Hey, all!

Three things:

-I hope you're all surviving quarantine

-I've finally hit 3k words on a chapter for the first time ever xD

-Hope you like! Please R&R!

The three boys were so stunned by the rupture that had just cascaded through the hall, they'd stopped running, suddenly surrounded by the ruins of a corridor which had been pristine only moments ago.

"What the hell was that?" Lucas muttered into the silence.

"I don't know," Dustin said nervously, thinking they'd best get out of here. He wasn't sure if they were going towards the exit, or away from it, but having any plan was better than no plan at all. "I think we should–"

His sentence was cut short when an explosion in the near distance shook the entire ground. All three of them stumbled in their attempt to stay upright.

"–not go that way," he finished.

The others were still too busy processing what had just happened, so Will was the first one to hear it: loud crackling, coming from where they'd heard the explosion.

"Hey." He hit Dustin's arm to get his attention. "Is that… Is that fire?"

His question was answered for him when the crackling began to increase in volume which meant, he could only assume, it was getting bigger. It began to roar, overwhelming their ears.

Will had been to a couple of bonfires in his life. But they'd always been a calming presence, kept under control while everyone mellowly celebrated whatever the occasion was. This one, however, sounded threatening. It was here to spread violence, not happiness.

"Oh my god," Dustin gasped. "Something's on fire!"

"We need to leave," Lucas shouted. "We need to leave right now!"

"But what about everyone else?" Will protested. "My mom and brother, and Mike and El–"

Whatever he said next was drowned out when something that sounded scarily like part of the building collapsed not far away from them. It churned and rumbled as it collided with another stratum of concrete.

Will was wrong. The fire wasn't getting bigger. It was coming closer towards them. And this wasn't even the worst part. It appeared to be taking the building down with it.

Next to them, cracks began to grow on the walls, ceiling and floor, like an angry ghost was dragging a sharp knife through them in unsynchronized zigzags.

The boys watched it happen, wondering how things had gotten so chaotic in less than sixty seconds. Completely lost for any idea of what to do other than stare in horror, they had forgotten their plans of running away.

"Hey! Hey guys!" Steve called out, causing them all to snap out of their trance and turn around.

He'd run straight after them, once the wave had taken care of the guards. And for a moment, his soul had almost left his body when he heard the explosion, but after hearing the boys yelling, he realized they were fine. But whatever that explosion was, it had set off a chain of macabre reactions they were now going to have to somehow survive. Great.

"Steve?" Dustin questioned with alarm, but also relief. "Did you hear–?"

"Yes! Come on, let's go!" Steve waved his hand impatiently for them to follow him.

Tearing their eyes away from the cracking walls, they made a mad dash towards him. This was soon verified to be a bad idea.

Lucas saw it first. "Wait, stop!" The other two complied out of surprise. The ground in front of their feet started to break as the vicious cracks patterned the marble. It then crumbled away, tumbling through the air, and leaving a vast empty space between them and their escape.

The pieces landed with a heavy thud on the floor below, now utterly useless. They looked up at Steve in fear.

"Stay there, I'm gonna get help!" the teen reassured them, and sprinted away, leaving them in a collapsing peril.

"It was close!" Joyce insisted when they reached the top of the stairs. "I know it."

"Joyce, whoever it was, they could have disappeared by now," Hopper suggested calmly, as they continued to be greeted by empty corridors. He kept his guard up and his gun raised just in case, since Joyce was not acting very alert. "The gunshot could have been an accident, and no one was hurt–"

His words were immediately proven wrong when the scene they'd been looking for came into view – two familiar people crouching on either side of someone with ebony black hair, blood seemingly everywhere. They both stopped. Hopper slowly lowered his gun, turning numb as he realized what he had let happen.

Joyce gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. "Oh no…" The situation in front of her, including the dead body of Dr Brenner in the background, painted a perfect picture of what had happened.

Nancy looked up, her eyes desperate. "Please, he needs to–"

"I know, kid," Hopper said, not hesitating to kneel beside El.

The younger girl looked completely lost as to what was happening. In her defense, Nancy hadn't answered her question. She still had every reason to be terrified.

"Mom!" Jonathan ran forward to embrace her.

"Oh thank god." Joyce breathed a sigh of relief and returned the hug. She then paused and looked around, realizing that not everyone was present. "The boys!" she blurted out. "Where are they?"

As if on que, Steve appeared abruptly from around the corner and skidded to a halt, out of breath. It took him a few tries to start talking. "Fire!" he gasped. "The building's on fire!"

Hopper turned to look at him. "What?"

No one had been paying any attention before, but it was suddenly very hard to ignore the fire vigorously burning in the distance. They all looked questioningly at El, but she seemed just as surprised as the rest of them by this new revelation.

"There was…" Steve continued breathlessly. "…an explosion. The… The kids! They're trapped."

Hopper nodded. "Alright, we need to go find them–"

"Hop!" Joyce argued, her voice firm. "You have to get Mike out, okay? Take Nancy too. I'll find the boys." She would have preferred to send everyone out, but Steve was the only one who knew where the kids were, and Jonathan wouldn't leave his brother behind, and Eleven… well…

With a heavy heart, Hopper knew she was right. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't rescue everyone at the same time.

He lifted Mike up, Nancy's jacket in tow, and what worried him was the boy didn't even jolt. He stayed limp, right arm dangling, head lolling, mouth partially open, eyes shut – Hopper feared – forever. He could already feel his shirt getting damp with blood, the amount still steadily growing.

Mike's hand was wrenched from El's grasp – she hadn't realized she'd been holding onto it until just now. She automatically began to follow, like a magnet was drawing her along with its gravitational pull.

"El…" Nancy shook her head. "Dustin and Lucas and Will need you." When the girl's stance remained stoic, Nancy realized she would have to answer El's question. "He's going to be okay… I promise."

El hesitated at that word. She wanted to argue but she knew there wasn't time. It was far away but she could hear the fire, taunting her as it destroyed the Lab with the power that she had given it.

Since that's all she could do. She could only destroy. She couldn't fix. She couldn't help Mike. Because as much as she was admired and envied for her powers, as much as they were considered useful or 'cool', they couldn't save anyone.

Nancy ran after Hopper, and El let Joyce pull her away in the other direction. She couldn't bear to leave him. She'd been prepared to do it before: when she had faced the Demogorgon. But it was so much worse this time. Knowing that he was hurt. Knowing that he could be dying. Knowing he might not still be here when she came back. It didn't just break her heart; it shattered it.

The closer they got towards the epicenter of the fire, the more obvious it was that the building was falling apart. Through the many holes in the demolished plaster, El could see the fire raging in nearby rooms and corridors. It wasn't upon them yet, but it was only a matter of time. Flames licked at the walls around them, slowly breaking down the ligaments which held it together until it collapsed. Materials that could never in a million years catch fire were lit up like paper.

This was no ordinary fire. She knew this, despite never having seen fire before. Normal fire did not carry this much emotion. But this inferno held on to the energy that El's 'wave' had passed onto it, posing an even greater danger to them all. While the wave she'd created had certain limits and priorities on what it destroyed, the fire did not care about anyone. There was no one it was trying to protect. And if they stayed here too long, no one was going to make it out.

She never meant for it to go this far. It made her wonder if this was the world's twisted way of teaching her that actions have consequences. But no matter what, El was endeavouring to save everyone from her mess.

As the four of them hurriedly ran through the corridors, it felt like they were stampeding across ice that was breaking beneath them.

"This whole thing is about to fall!" Joyce frantically shouted.

"No," El replied. Blood had already started to drip profusely from her nose. She wasn't sure how she had any energy left after her last outburst, but she was doing everything she could to hold the floor up. She tried to slow the spreading of the cracks as well, but she couldn't seem to gain control of them, as if they were possessed by a force even stronger than her.

"Are you sure this is the right way?" Joyce asked the teenage boy who was leading the group.

Steve nodded. "I think it is."

"You think?" she snapped with indignation.

"I know!" he said more assuredly. His eyes searched through the wrecked hallway, hoping to catch sight of the three boys. He could have sworn this was where he left them. Why the hell did all these corridors have to look the same?

"We're going to die!" Dustin vociferated loudly. The crackling fire, whilst not yet in their line of vision, was still a deafening presence and the cracks were growing in numbers. "We're going to die!"

"Shut up!" Lucas retorted, unwilling to jump into full-panic mode just yet. "Steve will find help–"

"We don't have time to wait for Steve!" Dustin argued. "If we want to survive, we need to find our own way out." He wasn't sure how much impact his words had, considering the floor was missing on one side of them, and fire was burning up the building on the other. It appeared as though they were trapped. Yet as his eyes wandered frantically around his surroundings, they focused on a singular door, stationed just down the corridor from him, labelled 'CAUTION'.

"Maybe we can get out through there," he muttered mostly to himself, and darted towards it before either Lucas or Will could object.

Dustin reached the door and peered through the small window separating him from the possibility of freedom. There appeared to be a large water tank in the room, but that wasn't the first thing that caught his attention.

He saw it. He saw the reason for all the monstrous things that had happened to them this past week. It lived up to his expectations of being very obvious, yet it looked more horrific than he could have ever imagined. Thick slimy tentacles coated the opening of the portal, and the entrance itself illuminated a red glow. A literal tear in space and time, right in front of him. He couldn't believe it.

He was so fixated on his discovery, he didn't see the cracks reaching the door he was pressed against, or its hinges breaking away from the wall.

"Dustin!" Will exclaimed, when he saw the door fall on his friend, and he instinctively ran to help, Lucas not far behind.

Will got perhaps a few paces before his trust in the floor was quickly broken. His foot sank into a weak part of the marble and the ground gave way, taking him down with it, his wordless scream lost amongst the crackling of the fire. He waved his hands wildly, grabbing hold of the first thing he could, which happened to be Lucas' arm.

As a sudden weight slammed Lucas into the floor, it took him a moment to realize he was the only thing stopping his friend from falling to his death.

"DUSTIN!" he roared, tightening his grip on Will's wrist. "YOU GOTTA HELP!"

Will was cold with terror, despite the persistent heat consuming him. He looked down at his dangling feet to see the raging flames only a few short meters below him. If Lucas happened to let go and drop him into that killer, that was it.

Was this how he was going to die?

Really?

After everything everyone had gone through – especially his mother – to keep him alive? Merely a few days ago, he believed his fate was 'freezing' to death inside the upside down. And Will considered this to be a little too counterproductive.

Dustin blinked groggily, as the shouts from Lucas and Will slowly came back into focus, his brain returning from its momentary hiatus. His senses finally snapped back into action and he shoved the broken door off himself.

Just as gravity was about to rip his friend away from him, Dustin hurriedly plonked himself down next to Lucas, reaching for Will's other flailing hand. Straining a little, the two boys managed to pull Will back up onto solid ground, which they could do considering he wasn't exactly the heaviest person.

But their attempts were in vain, since all they'd managed to do was prolong their safety a few seconds longer. They lay there, gasping with adrenaline, not noticing the danger that was unfolding.

Without warning, the solid ground cracked and broke apart underneath them. There wasn't time to run away or jump to safety. There was barely any time to scream before the three boys were plummeting down through the air towards their fiery fate.

Nancy reached the main exit and burst through it, holding the door open for Hopper. She looked worryingly back into the building as she heard the fire spit and roar. From the outside, she could see many of the floor levels had already succumbed to the flames, the backdrop of the night sky enlightening their rich orange color. Earth's very own hellfire.

The growing cracks looked a lot scarier from this perspective, as they littered the exterior walls too. The Lab may have been salvable after El's wave of destruction, but the fire was leaving nothing behind to save.

"El will protect them," Hopper told her, trying to convince himself as well as her. It wasn't that he didn't believe in El. He just knew she was in a dangerous situation which no twelve-year-old should ever have to be in. The same rule applied to the one in his arms.

Several guards suddenly rushed past them, one almost pushing Nancy over in his haste to escape. Hopper panicked, wondering how he was supposed to protect himself and the kids when his arms were full.

But the soldiers paid no attention to the trio. He could see from their panic-stricken faces that they were only focused on getting out alive. A lot of them were injured themselves. Perhaps from the wave, or perhaps from the fire which followed it. They raced towards the vehicles they had brought with them and began the flurry of fumbling with keys, blasting absurd amounts of gas, speeding away from the disaster behind them, never to look back on the hellish nightmare their careers had so abruptly turned into.

As much as Hopper hated to see them getting away with what they'd done, he knew that justice was currently not his main priority.

He reached his own vehicle – even in the pitch blackness he could easily distinguish it from the others – Nancy already set on climbing into the backseat. "Here." Hopper gently passed the kid to her, ignoring the red stains that were left covering his sleeves. "You got him? Okay." He shut the backdoor and opened the front one, wasting no time in getting the car into action.

"It's gonna be alright," Nancy said quietly to the unconscious boy lying with his head on her lap, as Hopper slammed the gas. They drove away from the chaos, the wrathful fire gradually fading out of hearing range like a distant dream. It faded until there was nothing left to hear except the churning of the strained engine, and the sound of her own frantic heartbeat. If there weren't still so many people she cared about inside that building, Nancy might've been able to pretend it never happened.

Mike lay across almost the entire backseat, his height still short enough to fit in the space comfortably. He wasn't taller than her yet, she noted. God, he wasn't taller than her yet. He was still only just a child. His sleeping face looked young and innocent. An innocence that had been betrayed by something so cruel.

This couldn't be where it all stopped. It had to keep going. He had to keep living. He needed to grow up into the man he was supposed to be, who couldn't fit lengthways in a car for the life of him.

"Just hold on," she told her brother, one hand still firmly holding the jacket in place. She wasn't sure if it was making a difference. The dark and dangerous color continued to seep through the fabric in an unrelenting manner.

The bleeding definitely hadn't stopped yet. Of course it hadn't stopped! He hadn't just scraped his goddamn knee falling off a skateboard. This was a matter of life and death. And the harsh reality was if they didn't get help soon, this would be his final day alive.

"Hold on, okay?"

Mike wasn't aware of the lurching jolts of the car, or of Nancy's distressed face staring down at him, whispering words of encouragement.

No… He was far away from all that. Far, far away. He was only aware that it was cold, freezing even. But at least it didn't hurt anymore, right?

The pain had turned into a mild benumbed aching. That was good; the hurt was leaving. In its place was the sense of peace, the feeling of bliss. A comfortable bliss, at long last, after so much agony. Finally peace…

"Hopper? Hopper, he's not breathing!"