Chapter 17

013

• 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 •

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

☄. *. ⋆ Stella gasped awake, her head shooting up as a burning feeling was suddenly sent up her nostrils. A rude awakening as the pain from her injuries returned to her. Upon opening her eyes, she was attacked with a bright light, and she shut them about halfway. She soon realized that the burning sensation was bleach, cotton balls soaked in the chemical being held under her nose.

She quickly noticed that she was tied up, her arms stuck by her side and her legs attached to a chair. The girl looked around, seeing Hopper moving away from her, as he was the one who woke her up. Along with the man, she saw Joyce, Mike, Steve, and Jonathan. She then realized that she had no idea where she was. The walls were completely covered with tarps, newspapers, and anything, really. She couldn’t see a single inch of the place. Even the chair she was tied to was covered with cardboard. It was quite disorienting. Somehow, the last thing she noticed was Will beside her, still passed out.

Steve crouched in front of her. “Hey, Essie,” he greeted softly, giving a faint smile. Stella looked back at her brother the best she could, squinting her eyes as they still hadn’t adjusted to the light. “Hey, Steve,” she replied, her voice coming out slightly hoarse. She cleared her throat as she looked around. “You guys did a good job. Where the hell are we?” She asked, then looked between the people in front of her. “Well, I mean, don’t tell me, obviously, but damn.”

Steve chuckled, moving back to where he was standing. Stella saw Hopper with the same cotton balls used to wake her a moment before, and he bent down to bring them up to Will’s nose. Will had a similar reaction to Stella’s, shooting his eyes open and his head up as he gasped awake. He exhaled deeply, his breathing slowing as he looked around. The boy struggled in his restraints, grunting softly. “What… what… what is this?” He asked, his tone slowly becoming more agitated. He squirmed in the rope before repeating his question. “What is this? Why am I tied up?” He raised his voice, clearly not himself. Will wouldn’t react like that.

Joyce crouched down to talk to Will, her voice soft, almost a whisper. “Will, we just wanna talk to you. We’re not gonna hurt you.” Her gaze moved to Stella. “Either of you.”

Stella was calm, unlike Will. He ignored his mother, looking at the group as he shouted. “Where am I?”

His question remained unanswered, Hopper bending down and holding up a paper to Will. Stella would have leaned over to see what was on the paper, but if she was being honest, the being beside her scared her. She was afraid to be any closer because she knew it wasn’t Will. It was Will’s body and Will’s voice, but it wasn’t him, and that scared her more than she thought it would. “You recognize this?” Hopper asked, Will seeming hesitant. “Do you recognize this?” He repeated, his tone more stern, and Will shook his head as he hummed his answer. Hopper turned the paper to Stella while Joyce kept talking to her son. It was Will’s drawing of the shadow monster, and the fact that he said he didn’t recognize it made a lump form in Stella’s throat. She didn’t speak, instead mouthing her words once she looked back up at Hopper. “The shadow monster.”

Hopper nodded, folding the drawing back up and tucking it in his pocket.

“Why am I tied up!?” Will suddenly shouted in response to what his mother had voiced to him, making Stella flinch as she looked to the boy, wide-eyed. Stella didn’t focus on what Joyce said, but it obviously upset the mind flayer, and she quickly wished she did decide to listen.

“Why am I tied up!?” Will continued to scream as Hopper and Joyce tried to calm him down. Mike, Jonathan, and the Harringtons watched in fear as they did so, and Will started to thrash around in the rope as he repeated his question, still screaming. Hopper, Joyce, and Stella started to call Will’s name, trying to get him to simmer down, but it didn’t work. The lights started to flicker as the boy screamed, and Stella stopped saying his name when she felt a pulsing in her right palm. She looked down by her side, moving her wrist to look at her hand. The bite. It had those dark veins surrounding it again. She looked up at Mike, seeing him look to her as if he felt her eyes on him. She glanced down at her hand and back to at the boy, prompting him to look to the bite as well. When he saw it, he looked back at Stella knowingly.

The Harrington girl just turned her head to watch Will as he rocked his chair back and forth, screaming for them to let him go. The shadow monster was completely active now. None of that was Will. He kept roaring the phrase “let me go” as Hopper wrapped his arms around the boy, holding him down. Will eventually calmed, his cries slowing and quieting to a stop as the flickering of the lights ceased. Joyce grabbed a chair, pulling it forward in order to sit in front of her son. She stayed silent for a moment before speaking up. “Do you know what March 22nd is?” She asked, Stella immediately knowing the answer, but looking to Will, who seemed clueless.

“It’s your birthday,” Joyce answered for the brunet. “Your birthday,” she paused between words. “When you turned eight,” the woman began, “I gave you that huge box of crayons,” she recalled, making Stella smile softly. “Do you remember that? It was 120 colors. And all your friends, they got you Star Wars toys, but all you wanted to do was draw with all your new colors.”

Joyce was right, Stella had gotten him a laser toy that lit up like the ones from the movie. She hadn’t known him very well at the time.

“And you drew this big spaceship, but it wasn’t from a movie, i- it was your spaceship,” Joyce resumed, her voice wavering. “A rainbow ship is what you called it. And you… you must’ve used every color in the box. I… I took that with me to Melvald’s and put it up and I told everyone who came in, my son drew this,” she said proudly, making Stella’s eyes gloss over. She had never gotten that from either of her parents. She would have killed for it. She would have killed just to have them hang something of hers on the fridge, or have her picture up somewhere, or even just tell her she did a good job on something. But she didn’t get any of that. She got good grades, won games for her team, was top of her class, but her parents never cared. They didn’t bother to recognize it. It was like they only realized they had a daughter when she did something they weren’t happy with. She blinked back her tears as Joyce continued. “And you were so embarrassed,” she chuckled. “But I was so proud. I was so, so proud.”

There was silence for a moment before Jonathan spoke up. “Do you remember the day Dad left?”

Everyone looked to him, and he bent down next to Joyce. “We stayed up all night building Castle Byers…  just the way you drew it. And it took so long because you were so bad at hammering,” he remembered, making everyone chuckle. “You’d miss the nail every time. You kept hitting Stella’s fingers.”

The girl in question chuckled sadly along with everyone else. “I was bruised for like a month,” she smiled, her voice shaking. Jonathan continued. “And then it started raining, but we stayed out there anyway. Stella kept talking about how she tried to tell you it would rain and you should’ve listened to her, but she gave you her jacket anyway,” he softly grinned, looking at the Harrington whose smile never left as she dropped her head. The older Byers looked back at his brother. “We were all sick for like a week after that, and even then, Stella brought you soup as if she wasn’t sick herself, but we just had to finish it, didn’t we? We had to.”

Mike piped up next. “Do you remember the first day that we met?”

Everyone looked to him, Stella noticing the tear trailing down his cheek. “It was… it was the first day of kindergarten. I knew nobody. I had no friends, and… I just felt so alone and so scared, but…” the boy sniffled as he cried. “I saw you on the swings, and… and you were alone, too. You were just swinging by yourself. And… I just walked up to you and… I asked. I asked if you wanted to be my friend,” he told. “And you said yes. You said yes. It was the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Stella decided it was her turn. “You remember meeting me?” She asked, leaning her head against whatever was behind her. She had no clue what it was, it was covered in cardboard.

Will’s head turned to her. “We were in second grade,” she thought back to it, having no problem remembering it. “Science class,” she added. “I was partners with… stupid Vanessa, and stupider Troy,” the girl laughed into her sentence a bit. “But… Mike wasn’t in that class, and no one was partners with you, and dumbass Violet was teasing you for it. You remember that?” She looked to Will, who stayed silent as he stared back at her. “She ignored me when I said her name, and so I pushed her,” she chortled, smiling as she continued. “And she was so pissed off, and when she looked at me all offended, tiny little me just said ‘stop, Violet. You’re being mean.’. And she just looked at you and then got out of her seat to go work by herself,” Stella reminded. “And I just worked with you. Troy just got pissed off about it and picked on us after that ’cause he was mad that I liked you more than him, and Vanessa kept insisting that I had a crush on you afterwards, but it didn’t matter. You were the first real friend I had, Will.”

“Will, baby…” Joyce looked at her son sadly, Will looking back to his mom. “If you’re in there, just please… please talk to us.”

There was a long silence, Will being on the verge of tears before his saddened expression faded. “Let me go,” the boy demanded, making everyone sigh a bit, Stella moving her head to lean back on the structure behind her. She lolled her head to the side, her eyes landing on the chair, and then Will’s hand as she heard a small tapping sound.

The boy was tapping on the cardboard. Morse code. He was communicating. Will was. As himself.

Stella looked up, looking at Mike as she did before, but he didn’t seem to notice. Her gaze traveled to Hopper, the girl seeing his eyes on Will’s hand. He saw it. Hopper looked to the Harrington, who gave him an expectant look, eyebrows raised. The man nodded in response before speaking. “Everyone, come on,” he ordered before leaving the small building, everyone but Will and Stella following, preventing the two from seeing what was on the other side of the door.

Stella looked at her friend beside her, knowing part of him was still there. Silently, he slowly looked back, his eyes empty. It sent chills down Stella’s spine and she actually felt goosebumps. She stared back into the two brown voids in Will’s face. Being honest to herself, she was terrified alone next to him at the moment. She felt bad being frightened. Will was her friend. But she has to remind herself that it wasn’t entirely him. Managing to keep herself collected, she spoke. “I know you’re in there, Will.”

He said nothing, doing the same eerie, slow head turn to look forwards.

A few moments passed before the group had returned, Jonathan with a boombox in hand, and Hopper with a walkie. The older Byers inserted a tape, Stella missing the label, but soon knowing what song it was when the boy pressed play.

“Darling, you’ve got to let me know.”

“Should I stay or should I go?”

“Do you remember the first time I play you this?” Jonathan asked his younger brother once he sat in front of him. “Mom and Dad were both arguing in the next room,” he answered for the brunet. “So I played you the mix tape I made you. And it was the first time you got into music. Real music.”

Stella began to tap her foot to the beat, bobbing her head a bit as she did. She heard tapping, silently noting that the Morse code translated to the letter c.

As different people told their stories, – Stella opting to stay silent, since she was technically still one of the suspects of the shadow monster’s soldiers – the Harrington girl got the words ‘close gate’ as a result of Will’s message.

Her eyes were staring at the floor as she zoned out, but they focused the instant she heard the ringing of a telephone. There’s only so many places they could be that had a phone that close, and the only person’s house they could be at was Hopper’s or Joyce’s. Stella knew Joyce’s backyard had a shed.

They were at the Byers’.

The ringing quickly stopped, but soon started again, then got interrupted and finally silenced. Stella looked urgently to Will, seeing his eyelids mostly shut, fluttering open slightly as his eyes darted every which way. The boy panted, Joyce trying to get her son’s attention but to no avail. Stella felt a tingle in her palm, and she looked down at it. To no surprise, she saw the black veins, and shot her head up. “He’s finding us!” She shouted, and Joyce hurried to the sedative as she cursed. “Oh, shit.”

She injected Will’s arm, the boy soon falling asleep, hanging his head down. Everyone that wasn’t restrained but Joyce left, soon returning as Jonathan shouted. “They’re coming!”

Stella prepared to feel the needle in her arm, but no one moved to give it to her. “Hey, hey, hey, you forgot to knock me out,” she pointed out, and Joyce shook her head. “You’re okay, Stella.”

“No, but, what if–“

“You’re not gonna get anybody hurt. You’re not under this thing’s control,” Hopper assured her. Stella nervously bit her lip before nodding. Hopper, Joyce, and Jonathan began to untie Will, Steve and Mike moving to do the same with Stella, but she stopped them. “Hold on. I wanna try something.”

The girl quickly inhaled, letting out a deep exhale as she shut her eyes. As she opened them, she used all her might to try to get her arms free, and she broke through the rope. Her plan worked.

Steve and Mike stated in shock, looking at each other as she gave a breathy chuckle before standing up. “Holy shit,” she breathed, staring at her arms. She then muttered, not loud enough for anyone to hear. “That is not what I’d have guessed I’d be tied up for.”

The others didn’t notice what the girl had done, and Stella didn’t realize they were gone until Mike grabbed her wrist. “Come on!” He hurried, rushing out of the fortress, confirming where they were. Stella was right. They were at the Byers’ house.

Mike pulled the girl over to the window, all the other kids hurrying to huddle around. Stella broke away first, making her way to the bow she had left on the couch. She swung the quiver of arrows around her waist as Hopper entered, shouting an order at the kids. “Hey. Hey, get away from the windows!” He demanded, and the kids scrambled away. Stella grabbed an arrow, loading the bow with it as Hopper spoke again, to Jonathan this time. “Do you know how to use this?” He asked, gun in hand as Stella looked up at him. Jonathan hesitated. “What?”

“Can you use this?”

“I can,” Nancy and Stella said in unison, both girls turning to each other. The man tossed the weapon to Nancy, making Stella roll her eyes as she went back to focusing on her own tool. She raised the bow and arrow, pulling it back and aiming it at the door.

Max retreated behind her, Lucas to Stella’s left, slightly in front of her as he pulled back his Wrist Rocket.

They all stayed like that in silence for a bit, Nancy breaking it as she muttered. “Where are they? Where are they?” She asked no one in particular, raising her voice the second time. No one responded, staying quiet to listen to the creatures outside. There was roaring, and then a loud thunder-like sound, making everyone quickly turn in the direction where they heard it. Nancy spoke up again. “What are they doing?”

The bushes on the other side of the window rustled, something shaking the leaves. Another loud crack of thunder-like roars filled everyone’s ears, and they jumped as they turned, facing towards the front door again.

The screeching and thudding continued until a whimper sounded and everything went silent.

Nobody moved, everyone on edge as they waited for something to happen – anything.

Something did, in fact, happen, as one of the monsters came crashing through the window, making everyone jump back at they shouted.

The creature remained still, its limp body thudding onto the ground. Footsteps accompanied the sound of heavy breaths as everyone inched closer to the body, Stella lowering her weapon a bit. Max furrowed her eyebrows, speaking up. “Is it dead?” She asked, and Hopper moved closer. Stella pulled her arrow back, shooting the young Demogorgon in the side to confirm its death as Hopper nudged it with his foot.

The girl nodded when her victim didn’t react, lowering the bow and arrow again. “Yeah,” she breathed out before making her way over and pulling the arrow out of the creature’s flesh.

Everyone turned when they heard the front door creaking. They watched the door, the object still until the lock clicked undone. Everyone raised their weapons at the sight, watching as the chain lock slid undone as well. A thought crossed Stella’s mind, but she turned it down. She couldn’t have been right.

El is gone, Stella. Get that into your head.

They all stared, frightened at that might be waiting on the other side of the door.

The wood slowly creaked open, revealing dirty white Converse, cuffed jeans, a black jacket with a black shirt beneath, and a familiar face with blood dripping from its nose and black makeup surrounding its eyes.

Eleven.

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

HEYYY

this entire story is still a draft as i’m writing this

anyway ty for reading as always!!