Darkness - Will Byers
Rain soaked her nightgown, splattered with dirt anytime she stepped on a puddle. The lights from the houses were soon left behind, leaving them in the darkest of night. It was hard to tell when a branch was ahead, and so the advanced with the fear of tripping with something. In no time the voices had faded and were replaced by the rain resonating through the forest. They slowed down, exhausted, but only the slightest since they didn't trust having avoided their chasers just yet. The silence of the woods only interrupted by the occasional thunders made the place even more eerie, but she tried to focus only in getting as far away as she could. Not half an hour had passed when some voices were heard from the distance. They couldn't make out what they were saying but it didn't sound like adults, so they decided to investigate a little. Hiding behind a tree they could now recognize 3 voices, discussing what could only be the location of something, or someone, that was lost. Trying to get closer, they were unlucky enough to step on a twig, and the noise was so loud the three boys heard it. She managed to hide again but her friend, Eleven, wasn't as fast. They focused their torch lights right at her, and she saw how they approach Eleven. From what she could tell they were being incredibly nice and considered going with them too, but just as they started to leave she began to hear their chasers again. All she could do was resume the running through the endless forest. The rain didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. Quite the opposite, the droplets of water were getting bigger every minute.
By the time she had grown tired of running again the rain was begging to fade. Now the forest was concealed by an uneasy silence. She pressed her back against a tree to regain her breath, when all of a sudden that was a rustling of leaves in a bush not too far from her. She stared at it vigilant, ready to run or attack in case anything came out of there. But she was unable to do either. A human-like creature arised right in front of her, it's head doubled the size of normal one, with no eyes or mouth but instead some nasty scars cutting across the surface of its face. The skin suddenly teared off in a few segments, revealing a dark void hole surrounded by sharp teeth, the inside of the face covered in threatening fangs as well. She managed to suppress a cry of terror and stumbled away from the beast. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a hole in a tree. It seemed big enough to fit her, and she rushed towards it. She hesitated for a second before entering, seeing as it was covered in a gooey sticky substance, but after hearing one of the creature's shrieks she crawled right through it. There was a glimpse of light at the other end of the gap. She didn't get a good feeling from it, but it was the best shot if she wanted to get away from the monster.
She stumbled out of the tree only to find herself in the exact same spot of the forest, but this time it looked much darker, the air more dense with specks of dust floating all around. A shiver went down her spine: she had been here before. The memories of the last years in the laboratory came flooding back like a nightmare, but she knew this time she wasn't in the water tank and there was no way of leaving just by waking up. She looked back at the tree but the hole had already closed. The only thing left to do was advance through this piercing cold world and try to find some way out. She was in the beast's territory now, which only made it harder for her to survive and easier for the creature to find her.
If she had found herself lost in the normal forest, this one appeared to resemble a maze. She would have believed to be walking in circles if it wasn't for the slightest changes in the landscape, and not too long afterwards what could only have been described as whimpering. She struggled to choose between approaching the sound or getting as far away from it as possible. Her curiosity got the best of her and she took careful steps towards it. She reached a small and fragile construction, made out of wooden planks and worn out pieces of cloth that threatened to fall apart at any given moment. The curtain serving as a door swayed slowly with the air, but never enough to let her get a glimpse of what was hiding inside. She decided to get it done with fast and yanked the fabric aside. Her eyes did not take long to get used to the even darker inside: a mattress covered most of the space and there were some drawings hanging from the walls, but what called her attention was a tattered blanket covering a shivering boy. In a second she was kneeling beside the sick child, whose face was now a mixture of ghostly white and cadaverous green. She assumed he couldn't have been there for too long having that he wasn't excessively skinny just yet and he had managed to keep some of his body warmth, although he was repeatedly having feverish spasms.
She couldn't stand to see the boy suffering and she carefully placed a hand on his arm. He shivered at the touch but didn't move, either assuming that she wasn't dangerous or too tired to even care. Closing her eyes, she concentrated in gathering all the warmth and happiness she could muster, and felt it travelling through the tips off her fingers into the boy. Little by little he started to get back to his usual pale skin, his cheeks coloured just the slightest and even his chestnut hair glowed more healthy. He gave a few coughs before turning around to face her, his large round eyes now glistening with curiosity.
"Who are you?" His voice was hoarse, it was cleared he hadn't spoken a single word in a while now.
Just like anyone in the lab, the girl was used to a scarce use of talking, so instead of answering she extended her right arm, showing a small tattoo with the number 007.
"Is that your name?" The boy inquired again. "Seven?" She simply nodded. "I'll call you Sev if you don't mind. I'm Will."
"I know." The Byers boy seemed confused by this. "Everyone's looking for you."
He had thousands of questions scrambled through his head, and it took him a moment to order them and clear his mind. "Where am I?"
A seemingly simple question, yet Seven took a long time to answer. "I'm not sure. I've been here before. It's like the normal world, but darker."
"How did I get here?"
"We opened a portal. It must've triggered others as well."
"We? Is there anyone else with you? Who are they?"
"Eleven. My friend. We work for the lab. They made us do it."
"How come you-" Will stopped before finishing the question. Seven's expression had changed, she was scrutinizing every corner fully alert.
"We have to leave. It's not safe."
Before he could say anything she was already clutching his arm and dragging him out of the so-called Byers Castle. The forest was so menacing the only place he could reckon to be close by and safe enough was his own house, and even though Seven had no idea where she was that was exactly where they ended up.
They locked the doors just out of habit, but well aware that'd do nothing to stop the beast.
"I need to talk to my mum. She needs to know I'm safe." Will said after some long minutes of silence. Seven nodded and closed her eyes. She had tried it before, contacting with the other side, but she had never been too good. Eleven was the only one who has mastered it.
Still, there were other methods, not as explicit as a direct connection but definitely effective. Emotional and empathic bonds had always been her strong point, and they had trained her to channel them, enabling her to control other's physic currents.
Will stared in confusion as Seven paced around the house, stopping every now and then in front of different photographs. Her thin fingers grasped a small picture placed in the bookshelf, and used the hem of her gown to clean the dust covering the cristal.
"Is this her?" Will nodded, and she walked back to the centre of the room, sitting in front of the television and turned it on. The lack of signal made the black mirror turn into a gray fuzzing image that echoed through the hollow house. She stared at the photograph for a long time before closing her eyes again. She could feel herself travelling through the noise of the television and back to that very living room in the normal world. Upon detail the objects didn't feel solid, like everything had turned into trembling gelatin and was being looked at through the eye of an unfocused camera. But detail didn't matter as Seven moved into the kitchen and down the corridor, following the weeping coming from one of the rooms.
Joyce sat in her bed, holding dearly one of her son's shirts while rocking herself back and forth. Just as she had done with Will, Seven laid a hand on her shoulder and conveyed every hopeful feeling she could gather. Joyce looked up, wiping the tears from her face and looked startled at the lamp in her bedside table. It was glowing, a brighter light than a bulb like that could produce. Of course! Seven had forgotten that while being in this other dimension, in this upside down, their presence could still be noticed through electrical gadgets, especially through the light.
Feeling dizzy she woke up back in her normal state, Will crouched beside her with a look of panic in his eyes after she had passed out.
"I know how to get to her." She simply said, and instructed Will to go to his mother's room. She explained how Joyce would realise it was him, and was certain she'd come up with a way to get to them. All they needed now was to stay alive for as long as they could.
But at last, help was coming their way.
