Ears ringing, Will stares at the phone in his hand. You don't have to waste your time on me anymore. After months of not speaking, this is what he's met with? No. He shakes his head. Of course this happened. He should have expected it. He deserves it.
A lump lodged in his throat, he clutches the phone until his knuckles burn white. "You stupid idiot," he hisses, the floor spinning beneath his feet. "You. Stupid. Idiot." This is all his fault. He did this. If he had just went to see Mike after he found out what happened, then he wouldn't be in this situation right now. If he hadn't been such an idiot then none of this would've happened. He ruined everything. Roaring, he slams the phone into the wall. Once. Twice. Another time, and another, and another, until his hand is throbbing and his stomach is in knots and he can't see anything but white flashing around him.
A hand comes down on his shoulder, and he whips around, entire body flinching. Jonathan takes a step back, holding his hands up in front of him. "What's going on?" His forehead is creased and mouth etched in a frown.
The smell of burnt wood wafts in Will's nose. Blinking hard, he gapes at the phone in his hand. It's completely charred, all the way up the wire. Even the wall surrounding it is covered in black soot.
"What happened, Will?" Jonathan asks in a low voice, which Will can't tell if it's because he doesn't want their mom to hear or because he's afraid of what Will might do if he talks too loud.
Will swallows, letting the phone drop out of his hand and bang against the wall. "It's – it's nothing," he chokes, taking a step back.
"Will-" Jonathan lifts a hand to his shoulder, and the contact sends a fury through Will.
He jerks away from Jonathan. "I said it's nothing!" Spinning around, he storms to his bedroom and slams the door shut, ignoring El as she jolts up in her bed. He collapses in his own bed, burying his face in his pillow.
"Will?" El whispers, making him bury his face even deeper in his pillow. Blood pounds in his ears; he can barely hear her speaking.
"I don't want to talk about it," he mumbles and presses his hands to his ears to block out any noise, but it doesn't block out the one noise bothering him the most: the voice in his head.
After what feels like hours of lying with his face buried in his pillow, the world around him falls away as he's transported through darkness and plummets through nightmare after nightmare. Running, screaming, fleeing from the demogorgon. The Mind Flayer. At one point, he's walking up the stairwell. He reaches their apartment floor and starts down the hall, humming a song to himself. As he turns the corner, he spots a man, his face a blur, standing at the end of the hallway near their apartment door, blood covering his clothes. Will's heart shoots into his throat. The light flickers above them then bursts, leaving Will in complete darkness. He wants to scream, his whole body frozen. Breath quickening, he focuses on the light that burst, the electricity. It pops back on, light flooding back into the hallway. Will's breath slows, but his eyes fall back to the end of the hallway. The man is no longer there. Will rushes into the apartment, shutting the door the second he gets inside. He lets out a breath, trying to convince himself that what he saw was all in his head. "Hey," a voice says behind him, making him flinch. He spins around to see Mike standing with his arms crossed, glaring at Will. "What are you doing?"
"What?"
"Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?" But Mike doesn't answer. Instead, a flurry of grey shadow bursts around them and swallows him up. Will screams, grasping for Mike, but he's gone. The shadow turns on him, and he's choking it in, standing on the field of Hawkins Middle School. It's everywhere. He feels it everywhere. Every inch of him, inside and out. Lurching forward, he shrieks at it to get out of him, to stay away. To leave him alone.
A scream that isn't his own shatters into his nightmare, and he jolts awake, peering around the room. For a moment, he thinks the scream was only a part of his dream, but he notices El sitting up by the end of her bed, eyes wide. It isn't a rare sight. For the past few weeks, Will awoke in the middle of the night to find El either having a nightmare or awake from one. Sometimes, he even found her standing in the middle of the room, staring into space.
"El?" he whispers. She keeps still. "Eleven?"
When she doesn't move, he clears his throat and raises his voice. "Eleven."
She spins around, gaping at Will. "Huh?"
"I think you were having a nightmare."
"Oh." Rubbing her eyes, she shifts up to her headboard. "Did I sleepwalk again?"
"Not that I noticed. You were only sitting up."
"Did I wake you?"
He shakes his head. "I had a nightmare, too."
"What time is it?"
He squints at his watch. "Three in the morning. We should probably go back to bed. Get some sleep before tomorrow."
"The big day."
He chuckles. "Yep. The big day. Goodnight, El."
"Goodnight, Will."
