Planned starter for @bilified. No bats or Steves were harmed, only startled.
The eerie screeches in the distance behind him were incentive enough for Steve to keep on moving. He had no idea why the bats had let him go, but he wasnโt planning on sticking around to find out.
Unlike Dustin, he didnโt exactly carry enough nougat on him to randomly befriend monsters from another realm - thankfully, theyโd seemed far more interested in surrounding the rift he had fallen through than having anything to do with him and he was more than okay with that.
He didnโt want to be there when they finished sealing the doorway back and decided then that he was food shaped. Stumbling his way through the woods barefoot wasnโt his idea of a great time, but it was certainly better than sticking around to ask for directions or something.
His feet ached by the time he finally slowed down enough to try and think. Being in the Upside Down was absolutely not ideal, but there had to be a way back out that wasnโt completely surrounded by โฆ oh he hated this, but he knew Dustin would call those things demobats.
Snorting in spite of the situation he was in, Steve raised a hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. A way out, not surrounded by demobats. That was what he needed. Along with some shoes and a shirt, but those seemed like minor worries in comparison to everything else.
Heaving a sigh, he racked his brain for everything he knew about this place, before opting to make his way toward some of the houses in the distance. A way out was beyond him, but scavenging a resolution to the minor problems was at least a start.
The world around him lit up again, blue stained trees stretching out their shadows beneath the uncomfortably red sky. Shuddering slightly, he shifted his direction and began a steady half-jog toward the houses while keeping an eye on where his feet were going so that he didnโt end up tripping on a root and eating shit in the process.
Maybe if he had been paying even a little bit more attention to the rest of his surroundings, he would have seen the form stepping out from behind a tree before he crashed into it with his head down like a moron, but unfortunately - today was not his goddamn day.
Wind punched out of him by the impact even as his arms came up sharply to grab on to what heโd hit, Steve barely had time to feel his heart drop with the expectation of a demogorgon when he looked up into a very human, thoroughly impossible face.
