𝐂𝐎𝐒𝐌𝐈𝐂³ || Temporary!Will Byers x Fem!Reader [...] ⇢𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥

━━ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐃 - 𝐏𝟒 ━━

El jumped back when a girl shot up from within so suddenly. It was Heather. She was pink-faced and trembling, but something told El it wasn't from the cold. The droplets of water covering her face had easily disguised the tears slipping down her face, and the look in her glassy eyes was pleading up at her.

"Help me," she sobbed.

El didn't have time to react before Heather was pulled violently back under. El shrieked, immediately diving after her only to be met with the watery floor. She was panting for breath, trying so desperately to calm her racing heart but she realized she didn't have time to. Heather was still there, in need of her help and she was quickly disappearing under the water that separated them.

El cried out to her, desperate to reach her but something was stopping her. She could scream and claw at the surface of water separating them, but by the time she found a way to duck her head and arm in after her, it was too late. El watched helplessly in horror as Heather was pulled into the deep black abyss of her watery grave, crying out for help.

"NO!"

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El threw the goggles off her head in an instant, her shoulders heaving as she gulped down breaths of air.

"What happened?" Max asks immediately, her hand flying to El's shoulder for comfort. "El!"

El didn't answer. With a haunted look in her eyes, she gaped between her friends. Worried, to say the least, Max and Y/n looked to one another afraid as she buries her head in her hands. El didn't say a word and instead collapsed into shaky sobs as she tried to come down.

Y/n recognized the panic attack, and in an instant she had thrown herself to the floor beside El, laying her hand on her back and began rubbing soothing circles.

"Hey, you're okay. You're okay. Take my hand," She whispers, carefully taking El's left hand in her own. She knew it was a good sign when El squeezed back, despite her heaving breaths. It was a sign she was responding. "We're here, it's okay. Just breath. Deep breaths, in and out,"

El's breathing barely slowed, but Y/n kept encouraging her. As they found themselves doing more and more, Max and Y/n lock eyes, their faces horror-stricken for their friend. El doesn't notice. She merely squeezed Y/n's hand tighter and allowed the sobs to come.

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⊹ ⊹ ⊹

HAWKINS NATIONAL LABORATORY

Once a place thriving with life and secret agency was now a desolate wasteland; a grave for rot and chaos that lay untouched for months.

RESTRICTED AREA
NO TRESPASSING
U.S. GOVERNMENT
PROPERTY

The sign once erected on the outer gates now lay dented and scuffed among the mud and rain, forgotten like the rest of the laboratory.