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⋆˚࿔ NOVEMBER, 1985. (INCOMPLETE)

MIKE WHEELER X WILL BYERS

summary. A collection of journal entries by one Mike Wheeler detailing relationships, feelings, and cosmic horrors beyond human comprehension. word count. 11.2k+ contains. body horror, lovecraftian horror, FIRST PERSON POV, cthulhu mythos, mentions of murder, mentions of ritualistic child abuse, this fic is incomplete with bullet points author's note. IMPORTANT! as the title suggests, this is an INCOMPLETE FANFIC. this was originally written to be part of the Byler Big Bang event on AO3 back in 2022, but i abandoned it due to losing motivation and it has been collecting dust in my google docs for nearly 3 years. this fic includes bullet points detailing important plot points so there's still a story to follow. the prose is just not there lol. even tho this fic is sfw, i ask for minors to please not interact. this blog is incredibly nsfw and the thought of minors on my blog makes me extremely uncomfortable. i can't think of anything else to say except please enjoy reading even though it is incomplete. i'm still proud of some of my writing and character work with mike.

11/25/1985

My name is Mike Wheeler.

I promise this isn’t a suicide note, nor do I intend to kill myself, but I’m writing this just in case I do end up getting killed or seriously hurt. I fear the former is more likely.

Actually, sorry, I lied. I don’t actually know why I’m writing in this journal. There’s something telling me I’m writing this so I can keep track of my sanity, which is fairly possible considering my current circumstances.

I’m currently sitting at my desk in my bedroom, and the view from outside my window is nothing but darkness. The sun’s been out for hours now. It’s almost midnight. I have school in the morning. I’m going to be exhausted if I don’t get some sleep right this minute, but every time I close my eyes, I

I don’t know where to start.

I could go into an extremely long-winded backstory, detailing events from back when I was twelve, and you’ll get the context for my current situation right away and saved from the confusion. But if I’m going to be honest, it’s hard to remember those events, even though they happened only two years ago. The flashbacks come in exactly that: flashes. But the pain is vivid. It’s real. It’s strong.

I talk to my friends about it. They seem to remember things just fine, it’s just me. I’m the only one who is having trouble recounting things. They’ll say something that happened, and they’ll see the confusion on my face, and they’ll ask, “Do you remember?”

And I’ll have to answer no. No, I don’t remember, but you do. You have no problems whatsoever, but I have to be in the dark.

Bits and pieces. Flashing memories. Brief words and smiles and tears.

But never full memories.

No.

Not for me.

I guess that’s the price you pay for putting yourself into a traumatic experience. Everything happens all at once, and when it’s over, it’s like you were half-awake to experience it all. My eyes were open and I was fully aware of the situation being put in front of me, but it’s fog. It’s a fever dream that lingers in the back of my mind, and I can only count on others to be reminders everything happened. I was there to be a spectator and a participant. I am left with the guilt and the grief, but not the reason why.

So here I am, writing in this journal Nancy got me for my birthday, hoping that I’ll be able to keep my thoughts on track. I’m sure she’ll be grateful that I’m putting her gift to use as it's been collecting dust on my nightstand for most of the year, but I like it. The pages are crisp, the hardback is sturdy, and it came with its own lock and key to keep mouth-breathers out of my business. The perfect gift to document my eventual descent into madness.

This town is not as it seems. There’s an evil that lurks in the woods in my own backyard. It watches me, stalks me, haunts me, and is not afraid to wear down my very existence. It’s been here since I was a kid. I’ve grown to know it personally, yet it’s still a distant stranger. It’s familiar to my friends, my family, and my classmates. No one knows its full potential, nor where it came from, but this week will change things.

At least I hope so.

Here’s the story so far, told to the best of my ability.

Today, the fog rolled in again for the first time since summer.

It happened after I visited Family Video with my friends Lucas, Dustin, and Max. We weren’t there to rent any videos but instead to visit Steve, who graduated earlier this year, but still keeps in contact with us (mostly Dustin–they have a bond that’s completely unbreakable).

Steve Harrington is an interesting character in my life. Douchebag boyfriend turned saint who will do anything to keep us younger kids safe. Nancy used to date him back when I was in middle school, and when I tell you he was the king of all jerks, I’m not exaggerating. He was insufferable.

Now, he’s a pretty decent guy. He always greets us with a smile and asks us how we’ve been and today was no different. Lucas and I watched as he and Dustin did their annoyingly convoluted handshake before giving Lucas a fistbump, me a ruffle of my hair, and Max a shoulder squeeze.

“How’s it hangin’, kiddos?” Steve asked, standing in front of the Family Video counter. “Wheeler, is your mom hosting Thanksgiving this year?”

“No, but your mom gave me an invite to celebrate at her place,” I said, earning some “Ohh!”s from Lucas and Dustin.

“Oh, that is hilarious,” Steve said. “Actually, your sister invited me over this year–that’s why I was asking,”

I forgot to mention he still has a shitty sense of humor sometimes.

“In your dreams,” I said.

Steve gestured towards my friends and I. “Aren’t you guys just gonna stay in and play Dungeons and Dragons all break?”

“Why’d you include me in that?” Max asked. “I don’t play that game,”

“Uh, actually, we’re not,” Dustin said. “Will and El are actually coming to visit from California, so we’ll all be spending time together. And even if we were planning on playing D&D all break, I don’t see anything wrong with that,”

“Oh, I see a lot wrong with that,” Steve said. “Don’t you guys play that game for literal hours? What do you guys do when you have to take a piss? Do you guys have, like, pee bottles?”

Lucas, Dustin, and I protested in disgust. We most certainly do not have pee bottles and use the bathroom like any other regular human being.

“I wouldn’t put it past you guys if you did!” Steve said in defense. “Besides, that Eddie guy you guys play with–” he leaned in close so no one else could hear him. “He’s definitely the type of dude to piss in bottles,”

That Eddie guy Steve was referring to is Eddie Munson, our DM (Dungeon Master). At Hawkins High, we have our own D&D club called Hellfire Club, and it’s fair to say that we are ranked lower than low on the school’s social hierarchy. We’re outcasts. Freaks. And if anyone’s the king of freaks, it’s Eddie.

I do not mean that in a bad way. Everyone else looks down on him because he listens to metal and plays a fantasy game and is currently on his third try of senior year, but me? I look up to him. Instead, his freakiness is admirable. It’s inspiring. I’ve spent my whole life being bullied because I was different, and sometimes I still feel ashamed of being such an outcast, but when I’m around Eddie, I can at least feel comfortable enough to put that shame behind me. He’s almost like my hero. My role model. He didn’t hesitate to take Dustin, Lucas, and me under his wing, and I appreciate him for that. I was so lost during my first day of high school, but Eddie made me feel found.

So no, Eddie does not piss in bottles.

“You’re just jealous because I spend more time with Eddie than you nowadays,” Dustin said.

Steve scoffed dramatically. “Oh, I am not jealous of Eddie. Don’t kid yourself,”

“You seem pretty jealous,” Max said.

“Unbearably jealous,” Lucas added, teasingly.

“Okay, enough!” Steve threw his hands up. “I’m done talking about Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson. Does anyone know if Robin had anything to do after school? The evening rush is about to start and I’m not dealing with that by myself,”

As if right on cue, the door jingled to signal Robin’s entrance. We all turned around to greet her and a toothy smile spread across her face.

“Oh, little children!” Robin exclaimed. “My dear Stevie, I am so sorry for my late arrival. I do hope you were able to stand on your own two feet despite my absence,”

“I stood on my two feet just fine, Robbie,” Steve said.

“Ew, don’t call me that again,”

Robin turned to us and asked what we were doing here, and we explained that we just wanted to say hello before we initiated our outdoor lunch.

My friends and I had been planning to have a small get together in the woods to eat food and drink lemonade and just hang out with nature for a while, but we never got around to actually doing it until today. We thought it would be good for us to have a sit down with our environment and just be in the moment for once. Hanging out in my basement is fun and all, but it gets incredibly stuffy down there, and I just want to be outside from time to time.

“It’s freezing outside,” Steve said. “Aren’t you guys worried about turning into ice or something?”

“We’ll be fine, Steve,” Max said. “We’re not stupid. I brought hot soup and hot cocoa to keep us warm,”

“And we’ll be keeping our coats on the entire time, mom,” Dustin added.

Meaningless minutes of banter later and we all piled into Nancy’s station wagon once more to be taken to our drop off spot for our outdoor get together. She warned us to not go too far and to be back at this spot before 7PM. We promised her we’d be fine, and then she drove off leaving us younger kids alone.

We all headed off into the woods further than we promised Nancy we’d go.

It was exceptionally cold today. Max was already visibly shivering before we even sat down on the forest floor. Lucas offered her his letterman jacket, but she politely refused. Lucas kept insisting, and then Max said that if he offered her his jacket one more time then she was going to throw darts during his next game to try to deflate the basketballs and ruin the game for everyone.

“That’s oddly specific,” I said, reaching into my backpack to take out the bags of chips I promised to bring. Lucas brought mini sandwiches his mother made, Dustin brought homemade lemonade, water bottles, and utensils, and Max brought a thermos with hot chocolate and a thermos of chicken-noodle soup.

“I’m starving,” Dustin said. “The food at school does nothing for me. I’m a growing boy. How the hell am I supposed to grow if I’m forced to eat mystery mush every day?”

“Just bring your own lunch, doofus,” Max said matter-of-factly. “That’s what I do. Can you hand me the potato chips, Mike?”

I passed her the small bag of potato chips as Lucas passed out the sandwiches. They were all BLT, and even though they cooled down from being in a bag all day, they were absolutely delicious.

“Lucas, your mom is a literal genius sandwich wizard,” Dustin said, swallowing his first bite.

“Tell her we said thank you,” I said.

We passed out the rest of the food, gorging on sandwiches and chips and slurping down hot soup, the red, green, and yellow foliage surrounding us paired with a gray, infinite sky. We sat there and talked about school, family, and life, genuinely enjoying each other’s company. I watched as Lucas would slide his hand into Max’s hand and hold it for a moment before retracting, almost as if he needed to feel her presence just for a moment. Dustin would throw his entire body onto me when he got into a massive laughing fit, his shrieks of delight echoing off the trees. Max’s nose was already getting red from the cold, but her laughs made the rest of her face flush with a deep, beet red. She would bury her face into Lucas’s shoulder, like she was trying to hide her laughter from the world to keep up her radical-mystery-girl persona. But in this moment, she was the Max we knew and loved.

Lucas started spilling gossip he heard in the basketball changing rooms. He talked about Jason Carver, the captain, and his rocky relationship with Chrissy Cunningham.

“He keeps going on and on about how he thinks he doesn’t love her anymore and how she keeps ditching their dates,” Lucas said. “Every time he brings her snacks she refuses them, and–” he shrugged. “I dunno, man. That’s way too much relationship trouble for me to handle. I’m running out of empathy,”

“I don’t know how you do it, man,” Dustin said. “I would have gone ballistic by now,”

“I’m about to,” Lucas paused to drink his lemonade. “I dunno. I just don’t feel… connected to any of them. The only one who I can maybe call my friend is Patrick McKinney, and even so he’s still… I-I dunno! They’re mean. They’re all mean, that’s all I have to say,”

“Then quit,” Max stated, her head on Lucas’s shoulder.

“And then you can focus all your energy on Eddie’s campaign and playing with us,” I said.

Lucas sighed. “I can’t. I’ve committed and I can’t stop now,”

“Well, just think about it–by this time tomorrow, you’ll be free from the evil clutches of Jason Carver, and you’ll instead be hanging out with the whole gang. You, me, Dustin, Max, Will, and El–just like old times,”

Lucas smiled at that. “Yeah, yeah totally. Just gotta hold on for one more day,”

Dustin held up his red solo cup filled with lemonade. “To one more day,”

We all followed suit. “To one more day,” we replied in unison.

I wish I could say that we all went home unscathed after that.

As I was finishing up on my cup of lemonade, I felt a deep pit form in my stomach. Something wasn’t right. Something was off and I couldn’t shake the feeling nor bury it. My instincts told me to look behind me even though the looks on my friends’ faces confirmed my fears for me.

The siren sounded.

“Shit… shit shit SHIT!” Dustin raced to his feet, survival mode in full swing. “Mike, how far is it from your house?”

“I don’t know!” I replied. I was telling the truth.

“My trailer is miles away–we’ll never make it,” Max said.

“Shit, we’re exposed,” Lucas put his hands on top of his head, his chest starting to visibly rise and fall with every panicked breath.

I rose to my feet. “Okay, okay, everyone? Stay calm. We’re fine. We’ve dealt with the fog before and we’ve always turned out just fine,”

“We’re outside, Mike!” Max shouted. Dustin frantically shushed her.

“I can’t remember what we’re supposed to do if we’re outside during the fog,” Lucas said, his breath escaping him.

I tapped my fingers together and closed my eyes as my mind searched for what to do. As I listened to the panicked ramblings of my friends, I filed through my memories to see if any of them had the answer I was looking for.

I only experienced the fog twice in my life: the first time when I was twelve, and the second time this summer, right before the Starcourt Mall burned down. There’s a distinct set of rules to follow, but I could not for the life of me remember what they were at that moment.

I was sure I had just failed my friends.

“Get down!” I heard Dustin say, breaking the panic for a moment. “Everyone get down on your stomachs and put your hands behind your head,”

“Are you sure?” Lucas asked.

“Yes, yes! I’ve never been more sure in my entire life. Hurry!”

I finally looked behind me for the first time since I felt the pit in my stomach.

The fog was massive.

It stretched out for miles and it towered immensely over the trees. It was dense like storm clouds; I couldn’t see past it at all. My mouth dried up, and the space behind my eyes felt like it was consuming me.

The fog was fast, and rolled over itself like waves in the ocean. It was like I was a deer caught in headlights. I just stared, and couldn’t move even if I tried.

Dustin’s voice once again pulled me from my panic and I dropped to the ground. The ground was freezing, and the smell of the Earth overwhelmed my nose. I was shaking, both from the cold and fear.

I couldn’t see anyone–just the darkness behind my eyelids as I closed them shut and waited for the inevitable. I know Lucas was to my right, and Dustin was to my left, and I tried to shift my body so I could feel any sort of human contact to let me know that I wasn’t alone. But at that moment I pretty much was alone.

The feeling of the fog passing over you is almost indescribable. It’s weightless, yet dense. It’s cold, moist–every particle tickles your skin like it has tendrils snaking over your body. I was expecting to hear the chittering of creatures or the moaning of wind, but I was horrified to hear completely nothing.

I had never heard silence like that in my life.

You know how they say that you can’t hear any noise in space because there’s no vacuum? I’ve always tried to make sense as to what total silence actually sounded like. Even when you’re in total silence on Earth, you still hear the fuzziness of white noise, and even then that’s not what total silence really is.

This was what complete silence was. I don’t even think there are words in the English language that’ll help me explain to you just how silent it was. I couldn’t hear my own breathing, nor the blood rushing through my ears. There wasn’t the comforting fuzziness of white noise, nor the sounds of nature flocking by. I couldn’t even hear the sound of my own fearful whimpering. There was completely nothing.

I continued to squeeze my eyes shut, praying to whomever was watching over us to please let my friends and I pass through this unscathed. My body was starting to get sore from having every muscle in my body clenched up, in fear of accidentally moving if I relaxed. The dense fog continued to snake around me, encapsulating every inch of my body.

(write more here)

Before I left for school this morning, the phone rang in the kitchen. I answered it, and on the other line was El.

I was confused. California was three hours behind Indiana. Shouldn’t she have still been sleeping? Nevertheless, I was still happy to hear her voice.

“Hi, Mike,” she greeted, her voice soft and timid.

“El, hey,” I said. “What are you doing awake so early?”

“Are you okay?” she asked, completely dodging my question. I stood there for a second, thinking of my answer, and asking myself why she would ask that.

El had always been weird. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Her weirdness was cool. It was a highlight of her personality.

I took a second more. “I, uh… I-I’m fine, I guess,” My brows furrowed in confusion.

“Good. That’s good,”

Dead air.

“Hey, listen, uh… I’m about to head off for school, but I’ll call you later when I get home, ‘kay?” I said, but before I could hang up–

“Mike?” It was a different voice this time.

“Will?”

Why were both Will and El awake at such a random time?

“Mike,” Will said over the phone. “What’s going on over there?”

I turned my head to glance outside the kitchen window. It was a normal, dark, fall morning.

“Um… nothing?” I said. The confusion in my voice couldn’t have been any more obvious.

More dead air.

“Well, uh… just be careful today, okay?” Will said, his voice soft, but nervous.

I turned towards the wall the landline was hanging on. “Will, you’re scaring me a little,”

“I’m not trying to scare you, Michael,” he teased.

I chuckled, twisting the phone cord in my hand. “I dunno. You call me out of the blue to ask me if I’m okay and to be careful, so pardon me if I’m a little frightened,”

“Is it a crime to call my best friend to ask him how he’s doing?”

“Well, no, it’s just…” I looked outside to see if anything changed. Still normal. “It’s just random, that’s all,”

More dead air.

“Will, just tell me what’s wrong, please,”

“I’ll see you tomorrow night, Mike,”

“And then you’ll tell me what’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you everything,”

“Promise?”

“Promise, Mike,”

I heard the sound of the phone being passed to another person. “I can’t wait to see you, Mike,” El’s voice said through the receiver.

“Yeah, can’t wait to see you, too,”

“Goodbye, Mike,”

And then the line went dead, and I trudged on through the day.

Which brings me to right now, as I sit at my desk writing in this journal. I look at the clock and the time tells me it’s 11:58PM, and I have to be awake in six hours for school.

Will and El knew about the fog. They knew it was coming. They didn’t have to tell me anything explicitly as I can put two and two together and come to my own conclusion.

Whatever is going to happen, it’s going to be

Sorry, my last sentence was cut off because I heard knocking on my window. There wasn’t anyone or anything there, but it was so clear that there had to have been a source.

Anyways, I think this is a clear sign that I need to head to bed, or at least try to get some sleep.

‘Till next time, journal.

11/26/1985

Chrissy Cunningham didn’t show up to school today.

I know this because Lucas told me Jason hasn’t stopped freaking out about it.

There’s already been an influx of Missing Persons posters plastered all over town.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WOMAN? [Insert photo here] Name: Christine Cunningham, goes by Chrissy Age: 17 Height: 5’3” Weight: 120 lbs Hair: Blonde Eyes: Blue

Last seen leaving Hawkins High campus on November 25, 1985 at around 2:30PM

I have little to no doubts that Chrissy got caught up in the fog. That’s usually how most people go missing in this town. We always put up the posters yet we never find the person.

This morning, before first period, I walked by the gymnasium where I saw the basketball team comforting a distressed Jason. I stayed and watched like a creep, and then briskly walked away before they could notice I was there.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t escape the clutches that were Chrissy and Jason.

Chrissy and Jason: Did they break up?

Chrissy and Jason: Did she run away?

Chrissy and Jason: Did they fight?

Chrissy and Jason: Did he kill her?

Chrissy and Jason: Did she kill herself?

I finally decided I had enough and stormed over to the back of the stage in the cafeteria during my lunch period and sat down in the farthest, darkest corner. And because the universe won’t let me have any sort of privacy for more than five seconds, the entire Hellfire Club came in after me.

I mean, I guess it could have been worse.

“Hey man, you good?” Jeff asked me when he found my hiding spot.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I waved my hand dismissively.

“You kinda scared us when you just–” Gareth gestured. “Up and left like that,”

Dustin came over and joined me on the ground.

“I dunno. I guess I’m just sick of hearing people talk,” I said. “Especially about people I don’t care about. I don’t mean to sound morbid, but Chrissy is gone. My guess is that she got caught in the fog, got scared and didn’t know what to do, and now she’s missing,”

“Sounds like a reasonable hypothesis,” Dustin said.

The rest of the Hellfire Club joined me on the floor. We all sat in a circle in this weird, dark corner, away from the chaotic hustle of Hawkins High. However, something felt wrong, like something was missing.

“Has anyone seen Eddie today?” Grant asked.

We all shared looks. None of us have seen him.

“None of us?” Lucas asked.

“That’s… weird,” Dustin said matter-of-factly. “Why hasn’t anyone reported him missing?”

“Maybe he’s just playing hooky again,” I said. “He doesn’t have to be missing,”

“Yeah, but… the day after a fog?” Jeff shifted uncomfortably. “I dunno. Something’s up,”

I stood up. “Look, he’s probably fine. Max lives across from his trailer, so I bet that when I ask where he’s been, she’s gonna say that he’s still at home playing his guitar and smoking pot or doing whatever it is Eddie does in his free time,” I tried to come off as logical and rational, but deep down, I was a little worried, too. I mean, sure, it was a possibility that Eddie skipped, but with the fog and Chrissy going missing, I couldn’t help but to piece it together.

My next class after lunch was Geometry, which is the only class I have with Max. I sat in the desk next to her and went to say hello, but she looked glum and solemn, so I didn’t say anything at first because I didn’t want to make her mood worse. It wasn’t until halfway through class when we were working on our assignment for the day when I asked her about Eddie’s whereabouts. She looked at me like I was stupid, which was not an uncommon look from her.

“What do you mean?” she asked. I was confused.

“I mean, have you seen him?” I asked. “Y’know, since you two are neighbors,”

Max slowly shook her head. “No. His van was already gone before I left this morning. Are you sure he’s not here?”

I reassured that I was sure Eddie wasn’t at school, which then, as it always is with our conversations, escalated into an argument about how I shouldn’t assume she knows everything. I argued back that that was not what I was doing at all, and then we got shushed by the teacher, and we continued the conversation in whispers.

“Look, I’m not worried about your adult friend who plays games with teenagers. If you’re that bent up about it, then go look for him yourself. I have other things I need to worry about,” she glared before going back to working on triangles.

I went to say something back, but I decided against it. I knew something had been already bothering her today, and I didn’t want to push her further. I focused on getting my workload finished so I didn’t have anything else to worry about for the rest of the break, and I could primarily focus on spending time with my friends and family.

The school day came and went, and before I knew it, I was waiting outside the airplane terminal awaiting the arrival of my best friend.

Will Byers.

Will is my best friend. I consider myself to have multiple best friends, but I guess in my case, Will is my best, best friend. I’ve known him the longest, and I have the deepest connection to him. He’s very artistic, and because of that, he also thinks artistically. He’s always looking for something new to translate onto his canvas. Always pointing out colors everywhere he goes. “That’s a really nice shade of green,” he would say, and also, “Hm, I don’t like that color combination–here’s how I would do it,” and so on and so forth.

I’ve always liked his drawings. Every time he brings me a new piece of art, I hang it onto my basement wall. It’s basically an art museum now: The Wheeler Museum of Byers’s Art, or something like that. I really did find it fascinating watching him grow from scribbling with crayons on construction paper to sketching in a sketchbook to using acrylics on an actual canvas. Right before he left for California, my parting gift to him was a set of watercolor paints (they were really expensive, but I’ll never tell him that, because he’ll feel bad, and then I’ll feel bad) and I’m still wondering if he had used them yet. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he opened the present; it was like a light turned on behind his eyes, because I swear I saw them brighten, and then his face flashed a huge, toothy smile. He gave me a huge, tight hug right after thanking me a million times.

On the day he left, I sobbed in my bed, thinking about that hug. That is also something I’ll never tell him.

Now this time, as I sat there waiting in front of the airport terminal, I didn’t bring a gift for him. Not because I forgot or I didn’t want to, but because I think visiting home is a gift in itself. No, that doesn’t sound stupid, because it’s true. Okay, maybe it does sound stupid, but you’re a journal, so you don’t get an opinion, and even if you did, I wouldn’t care about it.

I should also probably mention that the entire Byers-Hopper family was coming to Hawkins for Thanksgiving. We have Will Byers, and then Will’s mom, Joyce, and Will’s older brother, Jonathan. And then we have Jim Hopper, former Hawkins police chief and Will and Jonathan’s stepfather, and then Jane Eleanor Hopper, Jim’s adopted daughter, who we all call El for short.

El is weird, like I stated before, but I’m totally okay with it. Weird is cool. I’m weird. Will’s weird. My whole friend group is weird. We’ve seen weird things. It’s in our nature to be weird. But she’s almost, like, supernaturally weird. Sometimes I convince myself that she has otherworldly powers that she never thought to tell me about. Wouldn’t be the first weird thing to come out of Hawkins, that’s for sure.

As time approached their arrival, I felt myself get more and more anxious, like my nerves were on fire. My palms were sweating, I was antsy, my body ached–I didn’t know nervousness could manifest in physical ways like body aches. I remember Nancy slapping me lightly on the shoulder and telling me that my leg bouncing was getting on her nerves, like I cared! And then my mom told me to stop bouncing my leg, then I stopped.

When the plane landed and the passengers came spilling out of the gate, I stood up and lasered in on everyone that I saw, waiting for my friends to make their appearance. I couldn’t contain my smile on my face when I saw Joyce and Hopper come out. I knew then that it was only a matter of time.

And then Will Byers came into full view.

And my breath caught in my throat.

We immediately locked eyes as soon as he came out of the terminal, and he made a B-Line towards me and me only. We hugged. He smelled like the Sun.

“It’s really good to see you, Mike,” Will said into my shoulder. I think he hugged me tighter.

“Yeah… yeah, it’s good to see you, too,” I said, feeling my fingers on the material of Will’s shirt.

He was the first one to pull away from the hug, and his hazel eyes bore into mine. I could have sworn he grew an inch or two, but of course I was still taller. His hair was shorter, too. Maybe his voice was a little deeper, I don’t know. Despite all these changes, this was Will, and it’ll always be Will.

The booming voice of Hopper broke us away from the moment, and he, too, gave me a hug. Then Jonathan gave me a hug, then Joyce, then El.

“I’m really happy to see you,” El said with a smile. “I’ve missed you a lot,”

“I’m glad you’re here,” I replied.

When Will’s hair went shorter, El’s hair grew longer. It must have been down to her collarbones at this point, rolling down in deep-brown waves that crashed into her cream sweater. She grew a little taller, as well.

We finished up the reunion and all flocked back to my house to further catch up with one another. The adults naturally grouped up while Will, El, and I hung out in my basement. Jonathan, who was another one of my sister’s previous lover-boys, took Nancy out on a platonic date to catch up with each other alone.

The rest of the gang–Lucas, Dustin, and Max–were going to join us later to hang out like old times, but for now, it was just us three.

We all sat there in my basement–Will and I on the couch, and El on a foldable chair–talking about what things we got up to during our months apart. Will told me about this painting club he joined at his school, and how he has learned a lot in such a short amount of time. He told me about how he actually submitted a piece into a competition at some art museum back in Lenora, and how he’s still waiting to hear back. I have a good feeling he’s going to win.

El told me that she, too, had taken a liking to arts and crafts. She makes collages out of old books and magazines and posters. She said she enjoys seeing random things come together to make a picture. It’s satisfying and fulfilling, she said.

El reached into her backpack and took out one of her most recent collages to show me: It was on a 9x11 piece of deep purple construction paper, and on it were randomly cut-out photos of space, nebulas, stars, and astronauts all glued together in an organized chaotic way. It was really well done, but as I read the quotes that were pasted onto the collage, I felt… uneasy? Uncomfortable?

“For thin is the veil betwixt man and the godless deep” “Strange abominations pass evermore between earth and moon and athwart the galaxies” “And I know not where the horror will end”

I think my uneasiness translated onto my face because El asked if I was okay.

I cleared my throat awkwardly. “Yeah! Yeah, I’m good,” I stared at the collage once more then back at El to pass it back to her. “This is really good, El. You have a good eye for these sorts of things,”

She thanked me for the compliment with a dimpled smile.

As nonchalantly as I could, I asked her, “May I ask where you got your inspiration from?”

El smirked mischievously. “It came to me in a dream,”

Good to know her wittiness has improved, but that still tells me nothing.

“Do you have anything to drink?” El asked. I told her there was freshly made apple cider upstairs and she excused herself to get a glass, which then left Will and I alone together.

He looked at me with a smile, his hands on his knees clad in denim. I smiled back at him, confused at the sudden sweat accumulating on my palms. I hadn’t forgotten our phone call from the previous morning, and how Will owed me an explanation for his weirdness, but I had no idea how to bring it up without sounding too forward.

“You’re probably wondering why I was acting weird on the phone yesterday,” Will said,

Well, that was easier than expected.

I shifted on the couch so my body was facing forward toward Will. “Hey, no worries,” I said. “I guess I just found it… odd that you were calling so early in the morning. And you were being pretty cryptic about it,”

“Yeah, I’m really sorry,”

“Well, don’t apologize, Will,” I chuckled and shook my head, my voice quieting without me noticing. “But, if you want to, you can talk to me,”

It was obvious to me that Will was having some trouble trying to put his feelings into words, whether they were too absurd or too complicated, I don’t know. I watched as his hands slowly clenched into fists that rested on his knees, and his eyes flicked upwards to my basement ceiling.

I tried to add some encouragement. “You can tell me anything, Will–I won’t judge,”

With a sigh, Will started.

“I had… a nightmare, I think,” he said. “It was so strange, like I knew I was in a dream, but it felt so… it felt way too vivid to just be something fake, you know?” He turned to look at me. “Are you… are you sure you want to hear it?”

I nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course,”

Will looked at his fists for a moment before starting.

“It was… weird,” he began. “It felt like the type of dream you’d have if you were sick. This kind of absurdity is something you’ll only think of when you have a fever. Remember when I got the flu when I was eight and I kept having those dreams about those mutated frogs? It was along those lines of crazy, but this time, it was just… there was just something more here. I was in Hawkins, right in the middle of the woods. It was dark, and cold… I felt so unbearably alone. And I was terrified. I couldn’t move. I wanted to scream for help, but no matter how much I tried, nothing came out. And then…” Will’s eyes grew more haunted, and his voice more feeble. “And then I looked around me, and… I saw you guys, but you guys weren’t normal. You, Lucas, Dustin, and Max… you guys were covered in this cocoon of tendrils and slime, completely mangled and stuck on the body of the trees. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Everyone’s mouths were open, like everyone was screaming, and then I looked up and there was… El,”

“El?”

“El was… she was just floating there; up in the night sky. She was so high up, I barely recognized her at first. Her hands were open at her sides and she was staring straight ahead. The sky was pitch black, except for maybe a few stars. But I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I could only stare at her just… floating there,”

Will paused for a moment. I wasn’t sure at the moment if I should have stopped Will or let him keep going. I was getting uncomfortable listening to Will describe his nightmare in such horrific detail, but I know it must have been worse for him to recount it all. I looked down and I saw that his hand was shaking. I didn’t know what to do, so I put my hand on top of it and held it.

I don’t know why I did that, but it felt like the most natural thing to do. Will looked at me in surprise and I met his eyes.

I felt the pit in my stomach again.

I nodded towards him. “Hey, it’s okay,”

He nodded as well before continuing, looking back down at his knees. “It felt like I spent an eternity just staring at her. As I watched, I saw something shift behind her in the sky. At first I didn’t know what it was, and then it clicked. This… enormous eye–big enough to fill the sky–opened and stared straight at me, and as the eye opened, El’s mouth opened with it, and thick, black smoke poured out of her mouth, and then, uh…” he pressed his lips together and looked back at me. “Then I woke up,”

A silence filled the room as we stared at each other, taking in the horror story that Will just shared. We both looked down at our hands holding, and slowly retracted away from each other. It felt like I finally came back to reality, realized what I was doing, then shifted on the couch once more to face forward.

This is something I’ll have to think about later.

“That’s, uh… sounds terrifying,” I said, a desperate attempt to fill the silence.

“Yeah,”

Geez, the air felt so heavy at that moment.

“Do you have any idea what this could mean?” I asked.

Will opened his mouth to speak, but just stammered.

“Azathoth,” El said from the basement stairs.

The sudden voice startled the both of us, and our eyes shot up to see El sitting on the stairs with a glass of apple cider in her hands.

I was confused. “Aza… who?”

“Azathoth,” El repeated. “The eye in Will’s nightmare, it belongs to Azathoth,”

I was even more confused. “I don’t know who Azathoth is,”

“It’s a lot to explain,” she said, rising from the stairs and walking towards us. “I don’t wanna say anything until we’re all together,”

Kids meet up

El explains Azathoth

Go to woods to find Eddie

“What… the hell?” Dustin lasered in on this specific tree, his eyes searching the bark up and down. I looked at El who looked viscerally uncomfortable.

“What do you see?” I asked, hesitating to shine my light on it.

“Dustin, we can’t see in the dark,” Lucas said.

Dustin threw his hand up as if to tell us to quiet down. We did, only the sounds of the night filling our ears. In the dark of the night, I watched as Dustin cautiously raised his hand and planted it on the body of the tree.

A disturbing, sticky sound was heard by everyone. I grimaced in disgust.

Dustin took his hand off and he just stood there, staring at his hand.

“What… what was that?” Max asked.

Dustin was silent for a moment. “It’s… it’s warm… and thick,”

“What the f…” Will’s words trailed off.

After another agonizing moment of silence, Dustin took his flashlight and shined it on his hand.

A red, viscous liquid was covering the entirety of Dustin’s palm.

“Is that–” Will began.

“Blood,” I finished.

Dustin looked at us with fear in his eyes. “Wh-Why the hell are the trees bleeding?” his voice trembled.

No one spoke.

“Guys… why the hell are the trees bleeding?” Dustin’s voice echoed off the trees, and in the distance there was a horrible scream followed by a roar. The roaring sounded like multiple voices stacked on top of each other, creating a horrible, dissonant harmony. We all, in unison, turned and shined our flashlights in the direction of the noise.

“Chrissy?” Lucas asked.

Then the scream turned into two screams.

Then three.

Then four.

Then five, until there was an entire horrible choir of blood-curdling screams filling up the woods.

I covered my ears to block out the horrifying sound, but that did absolutely nothing. The screams were in my head, behind my eyes, in the back of my brain. I didn’t hear Will screaming at me to run until I felt a slap on my shoulder.

My legs are incredibly tall and thin, so I couldn’t run without stumbling a few times, but Will made sure to stay with me so I wouldn’t get left behind.

“Come on!” Lucas shouted.

The sound of Max’s panicked breathing and whimpers came from the left of me while El’s heaving came from my right.

“To Mike’s!” Dustin shouted. “Make a b-line to Mike’s house!”

My lungs were already on fire at this point. Each breath was a sharp pain right in the middle of my chest. My legs were shaking. I didn’t know how much longer I could have kept running. My eyes squinted in a pained grimace and it was so, so dark. I was lagging behind, but I couldn’t catch up even if I tried.

“Mike!” Will shouted.

I closed my eyes and forced myself to push through the burning in my legs, but that just meant I didn’t see the figure that came t-boning right into my side. It was large, fast, and I instantly collided with the ground beneath me, the wind completely knocked out of me.

I wheezed and coughed as I trembled back onto my feet. In my haze, I shined my light towards the figure that ran into me, expecting to see some horrible abomination, but instead it was–

“Eddie?” I wheezed.

I watched as Eddie scrambled to his feet, frantically apologizing as he helped me to mine. “Sorry, so sorry, Wheeler. I’m sorry,”

I could barely breathe, and yet in a matter of seconds I was running again. Pained breaths and gasps escaped my mouth as I navigated the dark forest to the best of my ability.

You can probably imagine the horror on my mom’s face when she saw a bunch of teenagers stumbling into her house, gasping for air.

A couple of “Sorry, Mrs. Wheeler”s later and we were all regrouped in my basement. We chugged water as we regulated our bodies from the sudden amount of exercise we just participated in. For a while, the only thing I could hear was the breathing of my friends. It’s like no one dared to say a word. No one wanted to speak up in case whatever was out there in the woods caught up to our hideout.

I watched as Dustin stood up and looked at the coagulated blood on his palm. He swallowed before speaking. “I’m, uh… I’m gonna go wash my hands,”

I breathed. “Yeah… yeah, that’s fine,”

Dustin stared at his hand the entire time as he walked towards the bathroom in my basement to wash up. As he disappeared behind the door, Max leaned forward on the couch.

“So who’s gonna be the first to explain what the hell just happened?” Max’s voice was small, yet firm. “Hm? I mean, I’ve only been living here for a little over a year, so I’m not exactly caught up on the mythology of this town yet,” she turned her attention to Eddie. “And what were you doing out there?”

“The same reason you guys were out there,” Eddie answered. “Looking for answers,”

“We thought you were dead, man,” Lucas said.

Eddie shook his head. “Nope. Still alive and kicking,”

“Jesus, what the hell was all that?” Lucas leaned back into the foldable chair, his hands clasped on the top of his head.

I looked over at Will who was looking over at Eddie.

They start piecing things together

El suggests they do the banishing ritual

11/27/1985

“I don’t like the trees,” El once said to me about a year ago.

We had been strolling in the woods for about an hour at that point, the sun slowly setting on another gloomy, fall day. It was just the three of us: Me, Will, and El, as we were enjoying our last moments of Thanksgiving break before we had to go back to school the next morning.

I looked at her, perplexed. “Heh, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t like the trees,” she repeated, emphasizing that that was exactly what she meant. “Do you know what I mean by that?”

I furrowed my brows and told her that I in fact did not know what she meant by that. I watched as El also furrowed her brows, looked over to Will who shook his head, then looked back to me.

“I still don’t like the trees. They’re like…” she thought for a moment. “They breathe,” She stopped walking to take a detour to the tree on her left then planted her palm on the bark. I looked over at Will to confirm if he was just as confused as I was. He shrugged at me.

The bitter, autumn wind blew swiftly through El’s brown curls that sat on top of her head. Her fingertips traced the crevices of the tree bark all the way down to its roots. She stayed there, crouched on the ground, staring.

“Roots,” she said. “Go deep underground,” My eyes followed as her fingers pointed to the roots of another tree. “All connected,” she stood back and walked back onto the path we were previously on. “It’s like they’re watching our every move… dreaming,”

Creepy.

Without saying another word, El kept walking further into the woods, and Will and I followed behind.

I distinctly remember the air that day being crisp and dry, like all the moisture was sucked out with a vacuum. My nose was starting to sting from the cold. I sniffled, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my coat and letting the crunch of the leaves fill my eyes.

I looked over at Will who stared at his feet as he walked. I guess I could describe his gait as more of a kicking than a walking, as if he was bored or his mind was occupied by something else other than walking. I could tell his nose and cheeks were starting to flush. I figured it was almost time to head back inside.

“Do you really think the trees are alive?” Will asked me. I couldn’t pick up on his tone so I was clueless on whether he was playing around or not.

“Uh…” I thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I mean, I guess everything is alive in one way or another, if you take biology into account. Trees have to eat nutrients just like the rest of us,”

Will looked up and ahead. “Sounds about right,”

We both watched El continue to lead the way, her head swiveling all around to take in the foliage around her. The sun was setting slowly, casting an orange filter over the environment. I watched as El’s curious hands tugged on the low-hanging branches and picked off the crispy leaves, and then she stopped walking to turn around to face us.

“If tree branches are arms, then the leaves must be the hands,” she said.

I didn’t know what to say. “Yeah, totally,”

“Mike, I’m being serious,” she looked sad, and also annoyed. Her fist closed around the leaf and she walked up towards Will and I. “I’m not talking stupid, so I would like for you to stop looking at me like I am talking stupid,”

“I am?” That question was genuine. I had no idea what kind of face I was making. El then sighed and hung her head, and continued to walk forward.

I looked over at Will for answers, since he knew her better than me.

“Well, you were looking at her like she was stupid,” Will said with a shrug.

“I wasn’t trying to,” I said, defensively.

The two of us continued walking through the leaves.

The thing about El is that even though I consider her to be a close friend, there’s still a bunch about her that I don’t know, and I still don’t know to this day. Even now in the present day, there’s so much mystery to her that I have yet to figure out. My hypothesis about her having powers might not be too far from the truth.

Will nudged me as we walked, breaking me out of my thoughts. I heard him start to laugh and I quickly caught on to what he was doing, so I nudged him back. He laughed even louder, and so did I. He nudged me even harder, causing me to stumble a bit.

“Dude, stop! You’re gonna make me fall and break my neck,” I laughed.

“You’re seriously gonna fall over from being pushed by someone shorter than you?” Will teased. I slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Have you thought about high school at all?” he asked.

I chuckled. “Well that’s a random question,”

“No, I’m being serious,” Will stopped to turn towards me. “I mean… this is our last year of middle school, and then it’s, y’know… off to the next step,”

“You mean high school?” I asked.

“Aren’t you scared? Like at all?”

Both of our eyes caught each other. I thought for a moment.

“I mean, I guess I am a little scared. Hawkins High is definitely a step higher than Hawkins Middle. I don’t think they even have an A/V club there,” I said. “It definitely won’t be the same,”

Will’s face fell, but I didn’t know why. I knew that the idea of going to high school was scary, but I didn’t think it would have affected Will this much. I furrowed my brows in confusion and asked what was wrong.

Will shrugged. “It’s just scary! I mean, what if our friend group falls apart. What if you find, like, uh, a cooler, smarter friend that you’ll like more than me? What if Dustin finds something else that he likes? What if Lucas and Max completely separate from us? What then? There’s so many things that could happen and I can’t stand to think about,”

“But that won’t happen!” I said, trying my hardest to reassure my best friend. “We will always stick together. We’re adventurers, through and through. Nothing will ever tear us apart, especially not you and me. I mean, we’ll be at the same school and still see each other every day; that should mean something, right?”

“Mike–”

“There’s nothing to be worried about!”

“Mike, I’m moving to California next summer,”

. . .

I can sit here, and say with full confidence, that that was the very first time I experienced heartbreak.

I searched every inch of Will’s face for any sign that he wasn’t being serious, but his eyes confirmed it–apologetic, heartbroken. My heart dropped, and my vision became blurry with tears. I cried into my pillow that night.

Joyce had an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity that would have been absolutely insane to pass up. The Byers always had it rough, in which Joyce and Jonathan were always working to provide themselves with enough money to eat and keep warm.

The guilt of being angry with Will for leaving me festered inside of me for months.

Mike continues to explain his friendship with Will and his feelings

Mike has unsavory encounters with the monsters

The kids find Dr. Brenner’s journal entries

11/28/1985

Dr. Martin Brenner was a well-respected, accomplished, and appraised historian until he wasn’t.

There were dozens of journal entries, many of which were just mindless scribbles of madness, completely undecipherable.

Brenner was responsible for waking up Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth sometime in the mid 60s

Former historian

Found old journal entries with step-by-step instructions on how to call upon these gods to “improve quality of life”

Became to be Yog-Sothoth’s avatar

Went crazy

El’s biological father, “continuing the legacy”

Killed in freak accident when El was eight

El finally stood up for herself and refused to be used for another ritual

The ritual went wrong and Brenner was killed

The first fog came because Yog-Sothoth was angry that his avatar was dead

Terry Ives is El’s biological mother

Archaeologist

Was on same trip Brenner went on when he found out about the gods

Noticed his descent in madness and wanted to leave

Killed

El has a connection to the gods

Adopted by Hopper soon after Brenner died

Was often used in rituals Brenner performed to appease the gods and make them happy

Taking her blood, having her make contact with the gods using her mind

The main key to banishing the gods, must be the center of the banishing ritual

12/1/1985

Mike explains the gap in entries and begins to tell the story of the ritual

As soon as El begins the incantation, Mike immediately feels that something is wrong

He wants to stop the ritual, but when he opens his eyes and turns around, everyone is GONE

He then hears the voice of a much younger Will calling his name and turns to the source of the sound

He sees he’s clouded in fog and he sees his 12 y/o self screaming for Will’s name

He watches as he and Will call for each other until 12 y/o Mike finally catches up to Will, but is horrified to watch as black, slimy tendrils quickly wrap around Will and snatch him away right in front of Mike.

Mike continues to watch his younger self scream and run around for Will until younger Mike finally collapses to the ground and cowers in fear. The fog dissipates. Will is nowhere to be seen.

Mike turns around and watches another scene of Mike crying into his mother’s shoulders while she soothes him and tells him that everything is going to be okay

Mike turns around once and watches a scene where him, Lucas, Dustin, and El are searching for Will

Will appears seemingly out of nowhere; dazed, confused, and pale

They have an emotional reunion

Mike turns around and sees the bear with Will’s eyes again, standing upright and human-like, just staring at him

Mike shouts at the bear, but nothing happens

Then a bunch of black, slimy tendrils come out of the ground and wrap around Mike and pull him through the ground. He falls and hits the ground in a new plane of existence.

Something was wrong. I couldn’t hear the incantation from El anymore and I felt like I was being watched by hundreds of creatures. My hands were sweating, and the urge to open my eyes and turn around was unbelievably tempting.

I thought back to what Dr. Brenner’s entries said about the ritual, to not turn around no matter what.

When I got up, I was not where I was a few moments ago, or at least I was in a poor copy of my previous surroundings. The ground looked fine, but as I looked up, the more nonsensical my environment became. The trees grew in distortion. They warped and wrapped around each other in impossible shapes. The mistiness of the night was replaced with cold nebulas of space–pinks, golds, purples, and reds swirled in incredible display, sparkling the sky and the tops of the trees. I was alone in this phantasmagorical hellscape.

I started walking.

I can’t describe what this other reality/dimension/world sounded like. It sounded like nothing, yet there was a persistent low frequency humming in my ears. When I walked, the leaves crunched beneath me like normal.

I continued to walk.

There was no sign of anyone in this world. I tried calling out for their names, but I was met with nothing. Not even an echo nor the roar of a beast. It felt like it was getting even colder. When I looked behind me, the view was reminiscent of an infinite mirror–copies of the same view going on forever and ever. I looked back in front of me.

I continued to walk.

I quickly lost track of time. I don’t even think time passed in that world. Time isn’t even real, is it? It’s just a theory after all.

I continued to walk.

I started to feel like I was going to be walking forever.

I continued to walk.

I accepted that I was the only one here.

I continued to walk.

I thought that my surroundings were starting to loop.

I continued to walk.

I was never going to see my friends again.

I continued to walk.

And I walked.

Hours passed by of meaningless walking when I finally saw the first change in my surroundings. At that moment, I knew where I was at. I was getting close to my house.

I broke into a sprint, calling out “Hello?”s as I gradually made my way closer to my home. I looked inside the windows. All the lights were off. The doors were locked.

It took me a while, but I managed to climb up to my bedroom window. The interior was obscured by my curtains, so in an effort to get the attention of whoever was inside, I started tapping with my fingernail.

Nothing.

I tapped on the window again.

Still, nothing.

I was starting to get frustrated, so I took it up a notch and started knocking with my fist. A few seconds later, I was face to face with myself.

Not a monster. Not an entity.

Myself.

I watched as I looked confused outside the window, searching for the source of the insistent knocking on my bedroom window. I knocked again, and I watched as I jumped backwards in fright.

I looked inside my bedroom, and there I saw an open journal on my desk.

I stared in astonishment before climbing back down to further search the world that I was in, occasionally calling for somebody–anybody–to make themselves known.

Mike takes a walk around the “phantasmagorical hellscape” until he eventually meets back up with Will

Mike makes a tearful apology for not remembering what happened and also apologizes for not saving him

Will: “Mike, you did everything you could to find me. That’s all that matters. You’re here now. We’re both here–together.”

Mike comes to terms with his feelings and his feelings are reciprocated!

Annnd KISS!

They find the others

They walk around until they come across The Trees

This is where they find the missing people + Chrissy fused into the trees, moaning in pain and begging for help/mercy

They find El, still reciting the incantation

Yog-Sothoth makes his presence know and everyone except El shields their eyes, and she finishes him off

Big explosion of light and space and general phantasmagoria

They all wake up in the normal world lying on ground in the forest, found by older kids

12/24/1985

Hey, journal–it’s been a while. Almost a month to be exact.

You’re probably holding your breath in anticipation that I’m about to announce some horrible happening that occurred in between my last journal entry to now, but prepare to be underwhelmed, because there’s nothing to report.

So think of this as a wellness update of some sort, or an epilogue.

It’s Christmas Eve, and I can smell gingerbread cookies baking in the kitchen. The rest of the adults are having an indistinct conversation somewhere upstairs, and I am watching Will Byers fighting to keep his eyes open as he lays on my couch in my basement.

He just told me that he was going to stay awake long enough to make gingerbread houses with everyone, but alas, I am watching as those light, hazel eyes grow heavier and heavier with each blink. My couch isn’t even that comfortable, but that dork is curled up and tucked in like a newborn baby. I’m not mad that he’s flaking on our holiday plans to go off to Dreamland and dance with A-list celebrities while his teeth fall out; it’s just going to be difficult to wake him up and lug him up the stairs.

I will say, it does get pretty cold down here, especially during the winter. Today I had a snowball fight with the whole gang. I’m not going to elaborate on who won or lost. I’ll just say that I put up a good fight, and my god can Max throw like a monster. By the time we were done, all of us were cold and wet and covered in snow from head to toe (hey that rhymed!). We were treated with some extraordinary hot chocolate made by my mom, and we quickly warmed up in new changes of clothes. It was such a… normal thing we did. Not like we don’t do normal things, but considering the events that transpired last month, I’m happy that we were normal.

I had to take a pause in writing this entry, because I don’t know how to smoothly transition into my next talking point. It’s difficult trying to ease in from talking about snowball fights into the ramifications of post-god-banishment.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? There is no way to ease into these types of things. When I started this journal, it was a hit-the-ground-running-type scenario, and all the weird stuff happened immediately. I was thrown into this situation, and whoever is reading this, you were, too.

So no, there is no way to ease into things.

Banishing the gods wasn’t a clean task. It came at a price, and my friends and I are still paying it. I still have nights where I can’t sleep, or I hear tapping on my window only to realize it was just my imagination. I haven’t stepped foot in the woods since that night, and I don’t think I will for a while. Whenever I stare up at the night sky, I get the same pit in my stomach I felt on the day of the fog. An existential dread of massive proportion fills my brain and the darkness behind my eyes. The universe is endless, infinite; there is no end in sight. Who knows what else is lurking in the dark corners of space and time? A new messiah will step foot into Hawkins, and chaos and evil will rain down once more. Maybe a new group of friends will step in to stop the horrors, or maybe it’ll have to be up to us once more. Each star in the sky is an eye, forever watching the lives of every living being in this galaxy, waiting for its next era of terror. I get the sense that it’s not over. It’ll never truly be over, and it’ll be a problem for me to handle next year, or it’ll outlive me, and the next millennia of humans will fix it. I don’t know.

But tonight, I don’t have to know. I don’t have to worry about it, because right here, as I watch my boyfriend drool all over our throw pillows, I have a definite feeling that I am safe, and safety is all I could ever ask for. There are unspeakable horrors that live in the darkest corners of our reality, but tonight there are no monsters, or screaming, or fog. Tonight, I can just be a boy in love on a snowy Christmas Eve.

That’s it. And the gingerbread cookies smell amazing.

El still hasn’t told me what she saw when everyone went down, and I’ve found my peace with the fact that I’ll probably never know. All I care about is her wellbeing. Right now, I can hear her and Hopper loudly dancing and singing to Wham!’s “Last Christmas”. It’s interfering with my concentration on writing, but it’s way too funny to think of it as a nuisance. Hopper is hilariously off-key, and El sounds out of breath from dancing.

I could go up there and join in on the fun, but I’m content sitting here, writing in my journal, listening to Will’s soft breathing.

Right now, I am happy.

Will just woke up, actually, asking me if it was time to make the gingerbread houses. Yet again, the pit in my stomach came back, but this time it was filled with butterflies. I smiled and told him yes. He was relieved he didn’t miss out on our holiday festivities.

For now, this journal has come to a close, and now I’m going to spend time with the people I love.

I guess you can call this the end.

#icymi ♥︎

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suspiriuums · 20 hours ago