompanied by a spike of pain so sudden and sharp that white flashed behind his eyelids. He sucked in a deep, heaving breath, doubling over. The magazine slipped between numb fingers. It clattered noisily between his white Nikes.
Then the pain went.
It didn’t ebb. It didn’t fade. One second, it felt all-encompassing and painful; the next, it hollowed out. The sudden whiplash left Mike dizzy.
He swayed in his seat. When he glanced up, several eyes warily stared back.
His vision was back to normal. Color no longer bled from their proper places. The shapes returned to having distinct outlines, and he no longer needed to squint to read. The world even seemed straighter; its axis no longer sat on its strange, little tilt.
Elbows on his knees, Mike ran cold fingers through his dark curls. He tugged, slightly, on them. Until the roots hurt, and the skin on his scalp pulled.
You are correct in thinking something is wrong, but the worst has already happened. And it will happen again if we do not figure this out.
Overhead, the lights flickered.
It was probably nothing. Electricity wasn’t perfect. Wires got faulty. Bills forgotten and unpaid. Brief lapses in the currents or rats in the ceiling or bugs in the breaker.
Mike tensed all the same. His body turned cold for another reason, and in his mind, he saw glimpses of monsters and bad men with guns and children with powers. He saw bombs made of music and things that defied probability.
The voice in his head said: “You are not safe here.”
Mike saw, distantly, Will disappearing. One moment, he had been there, standing beside Mike in his garage, and the next morning, he was gone.
The sun had shone. Mike had risen, oblivious and excited for the new day, and greeted Dustin and Lucas with so much childish vigor. None of them had known. None of them had seen or realized the nightmare lurking beneath the bright blue sky and the new AV equipment.
Will disappeared, and Mike hadn’t known.
Michael.
Not when he should have. Not soon enough.
You could not have done anything. Focus now, Michael. You need to focus.
How long had Will been gone? And when he came back, how long did he struggle alone and scared until they wised up to help him?
MICHAEL!
Mike jumped, startled. He glanced around, somewhat frantically, as if a new monster lurked just out of sight. There were no monsters, though. No shadows or things with sharp teeth and no faces.
Something still felt wrong. Mike’s entire body was frozen with it.
Go now.
The lights flickered off. A split second later, they turned back on.
RUN!!!
Again, the lights went out. The next time they turned back on, a demo-dog was propped atop the cheap plastic chairs across the room. Its leathery neck whipped in Mike’s direction, as accurate and deadly as a bloodhound on the hunt.
Mike flinched. His back struck the bleach-white wall. The chair he was on slammed against it so hard that he thought he had knocked a hole in it.
The demo-dog’s flowery head opened, revealing rows of tiny, pointed teeth. It screeched that horrible sound.
No one else reacted. No one moved, except to stare cautiously at Mike.
Mike swallowed. His heartbeat thrummed in his throat. It sat behind his eyes: an erratic beat filled with fear. He tasted copper. It wasn’t possible. It just couldn’t be possible.
Go now.
Mike scrambled to his feet, and he ran. The lady at the desk yelled after him, but it was buried under the terrible scratching of claws cutting across the freshly polished linoleum floor. His shoes squeaked in his rush.
Faster.
Mike turned the corner, running too fast. His shoes slipped across the floor, and he slammed against the wall. It wasn’t a soft hit, either. His elbow twinged, numbness shooting down to his fingers.
His forehead struck the plaster. Streaks of lightning crossed his vision, swallowing it in a ball of white.
Instinct took over. Despite the strike, his body knew what to do. Mike shoved off the wall, and he hurried down the hall. When his vision cleared, he was halfway to the elevator.
Overhead, the lights rapidly flickered. On. Off. On. Off.
They hurt his head.
It wasn’t right. This wasn’t how this worked. The lights stopped flickering when the monsters came because they no longer stalked in the Upside Down.
These are not your monsters.
Mike almost slammed into the elevator panel. He started vigorously pressing at the button, feeling the wet heat of the demo-dog’s breath against his neck.
Get outside.
While still pressing the button, doubled over in panic, Mike risked a half-crazed glance behind him. The demo-dog hadn’t followed him, but the hall lights continued to strobe.
The elevator dinged.
Mike jumped. His pulse spiked, accompanying the pain in his temples, but he stepped into it. He walked all the way in it until his back pressed against the far wall, and he watched as the lights in the hall stopped flickering. The door closed.
Using the wall for support, Mike slid down until he sat hunched, knees to his chest, breathing erratically. A few minutes—and plenty of odd looks—later, Mike stumbled out into the summer’s warm heat.
It hardly touched him, or the cold burrowed in his marrow.
:: ::
The voice waited until Mike returned to his apartment.
He hadn’t driven—his vision had been too cloudy—but the walk did little to abate his rabbit-quick pulse or warm his achingly cold insides. By the time he stood in front of his door, his fingers trembled, fumbling for the keys.
They jangled noisily. Mike’s pulse continued to race.
Then, finally, he stepped inside. The door closed, he turned around, and—
Mike screamed.
The dark figure stood behind him, practically towering above him. Mike slammed against his door, and his vision crossed.
Do not pass out, it said. You need to hear this.
“How did those things come back?” Mike demanded in a shout, suddenly so irrationally angry. “How did they come back, huh?!”
They did not. They reside only in your mind…and in your fears.
“What?”
We cannot start here. Come. The figure twisted, taking in Mike’s apartment. Its outline seemed to waver, smoke drifting off its broad frame; Mike felt more bile climb up his throat. Sit.
Mike did not. He stayed plastered against his door, curled as much as possible to make his tall frame small. He warily watched the figure.
If a discombolated voice from a thing without physical form could sound irritated, it did with its: Michael.
“Tell me what you are first.”
That is not where we start, either. Sit.
Mike defiantly jutted out his chin. “No.”
Suit yourself. The figure turned away. This requires showing more than telling.
The room tunneled. The edges of Mike’s vision darkened to a pinprick of light, and then continued to fade until everything entirely blinked out.
Mike woke standing.
The world was dark, save for the floor stretching around him. It reflected the darkness, enveloping everything he could see. It reminded Mike of when El drew him into her mind.
His stomach dropped.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Before the world as you know it, there was darkness. It was eternal, and it was cold. Then: LIGHT.
The world turned ablaze. The darkness burst into a kaleidoscope of color: purple bleeding into blue bleeding into green into red, then orange and yellow and—
White. Everywhere.
Mike’s breath stuttered, caught in his chest. A fishhook snagged his sternum, threatening to drag him back into the endless stars.
Your world was created in this, but so were others—one you have seen before, not so long ago.
The darkness and the stars shifted to the orange and red landscape of the Abyss. Mike’s breath hitched. He spun around, half-expecting to see the Mind Flayer or Vecna standing above him. Vecna would smirk, announcing his return, before folding Mike into something so small and broken.
Instead, though, the world returned to that empty darkness. Mike’s chest heaved.
Many worlds were created, including mine. It is known as—a spike of pain pierced Mike’s skull. He tipped back, fell, and kept falling. Endlessly. Endlessly. Endles—
Apologies. It does not seem you have the capacity to understand that word. Mike floated bonelessly. We will refer to it as something else. Mike closed his eyes. Pain throbbed inside him, an internal bruise that continued to grow and fester and—
The hook caught. The string pulled taut, and something reeled Mike upward. The ground turned solid as Mike blinked, and the stars spun dizzily above him.
Michael?
“Dimension X,” Mike supplied sickly. Holly and Derek loved that stupid cartoon. “Call it Dimension X.”
For a long time, the worlds resided near each other, as it should be. Then, through the meddling of your people, they shifted. The—static rang, vibrating within Mike’s skull—grew greedy. It overstepped. It tried claiming what it did not own.
In a haze, Mike saw the Mind Flayer. Not the creature that attacked Starcourt Mall nor the thing they faced in the Abyss. This was a storm. Onyx-black clouds rolled, red lightning crackling within its center as it consumed the Abyss’s dead landscape.
It laid waste to its own world and would have done the same to yours except—
Eleven stood amongst the storm. Greyness swirled around her as she stood, brave until the end, smiling knowingly sad at them. Mike screamed. He continued to scream, though no sound came out. The void swallowed it, like it did El.
Your emotion clouded your perception. It made you weak.
“No,” said Mike. “She gave me strength. She made me brave. She—”
Memories spun in his mind, the threads almost pulling him apart. Mike let it. Something rattled in his chest like coins caught in a dryer.
He saw El in front of him, hand outstretched, with a demogorgon pinned against a school chalkboard. El, dressed in black and looking like the coolest person Mike’s ever seen, walked through the front door of the Byers after snapping the neck of a demo-dog.
El was gone, and Mike was stuck in the backseat. Will sat beside him, saying kind, reassuring things.
Your love for her blinded you. It pushed you to hurt others around you, people who supported you and cared for you and worried for you. You hurt them, Michael.
The rattling grew louder. Mike gasped, water spilling over the sides of his face. The drops disappeared in the hairline by his ears.
Will twisted away from him, hand clasped over his mouth. His shoulders shook; Mike ignored it, basking in all the nice things Will had said about him.
Dustin, gone for a month, then disappeared again under the Starcourt Mall because Mike failed to realize something had gone wrong. There were signs that summer, weren’t there? Things Mike should have realized or questioned earlier, but hadn’t. He’d been so caught up in his own drama. His own feelings and failures.
Lucas, who always supported him and offered advice and tried to help him succeed, but whose path took a different direction, and Mike thought: That was his choice, not mine. He shouldn’t go against the laws of nature. He shouldn’t deflect from the Party.
Max, who hadn’t done anything wrong, and Mike continued to be so rude to her. Mike thought she was annoying, but she’d just been lonely. Mike understood that, didn’t he? He was lonely once, too.
Eleven—
El spent her life in a lab, friendless and scared, and Mike tried to monopolize her time. He grew jealous and angry and self-pityingly sad until…until…
You called it love. You claimed to care. Yet you hurt, irreparably and continuously.
Will sat, surrounded by people Mike later realized he shouldn’t have brought in. He’d thought Will would say something about the mission or Vecna or something he’d seen.
Then Will started talking, crying. His breathing hitched, and all Mike could think was—no, no, this wasn’t right—but no one else moved to stop it. So Mike hadn’t either, but he should have. He should have said more, comforted Will better, but his brain stuck like a broken record at Will’s confession.
Someone had to be pretty spectacular to draw the attention of Will Byers.
You must let all this pitying nonsense go.
Mike’s breath caught as something funneled down his throat. He gurgled, spasming. He flopped over, attempting to clear his lungs, but then water surged up his nose. It swelled within his skull.
I’m drowning, he thought somewhat hysterically.
Let it go, Michael. Let them go. Our adversaries are unlike those you faced before. The pshsh bound itself to another. It made it weak and stupid. Vulnerable. But we face something else. We—
The water suddenly surged out of him. He gasped, barely managing to flop to his side as he expelled everything. It gagged him as he dry heaved, vision wavering.
—only way out.
“What?”
We have one way out. You must find where I was pulled through, returning me to…Dimension X. Then our deal will be completed, and you can return to your life.
Mike gagged. “No.”
Then you will revert to how you were before.
Pain laced within Mike, sudden and sharp. He screamed, back arching. The stars spun and spun before bleeding into the ceiling of his apartment. They settled, arranging into the pattern of his lights. Mike bent off the floor, spine nearly a perfect arch, as the back of his head collided against the hardwood flooring.
Fail to help me, and you will go back to how I found you.
Mike’s vision tunneled. He vaguely recalled the sensation of hands gripping him, dragging him back and over and—
Oh.
Oh, no.
“St-AH-p!” Mike screamed, voice cracking, “I’ll help. I’ll help!”
The pain stopped, but Mike’s vision continued to darken until eventually there was nothing left to take.
:: ::
A phone ringing drew Mike back to consciousness. He blinked, dizzy, to sunlight slanting across his aching features.
The phone stopped.
Mike’s vision crossed, trying to make sense of it. He lay on the floor by his door, back touching the dark-lacquered door. The pain had gone, though, leaving a soreness that didn’t feel good. Slowly, he rolled to his knees. He pressed his spine against the door for support.
The phone started again.
“Dude, where have you been?” Lucas demanded when Mike finally answered. “We’ve been calling for like an hour.”
“Sorry.” Mike’s mouth felt dry; he swallowed, trying to regain some moisture, but it didn’t work. “I must have fallen asleep.”
“It’s three in the afternoon.”
“Is it?” Wait, Will was scheduled to come on Tuesday. Lucas and Max weren’t supposed to return until Thursday. “What day is it?”
“Dude!”
“Lucas, please.”
Lucas’ voice sombered as he asked, “You still sick, Mike? Will mentioned you were feeling under the weather.”
“What? No, no. I’m fine.”
“Sure,” Lucas said, unimpressed. “Are you good for ice cream? We’re all going to get some now.” A pause. “We really want you to come.”
“Okay,” Mike said, dry swallowing. “Come get me, okay. I’ve been having car troubles.”
Happiness
(You called it love. You claimed to care. Yet you hurt, irreparably and continuously.)
filled Lucas’s voice as he said in barely restrained giddiness, “Yeah. Sure. Okay.”
Mike hung up the phone and went to check himself in the mirror. He looked wrong: eyes sunken and hair messy. In the six minutes it took for Max to arrive, he did his best to look presentable.
He changed his clothes to something that didn’t smell days old, just slipping on a belt when a car horn started obnoxiously loud and persistent. Max paused the honking. Not for long, though, because it almost immediately started back up again.
Mike sighed, rolling his eyes to stare at the ceiling. An amused smile flickered over his features, almost shyly, as he half-jogged to join them. Lucas sat in the passenger seat, Max beside him, still laying on the horn.
“Ah-right, enough!” Mike shouted at her, through the sliver of open window, though he too was laughing.
He pulled on the door handle; it was locked.
“Hey!”
Max and Lucas laughed. The door clicked and swung open.
“Your backseat is a mess,” Mike said, more to be annoying than an actual critique. “What are all—are these candy wrappers? You want to rot your teeth?”
“Who are you, my mother?”
Mike stuck out his tongue, then turned to Lucas. “Any of this for you?”
“No,” Lucas answered too abruptly to be innocent. “I don’t even like candy.”
Mike and Max gave him twin, incredulous stares. Lucas twisted his gaze out the window so he could pretend not to notice.
(You hurt them, Michael.)
“Hey, turn the radio up,” Mike said, leaning forward, and ignoring the cold crawling down his spine, “I love this song.”
Mike had no idea what song was playing. His ears rang, threatening to pop, and the world had gone still and quiet like at the bottom of a pool. He leaned his temple against the window’s glass and watched Hawkins pass.
Hawkins was bright in the afternoon sun. Peaceful. Mike tried convincing himself that it was real and that the shadows in his mind were just echoes of the past. What did the doctors call it? PTSD?
Yet the invisible, persistent weight pressing at the edges of his thoughts never left.
“Mike? You okay?” Max asked, fingers curled around the steering wheel. “You’ve been staring out the window for like six minutes. It’s creepy.”
“It’s unlike you,” Lucas corrected diplomatically.
Mike blinked, shaking off the lingering haze. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” He forced a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Max and Lucas shared a look that was equal parts disbelief and suspicion.
“Really,” Mike said.
Max had to look away first, since she was driving, but the tension in her shoulders implied her stance. Lucas turned to consider Mike more closely, so Mike straightened, fists on his knees, and tried ignoring the thing curled inside him.
It continued to tug at the edges of his focus. Pressure settled atop his chest.
“Guys, seriously. I’m fine. I’m fine!”
Max and Lucas shared a look, but they let the matter drop.
:: ::
The bell at the ice cream shop jingled, a small, cheerful sound that felt almost alien to Mike. He followed Max and Lucas inside, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, and the room smelled of sugar and cooking batter.
The shop had opened shortly after they had graduated. Black-and-white tile lined the floor, and by the window was an assortment of round tables and high stools with plush red leather seats. Holly liked the place because of its name: MIKE’S.
She thought it was funny, often telling him that was the closest to famous he’d get.
An L-shaped counter with rows of glass-domed freezers sat against the far left wall. Workers moved around each other, taking orders and offering samples. At the end of the L was the register.
Will and Tucker were already inside, sharing a banana split. Blobs of whipped cream were smeared across their noses and cheeks; the only evidence of what was undoubtedly a playful attempt at flirting. Will didn’t even notice their entrance.
Tucker nudged Will’s forearm. Then, at Will’s turn to greet them, dropped his smile. He frowned, sharp and intense, looking at Mike. Shadows flickered behind him, stretching across the walls. Mike swore the overhead lights flickered.
You cannot hide.
Mike swallowed. Fear, anger, frustration—all tangled together. He wanted to scream, to run, to tell it to leave him alone, but it caught in his throat.
The path must be walked, and you must come willingly, Michael, otherwise this will not work.
Something brushed the back of his hand. He jumped, blinking and noticing the worried stares of his friends. Even Tucker looked concerned.
“Mike?” Will asked.
“Huh? Oh. Yeah, yeah. Whatever you—” Mike furrowed his eyebrows. “What did you say?”
Lucas and Max shared another concerned look behind Will’s broad (Did he get bigger?) shoulders. Will stared intensely at Mike as he repeated, “I asked if you were feeling better.”
“Yeah,” Mike smiled, surprised he didn’t have to force it. “Yeah. I’m good. I just had a weird night, is all.”
Unconvinced, Will asked, “You sure? You look pale.”
Lucas said, “He’s always pale.”
The conversation lapsed, with no Dustin to say, “Pale-er, then.”
His heart throbbed; something in his chest twinged; Mike asked, “Have any of you heard from Dustin?”
“He’ll be back tomorrow,” Lucas said. “His last final was today, and Steve was going to go pick him up.”
“He should have asked Max. She’d already be there.”
Max’s face pinched in offended anger, though that too appeared playful. Mike grinned back, laughing when she punched his shoulder, and didn’t protest when she and Lucas dragged him to the counter.
Choose, Michael.
“You listening, Mike?” Lucas asked.
Mike blinked and realized they stood in front of the freezers.
He also realized the underage worker watch him expectantly. Her face, still rounded in youth, pinched in annoyance, though she did put some effort into concealing it. Mike glanced around, feeling disoriented.
Light slanted through the windows, though he could hardly see it from behind Will and Tucker. They stood, not holding hands, but close enough that their fingers kept brushing each other. Tucker had returned to smiling amiably, but Will’s brow started to furrow back in concern.
He asked, “You sure you’re feeling alright?”
“I’m…” Mike glanced around, suddenly dizzy. “I just need some fresh air.”
Outside, the air was warm. It didn’t quite penetrate the cold of Mike’s insides, but the air helped clean the ashen taste in his mouth. He inhaled deeply, running his fingers over his arms. Goosebumps covered them, scaling up to the back of his neck.
Max had parked beside the sidewalk. It was an old car, with peeling red paint and light brown seats. She’d gotten a good deal for it, Mike remembered. She’d been so excited that she drove all the way back to Hawkins to show him.
She’d shown up, unannounced, at his apartment with a proud smirk and dangle of keys. She continued smiling, though its smugness faded.
“First one, Wheeler!” she had said.
The colors of the world bled to the dark reds and oranges of the Abyss. It hadn’t been cold there, but it was freezing now. Each breath left him in long, curling white wisps.
The path must be walked
“Mike?”
you must come willingly.
Max stood across from him, keys jangling between her pinched fingers. Her face was wrong, though: her eyes were a milky white with trails of blood crawling down pale cheeks. Mike stepped back, stumbling.
She opened her mouth, reaching for him; she said
Choose.
“Mike!”
Something grabbed his elbow and jerked. He lost his footing and fell back onto the sidewalk. A speeding car honked as it drove by, narrowly—Mike realized with the cold numbness that came with shock—missing him.
He sat, limbs gracelessly sprawled in front of him, beside Max’s car.
Max crouched behind, staring in the direction the car had long since disappeared. Her fingers gripped his shoulders, painfully tight, and Mike thought she was going into shock, too.
In a soft voice, he said, “Max.”
Her fingers tightened. They would probably leave bruises.
“Max.”
“Holy shit! Mike!”
“Mike!”
Lucas and Will dropped down beside them, each grabbing an arm and jerking him to his feet. As they did so, they dragged him to the sidewalk, hovering like that would be enough to protect him from wandering out in the street.
And, worse, all three looked at him with the same stricken expression.
Scared. They were all scared.
Guilt wrung Mike’s insides in knots. There was no moisture in his mouth, and his skin still felt cold.
“Sorry,” Mike said.
Will gripped his forearm with both hands. His eyes looked so wide, almost perfectly round in his concern. Lucas, who had a hand settled against the small of Max’s back, looked curiously horrified. It was not the face he made at the discovery of government conspiracies or interdimensional monsters.
This looked different. Mundane, almost, in its intensity.
Tucker, who stood a little behind Will as support but not too much support, asked, “What in the hell was that?”
Lucas narrowed his eyes in a sharp, unpleasant glare. Tucker stared blankly back. Like he couldn’t figure out why he was being glared at.
Shakily, Mike pulled away from the worried, clinging hands. He shook himself free but couldn’t step too far away.
“I think I…uh,” Mike glanced sideways, down the road the car had taken off down. “Spaced out.”
Max dragged him further onto the sidewalk, so Lucas and Will could step between him and the road. They formed a barrier, a strange sort of wall, and Mike knew neither could be swayed. He stepped back, so he stood beside Max, and turned back to the ice cream parlor.
When he looked back at the others, he realized they’d lost their appetites.
Choose, Michael.
Mike said, “I could use a drink.”
:: ::
Pearline’s did not, technically, reside in Hawkins. It sat several miles outside the town’s limit, but it had glossy counters and an impressive wall of liquor. Colorful lights were set across the counters, illuminating the bottles in glittering disco lights.
The staff, mostly women, wore black shirts with “Pearline’s” in cursive.
They barely glanced their way. Max waved her hand, ordering a water, before sliding into her spot beside Lucas. She slipped a hand through the groove of his elbow and leaned her head against his shoulder.
There were a few bars in Hawkins. Some cheaper. Some nicer.
They came here because of its owner, a black man who made a fortune playing guitar. Mike had never met him, but people didn’t turn their noses up at the sight of Lucas here. Some sneered at the sight of Max clinging saccharinely to him. One of the bartenders even glared at Mike, and a few pointedly ignored Tucker and Will’s less-than-platonic proximity.
Lucas didn’t like coming here, probably for the same reason they refused to go anywhere else. None of them enjoyed watching the others get ignored or glared at, but at Pearline’s, that was the worst they suffered. In those bars at Hawkins, Lucas had to worry about getting physically harassed.
Or, worse, attacked.
Annoyed at the lack of service, Lucas walked down the counter to order them all beers. The woman narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him before twisting her head to stare accusingly at them.
Mike ignored them.
He pillowed his cheek against his folded arms and tried to make sense of the spinning room. His skin felt cold. His face felt hot, and his eyes itched.
“Mike?” Will asked, voice overflowing with concern.
He sat beside him, keeping his hands a respectful distance, though it looked as if he’d like nothing more than to reach out and cling to his side. Tucker sat on Will’s other side, repeatedly trying to flag down a bartender.
Mike smiled. “I’m okay. And I’m sorry about being avoidant lately.”
“But you’re feeling okay? Seriously?”
“Uh-huh.” Mike inhaled through his nose, pressing his palms flat against the counter, and pushed himself upright.
Lucas returned. The bartender followed him like some strange mirror, asking for their IDs.
Mike fished his out, though he wasn’t thirsty. He hadn’t even wanted alcohol, but couldn’t think of anything else to say to stop their concerned staring. Even this hadn’t helped because still they watched him.
“Seriously, guys, I’m fine,” Mike said. Then, firmer, “I’m fine.”
Will’s fingers twitched. Lucas and Max shared a look.
Max said, “He’s doing the thing.” She looked at him. “You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing? I don’t have a thing.”
“Yeah. Whenever you’re nervous or angry or overly emotional,” Mike wrinkled his nose, but she brazenly continued, “you start repeating yourself.”
“I do not.”
“You kinda do, dude,” Lucas said, not quite gently, though he attempted to soften the words.
Will nodded and gently said, “Yeah, Mike.”
Mike sighed, accepting his beer, before turning his attention to the only other distraction he had. He asked Tucker, “How’d you and Will meet?”
Then he realized he should have asked Tucker about his interests or goals or something more personal. Mike didn’t care about those things, though. He didn’t care about Tucker, but Will must, so Mike would make an effort. He would do anything for Will Byers, including fight evil scientists and monsters.
Michael.
Tucker blinked, like he couldn’t believe he was being asked something, then glanced uncertainly at Will. Will glanced between them. He looked no more comforted than before.
Max leaned forward, dragging Lucas with her, and added, “Yeah, Tucker. How’d you and Will meet?”
Tucker looked at her. She smiled unkindly.
“What? Did you think it would be easy? Trust me when I say you don’t want to see what we’ve done to the things that have tried hurting him in the past.”
Tucker swallowed, properly threatened, though Mike hadn’t been trying to intimidate him. Had he? Max said he didn’t have the face of it. She said that he looked too boyish, even well into his young adulthood.
Will’s cheeks blossomed with delicate pink blooms. Shyly, he lowered his gaze to his crossed hands. Mike reached out, brushing the back of his hand in support.
Mike said, “I went to the doctor the other day. Tuesday, I think. For glasses. I think my vision is going bad.”
He watched his friends’ faces twist from concern to something softer, closer to understanding. It looked almost like relief, at such a mundane problem with an affordable solution.
Max nudged his leg and asked, “Can I help you pick out a color?”
Mike grinned back. “Not on your life, Zoomer.”
Lucas and Will shared a momentarily confused glance. Tucker looked…as he always did. Annoyed and out of place. Mike thought he looked like a city boy, used to the dramatic skylines and dark, heavy clouds filled with cold rain and its constant, dirty nighttime.
Mike was aware of this vaguely. It penetrated his peripheral and nothing else.
The entirety of his focus was on Max and how she beamed so large that it split her cheeks and wrinkled the corners of her eyes, leaving matching places for crows to lay their feet.
Mike grinned back, turning to order food. In the end, he had a great time, and he thought the others did too.
:: ::
Sleep evaded Mike, even hours after Max dropped him off, forcing him to swear he’d join them tomorrow at Hopper and Joyce’s for their big announcement. Dustin should be back for it. Steve was going to pick him up early in the morning, and they planned on meeting for lunch.
The reason she hadn’t forced him to swear to join for that was that her eyes were still dark with worry. Her knuckles gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her skin bleached an alarming shade of white.
Lucas turned around and said, “Maybe you could join us at lunch. If you’re feeling better.”
Mike readily agreed as he climbed from the car, but now that it neared the new day and he’d yet to sleep, something unpleasant churned behind his eyelids. It was more than exhaustion. It felt foreign, like a parasite.
Mike ignored it until two-twenty.
Then, he rolled over, frustration bubbling inside his stomach, as he said, “Alright. What do you want?”
It is not what I want, the dark one said. It is what is required.
Mike frowned, cheeks puffing out, but he’d already sat up and reached for his shoes. He’d slung his worn clothes over the wooden chair he used at his desk. He’d found it on the side of the road, after his friends’ going-away parties, and picked it up on a whim.
One of the legs was chewed up, barely a knob left, and he thought the owners probably owned a dog. The Byers’ dog used to destroy all sorts of furniture, driving Joyce to near insanity, much to the amusement of Mike and Will.
He changed quickly, waiting for direction, but none came. The dark one had gotten what it wanted and seemed more than content in letting Mike figure out the rest.
“You are so incredibly frustrating,” Mike said and stepped outside.
Several hours later, with the sun spilling over the horizon, Mike once again found himself at the top of the quarry with the three strangers who threw him off. This time, it was not them who looked hostile.
The dark one unfurled from Mike. The trees shook, nearly bowing over. Wind spun, like it was caught in a jar, down the tunnel of rocks that led to deep, dark waters. Mike wasn’t sure that was what frightened them, though, considering how they looked at him as he stepped out of the woods, finally having found them.
“Zombie!” one shouted.
“If anything, I’d be a revenant. Wait, no. That’s not important.”
Then he blinked and realized what he was looking at. The three of them wore black clothes, dark goggles pushed to their foreheads. It mussed their wind-swept and filthy hair, and they all had matching circles lining their undereyes.
Most worryingly, though, was that they were all teenagers.