A/N: Sorry for the delay posting this! The holiday season is very busy for me at work, so my updates may be less frequent, but I'm still writing! Thanks for following and watching for new updates, despite my tardiness!
Lucas
His eyes, crescents in the swollen skin around them, stung horribly. Yet another tear managed to leak out of the corner. How he still had tears left to cry, he didn't know. After days of silent weeping. And the fever. He squeezed his eyes shut, but it changed nothing. He was blind in the pipe, its darkness utter and complete. Or maybe he was truly blind. Trauma, injury, these things could cause blindness.
Maybe I'm just dead, he thought.
His mind had gone to a dark place—darker than the shadows that held him while he slept and while he wept. More than once he'd considered leaving the pipe, giving himself to the Demogorgons and ending it all. But the memories resurfaced and Lucas couldn't move for the paralyzing fear that accompanied them: his parents' death, their evisceration in front of his eyes, and the Demogorgon's claws—still wet with his parents' blood—raking across his face and splitting the skin.
That was the death he'd get if he left the pipe and he couldn't bring himself to face it. He'd chosen to die in the blind gloom within, starving or dehydrating. It didn't matter which. Both had to be coming soon. Another tear unexpectedly leaked out of the corner of his eye and trickled along the edge of his nose before touching the calloused edge of a glossy pink scar—one of two that ran parallel to each other and stretched from his right eye to his left jaw.
He didn't know how he survived. He didn't remember anything. The strike that slashed his face had also knocked him unconscious. When he woke, he found himself in Mirkwood, at the end of a groove of dead leaves, as if he'd been dragged there. The fever was already raging, so he half-crawled, half-dragged himself into the drainage pipe where he collapsed into a delirious sleep. The next time he woke, the darkness had fallen completely. He was lying in a puddle of his own vomit and his mouth tasted like blood. When he touched his face, he felt the eerily smooth ridges of scars instead of the scabbed cut he'd expected.
He'd spent two days unconscious, but time was an anomaly to him. Day and night were black and cold alike. His tongue was swollen and rough and his head throbbed, but the pipe had no water running through it and he couldn't risk leaving. So he wept and waited for death.
That third day was unbearably silent. There were no screams, no shrieking tires or footsteps. A stark calm had fallen over the Vale. Lucas was hunched into his own knees, shuddering against the cold in little, weak bursts. The trembling breaths that he took were shallow, but still they echoed around him. As that second tear fell, he thought he could hear it strike the metal below. But the sound didn't stop. The little tick echoed, spiraling through the pipe. Then another sounded, followed by a faint rustling and something that made Lucas' blood go cold—inhuman panting. Something was outside, sniffing in quick bursts, tracking him. He heard the leaves shuffling, the breathing growing closer. For a moment he thought of the wrist rocket, but he'd lost it somewhere in Mirkwood. And, he thought to himself, it was childish to imagine that a slingshot was any sort of weapon against a Demogorgon. He'd learned that last year when the rocks he'd so desperately flung at the monster had barely registered in its slow, deliberate movements.
The huffing outside became louder and stronger; footsteps crossed overhead. For a fleeting instant, Lucas wished Eleven was still there to fling the Demogorgon with her mind and disintegrate it into oblivion. But Eleven was gone. So was everyone else. Lucas was alone, waiting for death. And now death had come. He pulled his knees closer to his chest as the panting suddenly entered the pipe. His eyes were shut, willing the final moments to be fast and painless.
But the end didn't come.
The panting became a quick snuffling. There was something familiar in the sound, something comforting. Lucas turned his head and strained to see through the darkness. A shape was standing in the mouth of the pipe; its silhouette was cloudy and murky. Then, after a short snuff, the creature exhaled a mournful whine. Lucas' heart leapt. A dog. It was a dog!
He found strength that he didn't know he still had and crawled frantically to the mouth of the pipe where a familiar, wire-haired mutt was eagerly waiting. Lucas wrapped his arms around the dog and stifled a sob. It was Will's dog. The last living vestiges of the Hawkins wasteland had found each other and as Lucas buried his face into the dog's warm chest, he vowed that together they could escape the Vale.
After a few minutes, Lucas stood up. It wasn't easy. He'd been folded in the pipe for days and his muscles were tight and his joints popped painfully. "I don't even remember your name," Lucas said into the dark chill. His voice was rough and foreign to him. He cleared his throat twice and patted the dog on the head. Lucas tried to remember his name, but his mind was foggy and the strain caused a wave of pain to radiate from his temples. He groaned and whispered, "Maybe for now I'll just call you… Orcus." He smiled to himself. "Foe of the Demogorgon," he mumbled, stepping forward.
Benny's Diner had only been reopened for a couple months. It took a little while for someone to finally buy it after Benny's death, but, with a loyal customer base, there wasn't really much risk involved. The new owners—Lucas couldn't remember the couple's name—didn't rebrand the place, so it remained Benny's Diner.
Fortunately the evacuation was enough of a scare that the owners forgot to lock up when they took off. Lucas leaned into the back door and let Orcus in before following the dog into the kitchen. Most everything was covered in a thin, slick membrane, but Lucas had a hunch that anything in an airtight package might be safe to eat. He peered through the rows of boxes on the pantry shelf and reached out when he spotted a package of Nilla Wafers. As he tore open the bag, his thoughts wandered to his friends. Will, Mike and Dustin. He'd thought about them often. Had they escaped? Was there a place to escape? Maybe the Demogorgons had already consumed the world. Maybe he was all that was left.
His mouth watered as he stuffed a handful of the cookies in his mouth, and he coughed when the sweet crumbs tickled his throat. Orcus stood next to him, begging pitifully. Lucas held out a mound of wafers, letting the dog wolf them down voraciously, while he scanned the shelf again for a drink. On the top shelf he spotted a row of red Coca-Cola cans. He planted his toes on the second shelf and reached up, batting a couple cans down. When he cracked one open, the fizz poured over the lip of the can and Orcus lapped at the drops as they fell to the floor.
Lucas carried the soda and cookies to the dining room, leaning against the bar and gazing out the front windows as he ate. Outside, the world was unrecognizable. Against the black trees and black shadows and black clouds, little gray spores wafted in the stagnant air and everywhere an otherworldly violet light glowed dimly.
Lucas fed Orcus another handful of cookies and emptied the bag's crumbs into his own mouth. He drained the Coke and left the empty can on the bar before approaching the front end of the diner. Orcus was at his heels, hopeful and attentive. Lucas sank his knees into the soft vinyl of a red booth seat and peered out the front window. The road was abandoned. Black trees lined the pavement, motionless in the dead air. The silence that surrounded them was overwhelming and echoing, like they were submerged in water. Even Lucas' own breathing sounded muffled and distant. His eyes fell on the single car that was left in the diner's lot. It was an old beige sedan. The driver's side door was ajar. But no one was inside. The car was just another empty husk. His eyes drifted to the passenger side, to the pavement next to the door, and his heart skipped a beat. There, lying in the middle of the parking lot was a bike. Lucas scooted forward on the bench and pressed his forehead against the window. There were plastic tassels dangling from the handles and the banana seat was striped pink and purple. It was a girl's bike. But a bike!
Lucas' breathing had picked up. He tightened his hands into a fist and reached into his pocket, fishing out a strip of camouflage fabric. He hastily tied it around his forehead and clenched his jaw. Turning to Orcus, he nodded firmly. "Let's do this," he said, flinging open the front door and marching back into hell.
