Elijah Brooks's life is turned upside down when his best friend Will Byers goes missing one night. Teaming up with an unlikely group of friends, Eli finds himself transforming from a quiet bookworm to a courageous adventurer willing to do anything f...
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THE WALLS OF STARCOURT WERE EERILY silent, save for glass shards crunching under Eli's sneakers similar to packed snow. It was that quiet, the only sign of life being his own staggered breaths, that made his heart shrivel with fear.
He had no idea where Mike was, and their only form of escape had just skidded off for the rolling hills of the countryside. If the Mind Flayer were to return, Eli would be clueless and probably too weak to stop it. He wasn't El, after all.
"Mike!" His voice, strained with urgency and panic, sounded unfamiliar as it boomed. His head spun at the presence of no answers, half-expecting to hear the call of a raven-haired boy.
Eli trudged forward, screaming his boyfriend's name continuously, along with Max and El's. He was just about to cry out the brunette's name again when a small crackling made him freeze. His body thrummed like one giant pulse, his hands growing clammy as he waited.
The noise sizzled again, and he followed it with a mingled sense of curiosity and dread. His eyes eventually slithered to the floor, where Mike's half-destroyed walkie lie. The plastic covering had been torn off, exposing the metal skeleton and wiring underneath. It had been Dustin's persistent radioing he'd heard, echoed back to him through a poorly functioning speaker.
Eli's gaze shifted to his fingertips, rubbing them together and attempting to remember how they'd felt earlier. When electricity had been freely swimming between them. Maybe he could...
An abrupt, sharp prod in his neck made a brief squeak of pain slip from his mouth, his palm instantly whacking the layer of skin. A stronger grip of hands clawed at his waist, and Eli was being violently turned around to glare into a piercing set of blue eyes. Blue eyes he had hoped, prayed, he'd never see again.
"Dad..." his whisper petered out feebly, his legs buckling underneath him involuntarily. "What...?" His head throbbed as he moved to glance at his father's hands, the ones catching his seemingly-paralyzed body. There was a needle between his fingers, and a nasty smile to match the sting.
It was the last thing Eli saw before he was swept into a hazed darkness. When his eyes shuddered open again, he was in a small room with four boring walls that declared nothing of his location.
A TV set sat motionlessly in the center of the room, staring blankly at him. Eli could feel binds on his wrists and ankles, but his limbs were overcome with sudden fatigue he knew he wouldn't be able to escape anyway.
He fucking drugged me, Eli thought sleepily, wishing he could feel a wave of anger seep into his body. But he only felt a strange dizziness.
"What's going on?" He demanded, and that's when he heard it. Explosions, not too far. Close enough to make the walls rattle and his body clench with strange sensitivity. "What is that?"
