⚠️: domestic (both verbal and physical) abuse (marked for skipping like so: ●●●), fluff if you squint, angst, threats, fear sequence including the following; intense violence such as strangulation/asphyxiation/being held captive/impaling, implied character death (MAJOR) again marked for skipping: ■■■

.....don't read too much into that haha, we're all gonna be just fine 😀 just trust me and read the warnings again carefully. I am holding your hand the whole way my lil turtle hatchlings <3

📝:...... well, here we! Can't believe we're here! One of many big moments in cosmic, as well as the final installment before s4! If you didn't catch my announcement on may 1st, im choosing to put this book on temporary hold until s4 (i explain they why in the announcement). And please, do me a huge favor and take breaks this chapter, this is an intense one 💓...i swear i don't do this for shits and giggles, there's a REASON

❓: no question this chapter! Just happy to have you guys along for the ride and thank you so much if you've been answering them! It really does help me improve 🥰 here's a painting I made for you 🖼 and I wanted to announce I'll be making a temp rant book for s4's release, specifically for those of us to rant/scream/theorize/freak out over without giving spoilers. Plus we can always talk cosmic 4 😉 Love you all dearly and ill see you on the other side!

||𝟑𝐑𝐃 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐕||

The winds were harsher down here. They were cold. It was the first time El could physically feel something for herself since stepping foot into Billy's memories.

The seagulls were long since gone, along with Billy and the woman she presumed to be his mother. She was beginning to lose track of how much time had passed, though she couldn't admit she wasn't surprised she had managed to keep track this long. Time was strange in the void. It was almost... flexible. Sometimes her trips stretched on for hours, sometimes they were no less than a minute. But as she wandered the sands on the outskirts of the storm, everything seemed to change all at once.

Not only had the clouds spread all across the sky, blanketing the beach in an eerie gray, there seemed to lurk a familiar, unnatural chill. One El had experienced before. One that carried a certain stench of rot and a recognizable dusting of decay through the air. One many in the town of Hawkins had come to know as the very specific atmosphere associated only with the Upside Down.

This scene felt so familiar in so many ways; the flurry of spores dancing before her eyes. The swipe of her hand through the air to catch the thing she knows isn't there. At the thought, a mix of emotions clashes hard and fast in her chest long before she catches the fearsome shouts of an older man further down the beach.

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

"Hey! Billy, stop!"

El's eyes lock on the two figures up ahead and her heart plunges into her stomach. The older man had the second figure-the younger Billy-by the arm. Nearly to the point, she feared it would dislocate. Though they were still daily concealed by a thin veil of clouds, El could still make out the pink in the man's face as he screamed.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" The winds were begging to pick up, carrying a swell of sand that threatened to cloud the unfolding conflict. "What did we talk about, huh? You gotta slide!"

This Billy was wearing a strange white suit of some kind El didn't immediately recognize. It wasn't until she got closer that El picked up on the baseball mitt on his hand. She recalled Dustin and Y/n having one of those. But that couldn't be what this man was so upset about, was it? Baseball? Whatever it was, it twisted her stomach to see. Nothing warranted the behavior she was currently witnessing.

Billy's lower lip trembled as he tried to summon the words. "I-I know,"

"Wait," the man's face drops, its curling back in complete disgust. "Afraid you're gonna get hurt," he mocked. "is that it?"

"No,"

"Well, what then? What?" The man was grabbing him by the arm again as veins began to pop from his face and El gradually picked up speed without thought. "What did I raise, a pussy for a son?"

The tide tore at Billy's feet and the storm close on their horizon roared in anger upon the man's words. Billy ripped his arm straight from his father's grasp and summoned every bit of courage from his chest.

"Leave me alone!" He shrieked with brimming tears, turning tail and heading straight for the thundering red storm clouds.

"That's right, run!" Sneered the man. "Like you always do!"

El was already taking off after Billy, not without sending the man the sourest look she could muster as she passed him. The only thing stopping her from doing something was knowing whatever she tried would fall flat. This was still a memory. But that didn't mean she didn't want to.

El didn't even have this man's name but she knew him all too well. The way he threw children around, the lack of remorse in his cold eyes... El couldn't say she was unfamiliar with the type, and it had her heart broiling in her chest as she disappeared into the storm after Billy.

A clap of thunder shook the earth and several bolts of blinding streaks of crimson lightning struck the sands all around them. Between this and the roar of the winds threatening to knock her over, it was a wonder she hadn't lost Billy before now. He had simply vanished, swallowed whole by the storm but none of that seemed to matter. El had crossed the first threshold of the storm-the gate to a new memory. And the furious shouts of the man she had just left behind were telling her that what she had just witnessed, was the first of many.

"Where were you last night? Where were you?"

"I told you, I was with Wendy."

Another streak of lightning. El dodged it by a hair, far too preoccupied with trying to recapture her sense of direction. The waves weren't even visible anymore, and the more she got closer to the screaming voices the more the storm around her came alive.

"Stop lying to me!"

It didn't take much for El to recognize the second voice-the one Billy's father was accusing. But the distress in her voice had made it difficult to recognize the joyous woman in the long white dress and yellow sandals. This loud, angry man seemed to have that effect on people.

One look and she had found all of them, surrounding a dining table no bigger than the one at the cabin. Billy was shrunken into his seat as his parents fought nearby.

"I'm not lying to you!"

He didn't bother to acknowledge a single word she said. Not unless it fit what he believed. This man was completely blind with rage.

"You saw him again, didn't you?" It was only at this moment El realized the woman's wrist was fighting and twisting against the man's tightened grip. So much so that she could hear the pained cries she was trying to muffle. "Didn't you?!"

"GET. AWAY. FROM ME!" She bellowed, finally managing to wrench her arm free. Knowing him well, Mrs. Hargrove beat him to the punch before he could throw it. She caught the venomous glint in his eyes as he stomped toward her, but glass plate in hand, she was ready. "I said, GET AWAY!"

The plate shattered against his skull, sending Mr. Hargrove stumbling. If only he had stayed down.

"You-" the venom in his eyes turned murderous as he charged forward. "--You whore!"

The next few moments flew past her in a sandy blur, but El still caught it all. She watched helplessly, hand involuntarily flying to her mouth to stifle a horrified gasp as it all unfolded before her.

"STOP IT!" Billy roared, charging forward in a daring attempt to protect his mother. He had come full force at his father's chest, and in his anger managed to hold him off if only for a moment. "Don't hurt her!"

"No!"

"DON'T HURT HER!" Billy's shrieks were soon cut short as his father hurled him to the floor.

"You bastard!"

But Billy was already throwing himself to his feet and after his mother who, in a matter of seconds, had been knocked into the table with the full force of her husband's fist across the face.

"Mom!"

Another squall from this rainless storm had already introduced El to the next memory. And another distressed Billy.

"I don't understand," his voice is so so small. He's heartbroken. He's terrified. "Why not?"

He was sitting on the floor in tears, huddled against his bed as he clutches the phone close to his ear.

"Please, Mom, don't do this," he begs. "Please come home,"

She had left?

"No. How long? How long?!"

Billy's mother had left. And she hadn't taken Billy.

His eyes screwed tight and squeezing out fresh tears, Billy wails his final plea into the receiver. "I miss you!"

A figure darts past her, concealed in the clashing storms of violets and deepened blues making El whirl around on her heel.

"Get back here!" The figure roars.

The voice and its words were already so callous, that El was almost half-surprised to see a still young Billy. He was older than the previous memories, but not by much. He looked about her age, maybe slightly younger, but already there was so much anger within him.

He had just tackled another kid to the ground. Spit was flying from his mouth as he screamed, his knees remained pinned on the kid's stomach as he threw punch after punch after punch.

"Get up! What, are you scared to fight me? You scared?!" Another punch and he climbed to his feet, taking extra measures to spit in the kid's face. "You scared?!" And then a kick. "Get up and fight me, pussy! Pussy!"

The sight made her heart ache in many ways for many reasons. Finally, she turned away, gladly allowing the icy storm to introduce her to the newest memory and take her away from this one. All the people who hurt Billy on her mind, just as well as all the people he would come to hurt himself.

She's walking face-first into the heart of the storm. She can feel it as she fights against the biting winds that nip at her skin and though El had thrown her arms up to shield a majority of her face, she is able to make out the newest scene before her.

"Billy, come over here," It was Billy's father again. El almost didn't recognize him with how calm he was. But her heartbeat still spiked when she swore she made out a flash of bright orange hair. "I want you to meet someone,"

Sure enough, standing hostage at the man's side was a decidedly grumpy, headstrong little girl El knew at once to be one of her now fiercest friends. Her Max.

"This is your new sister," he proclaims to a very angry-looking Billy. "Her name's Maxine,"

Despite the hostile hand on her shoulder and the glare Billy holds her in, she hikes her chin up in subtle defiance and introduces herself. Properly this time.

"Max," she corrects.

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

El turns around at once when she hears the new voice. For it isn't new at all. It's Billy. The Billy she knows. Immediately, she's searching for the voice. She's searching for the source. So much so, that the memory playing out before her isn't even registering. Neither is the fact that both memories are now colliding with one another in a confusing echo.

"Who's there?!"

"Shake her hand,"

-"I said, shake her hand,"

-"I said, who's there?!"

His voice, she realizes, is farther and farther from his and Max's younger selves. It's out of the shadows of his mind, somewhere lost in the raging storm of scarlet growing brighter and brighter as she nears. He's screaming-endless, tortured screams-and El fears just what else is left to find. Two white orbs of light shine through the reddened fog, almost like eyes. But it assures her she's on the right path. The moment she passes the final threshold of the storm's many layers, everything changed.

All at once, everything had fallen silent. The winds and the fog were behind her, and the chill zipping down her spine was colder than ever. El had been completely engulfed by the scarlet storm clouds, and they were closing in quickly.

Her eyes stay fixed on the sky above her as the storm clouds in question close in on all sides. A difficult thing it was, to make El feel truly small. But she did-now a mere speck in the midst of a thunderous blood-red whirlpool of clouds.

A speck in the eye of the storm.

The sun had already set when El spoke to them next. Needless to say, she had put them all through quite the scare. But her sudden evening breaths and the encouraging message she had to relay brought much-needed relief to everyone waiting.

"I think I found it. The source."

"Where El?" Max pressed quickly. Even she had grown worried in the prolonged time her friend had spent in her brother's mind. Needless to say, she was eager for her to get out and return to safety. "Where are you?"

"Brimborne," she recites, eyes locking on the rushed overhead sign with a sinking feeling already taking root in her gut. "Steelworks,"

Jonathan launched himself up off the arm of the chair and ran for the phonebook he had left on the kitchen counter. Nancy met him halfway across the room behind the couch where he had returned, already halfway through the book and thumbing as quickly as he could to the 'S's.

"Steelworks, steelworks, steelworks," he mumbled. "Here steel. Uhh-- Found it! 6622 Cherry Oak Drive!"

"That's close," Nancy gasped.

"Oh shit," Y/n hissed, her nails unintentionally digging into the back of Will's hand as she squeezed his hand in fear.

"Ow, ow-ow-ow!"

"El!" Mike called. "El, we found it. Get out of there! Get out!"

El didn't have to think twice. It was with great pleasure she allowed her eyes to flutter closed as she reached out for her ticket back. But it was too easy to grab.

She hardly had time to consider the command before she felt it again. That give in her gut as the ground was stolen from beneath her feet and it told her all she needed to know: it was happening again. And in all the worst ways.

Everything was wrong.

The very forces she sought to defeat were yanking her away from the world beneath her feet and any and all sense of her metaphysical self was taken with it. Like the riptide that was Neil Hargrove to have caught his son, this force had caught ahold of her. And it was all she could do but scream an empty cry for help as Billy's mind spit her back up.

...Time was strange in the void. It was... Flexible. And one who knew how to traverse its vast plains well enough knew also how to find the right story. Or perhaps, more importantly, they knew how to tell it.

El had found herself at her journey's beginning: falling helplessly through time as foreign memories and feelings passed her by. Completely in reverse.

The separation of Billy's bloodied head with the dashboard as the car is jerked back into place and his screams retract as it does.

The adrenaline is still there as the car spins out. It unwinds itself in her gut as it had in Billy's as they are both undone by time.

He had evolved past his shadowy confines at long last, though he still lurked in darkness. He was darkness.

Billy fought so desperately to cling to the iron doorway where they eventually lost his battle. With a blood-curdling scream, he was cast into--

And yet everything seemed to fall perfectly into place.

--Darkness. That was all that was left after the distorted voice died out with the rest of the booth. His eyes flew everywhere, but not for long. An impossible chill fell over his already frozen body when he realized--

--he was kneeling over Heather with his back to El, knelt over the floor. His dark gray tank and jeans nearly working to blend him into the darkness he's hiding in.

She was closer to the surface, but still so far. El was nearly free. And yet she never felt so far from home.

Heather's paled face was returning to El from far beneath the surface back in the ice bath. Her eyes were locked on El and her arms were reaching for her own. But much like El, she was hostage to this little time warp and its rules that would inevitably keep them apart.

But she was so close she could almost reach it.

She reached and reached but before she could ever break the surface and make it to the safety of El's arms, her frightened eyes were staring right through her before she was thrust back under the tub of ice by an invisible force.

She could see it. There it was. The homestretch. The very thing she had been fighting so hard to grasp.

His pupils dilate and closing in around them are several black veins that cloud the whites of his eyes as he--

--whipped around to face her, sunken, darkened eyes widening as they pierced her own.

Just in time, too.

It all happened so fast, even in the moment and he was left with nothing but the horrifying image of a bloodied tentacle attacking his face.

We were hoping to get started.

All Tom Holloway could do was peer up at the snarling monster from his one uncovered eye as he feels the icy darkness envelop him completely.

But we've been waiting.

All she saw beside the white spots swallowing her vision were the seething eyes of the Mind Flayer peering up at her and straight through her soul.

Waiting for you.

As he watched the life drain from your eyes, he hissed to the one he had been waiting in agony for all these months his final greeting--

Good thing I found you.

The sudden iron grip of freezing flesh snatching up her wrist hurtles El back onto her living room floor downing desperate gulps of air. She rips the headband clean off her head to reveal the light of the Television static casting a soft glow over herself, the darkened living room, and nothing more.

There was no one waiting for her. One look around from her spot on the floor-where they last left her-told her she was the only one in the cabin now. The kitchen was barren, the couch and chairs where she had left them were empty, and a terrible sickly feeling in her gut told her her friends weren't in either adjoining rooms.

Still, El couldn't help the broken call for those she sought most.

"Mike?" No answer.

Her throat was growing sore from the lump already forming inside. "Y-Y/n?"

El sniffled and jumped to her feet. "Max?"

They wouldn't leave her, El tells herself. Not them. Not when they went to all that trouble to make her feel safe in there.

"Y/n?!"

Not when they had each risked so much for her.

"MIKE?!"

"He can't hear you,"

Those four words were enough to still El's heart completely. It stopped the flow of blood in her veins in less than an instant. That voice and the instantaneous consequences it presented to her might as well have plunged her right back into the sand. Back into the ice.

She already knew he was here for her even before she turned to find his towering figure emerging from Hopper's room. And though the mask through which the Mind Flayer was hiding was void of all emotion, there still lies a dark glint in his dead eyes. The remains of a deadened smile waiting to jump out.

"You shouldn't have looked for me," It's almost like He's happy. "Because now I see."

He is happy. Even as he stands here, littered with scorch marks and faded smudges of dried blood staining his white tank. He is happy, especially as he takes the burning cigarette in his hands and snuffs out any remains light in the sand of the ashtray.

"Now we all see,"

Unable to help the tiny, frightened gasp to escape, El stumbled back as he took his first steps after her. Calmly, he strode forward after her with no urgency.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

The red door. The deep crimson frame of the Holloway's front door peels open to reveal the disheveled forms of Janet and Heather: the two surviving Holloways as they step out onto their porch. And though their seared and sweating skin sizzles as it is enveloped by the warmth of the breeze, they begin their final journey. The front door El and her friends had visited only nights prior was now left open behind them. Abandoned. But it won't matter. They won't be returning.

They are going home.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

A curious look tilts his head at the sight before him. There's... amusement. This mighty hero of Hawkins-one of them anyway-cowering away before him. Dissolving into a pathetic pool of tears.

And though freezing in every way, his voice had such a scorching effect. El could swear she felt the damning words he spoke singeing away any remaining doubt in her mind that she had always been the monster.

"You... let us in,"

Movement in the corner of her eye, but she's much too horrified to look away. She's transfixed. Just like that, El is that scared little girl, all alone, back at Hawkins National Laboratory. Transported back to the night it all began when she first came upon the Demogorgan and opened the gate-the night she turned the world upside down.

"And now..." but then again, maybe she's not. There's hope yet "you are going to have to let us stay."

Her wide and wandering brown eyes ache to remain on the sight of her best friend-her Y/n-poking her head around the corner of Hopper's doorway where she remains hidden. Even as she ever-so-cautiously slips from the doorway and around the corner, careful that every step she takes is in step with Billy's so that she may travel undetected. But El is smart enough to know to steal every bit of attention she can so Y/n can remain that way. She only hopes the involuntary gasp of relief that escapes her mouth is mistaken only for fear. She needs to keep The Mind Flayer's attention on her, and that meant making him believe she was accepting her fate.

Sadly, that was no difficult task.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

All over town, the fourth of July spirits were reaching their peak of the night. The citizens of Hawkins, none the wiser to the spreading disease to have already infiltrated their loved ones: the rot of the Mind Flayer that had long since terrorized the Vale of Shadows, had at long last tunneled its way into the Material Plane.

One of countless victims is stilled where he stands when he feels a dark chill overtake his body and he loses full control. And though he's been here, the better half of the evening, flipping burgers for the block and watching his kids run and play on the lawn as the neighbors admire the first of many whistling fireworks, he can no longer stand to be here.

All he does know is the unceasing pull in his gut to follow orders. He knows he needs to go back.

Even if that means abandoning his family without a second thought and ignoring the concerned calls from his wife in his peripherals.

"David, where are you going? David?"

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

The young boy knew it too. He had been acting so strange since the other day, and now, the fireworks show he had been looking forward to all month...

"Adam!" called the other little boy, distraught and confused as Adam abandoned everything. Including him.

"You're gonna miss it!" he argues, wondering as to why the young blonde was so suddenly marching off in a daze. He was just leaving him! Why? "Adam!"

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

The blood roaring in her ears did well to remind her the dangers facing her (way too literally) were still very much a problem and far too real. The Mind Flayer still possessed Billy Hargrove and she had still willingly stepped into their snare that had landed her here. Strung up and too afraid to struggle less she make a fatal move.

"Don't you see?"

It was all she could do to lock her swimming eyes on Billy's own as he herded her all the way to the front door and ignore the sight behind him that dared to brew hope deep inside her chest. The sight of a bloodied up Y/n-but still very much alive-breaking her scorching gaze from Billy and silently grabbing for a very familiar fire poker from the previous year.

"All this time,"

El nearly stumbles when she reaches the edge of the carpet and yet it feels as if she has stumbled to end the edge of the world. There was nowhere to run.

But maybe she didn't have to. Maybe this time, Y/n had come to save her.

The sharp iron hook end she had placed in the palm of her hand was already beginning to turn. It was glowing red hot in the time it took her to catch up to Billy on the tips of her toes, hiding in his five o 'clock blindspot ready to strike at just the right moment. The handle of the poker was now in both hands and leveled with her shoulders, the glowing end inches from his neck and ready to deliver the fatal blow.

"we've been building it,"

It's about to happen. Could they have a chance? El isn't quite sure what the answer to anything is anymore, but she knows she's only ever been this afraid once in her life--

The trembling in Y/n's smirk halts for only a moment when she meets eyes with El and flashes her a wink. And for one glorious moment in this hell, she truly believes they will make it out alive together.

--but the lab didn't have Y/n.

"we've been building it..."

Y/n only has time to curl her lips back in a snarl, baring her teeth, and rearing the poker back to strike just as Billy shifts his teary smile on her.

"for you."

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■

El's hand was already winching up from her side as she prepared to hurl him across the room-or just anything that could stop him from hurting Y/n. But he was already one step ahead; in a blur, he had wrenched the fire poker from her hands (all while managing to stun her with the butt end of it in her head as he did so) with his left and taken her hostage with his right. Before El could make any psychic moves (or physical) he raised his other hand in warning and tsked his tongue, wagging the glowing poker at El with a malicious smile.

"Let her go," El pleads, now through an impossible-to-see-through wall of tears. She wasn't even remotely sure if the words had made it out coherently and not just in a blubbering stutter. She was fully weeping now. Whatever hope had been building within her, keeping the tears at bay, had been destroyed.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

The Flayed have come home. Dozens of them march across the dead grass surrounding the abandoned steelworks where they soon disappear inside.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

He has her now in his poisoned grasp-his large and half-charred hand holds her prisoner by the back of her throat and already she can feel the blood in her major arteries fighting to bring through to her brain under his fingers. But the thing that keeps her from fighting back-the thing that keeps El from fighting back-is the searing hot poker prodding into the back of the young girl's abdomen.

El and Y/n against the Mind Flayer once again, so it would seem. And yet, in this moment, here he was with all the cards. As if it wasn't much of a fight at all.

"After all that work,"

He knows not to waste this advantage he has over his opponent.

"all that pain..."

He knows just what bait to dangle.

"All of it..."

Just what picture to paint.

"For you two."

The Y/n he has conjured-the Y/n this one had practically manifested for him from the furthest recesses of her tortured mind. The strings on the last puppet in he needs to get to the true pest in all of his existence: Y/n Henderson.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

The warehouse comes alive as dozens upon dozens more of Hawkins citizens flood in from every entrance that can possibly be found. They march in at a content pace despite the raging fires of the summer air burning away their skin and boiling the black sludge in their blood. Their tepid footsteps against the concrete are the first real signs of life its had in years. And yet there is no life in sight-especially as they head for a single steel stairway. They know their pain is coming to an end, as they are. They are returning home. Going back. They know in the end they will serve a greater purpose.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

The poker sizzled as it was dug further into her back as he successfully guided Y/n forward step by step. She let out a strangled cry of pain, eliciting just the right reactions from El. She had been shrinking back in steady sobs despite her trembling hands occasionally reaching out tearfully for her best friend until she felt her back hit the kitchen counter. All the while pushing Y/n forward step by step to remind El just what could happen to her if she tried anything on him with her in such a vulnerable position.

This put a sinister smile on his face.

"And now its time,"

The grit of his teeth was visible through his vengeful grin as he tightened the hold on Y/n's neck so much so that his whole arm started to tremble and her face puffed up almost twice its size. Between this sight and the combined sound of what could likely be her dying breaths and the sizzling of the glowing iron pressing harder into her back, another powerful and horrified sob was wrenched straight from El's lungs.

"Stop it!"

Several tears are streaking down El's face and snot drips from her nose. For the first time in her life, she doesn't know what to do. Her heart felt as if it was skipping every other beat and the need to save her friend and herself from imminent doom without getting either of them killed was leaking out of her in other ways.

"Time to end it."

The windows began to crack, several lightbulbs nearby had burst. All the cabinet doors began to rattle and shake before blowing open full force (some even bouncing back shut) as her mind subconsciously reached out. The TV that still blared static in the living room shattered and shot out a prophetic burst of sparks threatening to sting the threatening force before her as he spits to El her first and only warning.

"We are going to end her,"

Y/n's back arches forwards as the poker breaks another several layers of skin, and though she is already hanging onto consciousness by a thread, her body still manages a pained and choked whimper as silent tears leak from her bulging eyes.

There are signs of pain in him too. The sweat coating his skin from the heat's exposure is telling but it only tightens the clench in his jaw as he seethes the words to El quenched only by the satisfaction of revenge. "and you will have to watch as we tear her limb from limb,"

"No! STOP IT!"

El's head is pounding. It can't produce the tears fast enough, but she still shakes her head 'no' with everything she's got as her lips sow the silent pleas that will never be answered.

"And when she is gone,"

Her hands half-instinctually reach to cover her ears to stop herself from hearing such horrid things. But they keep finding their way back out to Y/n, reaching out reflexively to do something. "No-"

But every time she does, the fire is wedged deeper into Y/n's skin, and the limper she grows in his grip. He's already dragging her shuffling feet across the wood floors as her body powers down.

"--we are going to end you and the rest of your little friends--"

"--No!--"

"--and then..." he is still pained. The trembling in his grasp has nearly spread to his whole body. There is even twitching in his face that has spread to his eyes. "we are going to end..."

His bloodshot, unblinking, watering eyes.

"everyone."

Eyes that now shed a single tear before the iron poker was wrenched back and driven right through Y/n Henderson's stomach.

All sense of time and sound ceased to exist in this moment-had they not, El would have surely heard the blood-curdling shriek she had released as her best friend was finally freed from the grip of the Mind Flayer and his latest host. She had barely stumbled forward, blood already peeking out from her swollen lips by the time Billy was hurled across the room and sent crashing into the wall.

El's arms were thrown out to catch the one she feared she had just lost but it was already too late. She was gone from her hands and El was finally out of the void.

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■

"NO~!"

A second time the headband was ripped off her head, the blood-curdling screech still leaving her lungs as her whole body fought the tortured image forced into her mind. A second time she finds herself on her living room floor in front of her veil of static.

"NO! NO!"

And for the first time, she finds herself completely outnumbered by people who love her and jump to their feet to help.

"El!"

Mike is the first among them, already throwing himself on the carpet and at her side. No one present fails to notice the jump in El when his hands gently offer her into his embrace. Her head whips to face his, her features ghostly pale and her arm already separating herself from him. Until she ultimately recognizes him by the worry in his eyes and his touch under her trembling fingers. In an instant she's collapsed into his arms, still choking on fearful sobs that are buried within his navy polo.

"El, its okay. I'm here. You're back, it's okay. El?" Mike coos. Tears are already forming in his eyes, just as much as the others lingering on edge nearby.

It takes far too long for anyone's comfort for her to adjust to the fact she's back in reality, and Y/n can't help but notice how violently she trembles collapsing further into Mike's arms. The hearts of El's friends were cracking in two, and for the first time in a long time, Mike, Y/n, and Lucas swore they saw the same fear in her eyes as the night they had found her in the woods.

Over and over the same word kept getting lost in Mike's shirt as she left. A word no one at first could decipher. All Mike could do was clutch her tighter, assuring her safety as many times as he had to. Max was so far on the edge of her seat in worry-ready to jump in at a moment's notice-she was practically halfway across the coffee table. Even Nancy and Jonathan had risen from their seats, frozen at the ready as they exchanged horrified glances with Lucas. And Y/n, she was clutching Will's arm so tight one might fear he'd lose circulation. But like everyone else, he was too worried about his friend to notice or care.

And when El came up for another hiccupping breath, the others finally caught the name she had been weeping endlessly in loss.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

The enclosed space is soon overflowing with a sea of the Flayed that thrum endlessly with footsteps as they glide down the metal staircase and into the deep lake of shadows that sat under the steelworks warehouse. The only light that found its way down in the depths of Brimborne was the skylight leaking in from the doorway that illuminated the only possible clue to the sudden phenomenon;

Painting the concrete are semi-faded stains of blood and piles of bone that had found their way home. The new home promised to them by the seemingly never-ending pull in their gut. But the pull had mysteriously stopped when they reached the basement. But the presence of something dark and sinister remained.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"Y/N!"

Her eyes met with Mike's for only a moment before he gestured for her with great urgency.

"El?" She asks. Her voice alone sends the girl into another wave of shock as Y/n rises from her seat and comes to kneel before her on the carpet. "El, are you ok--?"

Desperately she hurled herself out of Mike's arms and clambered into Y/n's, swallowing her in a bone-crashing hug that nearly knocked the two back before she could even finish speaking. Y/n could already feel El's tears staining her clothes and fearfully, eyes tearing away from her sobbing form to meet everyone's bewildered gaze with her own. All the while, everything in her telling her to hug El back with everything she had.

"El? Hey, come on. You're safe, you're back. We've got you," She mutters into her hair, brows furrowed despite her soft voice.

"You we--" another hiccup steals her words, coercing another sob from her body. "were dead."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

The driving force-the pull-had not vanished but had instead morphed into a warm buzzing that grew intensely worse. It grew hotter and hotter, shaking the very bones in their bodies harder and harder as it spread to every cell at unnatural speeds. Their last thoughts-last true thoughts-were nothing but fear as the chemicals in their bodies worked with the virus in their systems that had taken over as host in their bodies and disassembled them completely.

One by one they twitched and lurched in agony before they fell to the floor, shattering at the many tentacle-like feet that was the force to have brought them all together. The force they had now truly become.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Carefully, Y/n takes her friend gently by the shoulders to meet her eyes with grave concern. "El, what are you saying?" It's not a question of miscommunication. She doesn't worry she has missed what El has said. Y/n fears she has caught it.

She gasped drastically for air. "You--" More sobs. To everyone's relief, with Mike's help, she was finally able to calm just enough to spit the words out.

"You-- were dead,"

It's easy for her to see now why conjuring a response is suddenly so difficult. Any attempt at reassuring El this time presents itself as neither easy, or worth the effort. Y/n can feel the many the shift in the room as everyone's gaze suddenly falls on her. But she can't bring herself to acknowledge them. Acknowledging their fears meant acknowledging her own and that just made all of this real. Surely, there was a mistake.

Y/n can already hear the weariness staining her tone as she tries to get the words out. "El... I'm fine, I'm okay."

That head that still lay on her shoulder shook fervently. Still weak from the shock in her system, she pulled herself back to meet her gaze through her own puffy eyelids.

"No," she insists through the obvious lump present in her throat. "It's not okay. He wants--"

Another gut-wrenching sob interrupts her words, but she powers through. And when she does, Y/n suddenly feels the weight of her worry collapse onto her shoulders.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

The basement was filled with crunch after sickening crunch as body after body collapsed into nothing. All of them and their remains glistened in the single beam of light as they fled into the realm of shadows that held the true monster.

This monster that had poisoned Hawkins before. This monster that had spread its rot and death, and inevitable decay with everything it touched. It had spread and devoured and killed until all of Hawkins had been ensnared. All of that work, all of that pain... all of it for nothing. Everything he had accomplished-everything he was about to gain-only to be cut down just as his prey had stepped inside.

But not this time. No, this time he was careful, he was diligent.

The Shadow Monster planned to win because this time, he made sure the noose had already tightened.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"He's gonna kill you, Y/n. He says he's coming for you."

"...I think that's been established," She grimaces, unable to bite back the remark. But she couldn't quite help it. Fear was already gripping her heart and stealing any logical thought she could conjure in her mind.

"No," she scolds, shaking her head. "No, you don't understand. He has a plan. He," Another breath. "He's already coming for you. Not just him. The Flayed. All of this was made to stop you. To kill you. To kill both of us, and I--"

Another choking breath broke loose but in the presence of her friends-her Y/n, very much alive-she had managed to fight through it. That didn't stop Y/n or Mike from seeing the mixture of horror and grief swimming in her eyes as her bottom lip fought to stay still as she revealed the horrid truth still haunting her.

"Y/n, I saw you dead," her voice is so low and broken, that it could hardly be heard. Breaking such a horrible thing to someone she cared for so much was almost as hard as witnessing it for herself. But she knows, if there's a chance it changes the outcome, she'd do it a thousand times over. "I saw you die,"

And just like that, El's head tipped back over into Y/n's shoulder where she buried her face in the crook of her neck. Y/n had hardly registered the arms clinging to her like a lifeline, the reality of what El had just admitted shifting her whole center of gravity. Her eyes are already far away, lost in the pattern of the rug under their feet as her arms numbly hook over El's back. This time in growing alarm.

Silence has returned to the entirety of the cabin but no one can bring themselves to utter even a single syllable. Like her, they are rendered catatonic by the news. It's as if the air itself is made of glass and one movement could shatter their whole reality.

But Y/n's reality felt pretty broken already. Her entire body was numb, her heart had stilled and despite the unspeakable look of horror burning brighter into her skull than any of the others, all Y/n Henderson could feel in this moment is the invisible noose already tightening around her neck.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Mental Health Resources for Young People of Color:

"Young people of color are resilient. But being a young person of color in America today can mean consistent exposure to traumatic incidents directed at their communities, whether in person, on television or through social media. While awareness can spur action that results in change, it can also take an emotional toll on young people that can impact other facets of their lives like schooling and relationships.

Maintaining mental health is important and seeking help can be necessary to stay healthy. In this article, OnlineCounselingPrograms.com has assembled a variety of mental health-focused content and resources to support young people of color."

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55 Mental Health Resources for People of Color:

"Mental illness does not discriminate: Nearly 20% of U.S. adults experience a mental illness each year, regardless of race or ethnicity. And while it's clear that mental health is a crosscutting issue that affects all communities, providing effective services for people of color requires acknowledging and understanding their different lived realities."

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How To Protect Your Mental Health While Fighting Racial Injustice:

"The work of fighting oppression includes putting yourself in vulnerable positions to witness incidents and have experiences that can be upsetting, alarming and traumatic. Preserving your mental health and building mental resilience is necessary to continue the fight for justice."

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And Many More Mental Health Resources Below:

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