Bloody Negatives {Stranger things}

Chapter Twenty-Two

《Chapter Twenty-Two》
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Tally woke up shouting.

He wasn't shouting anything in particular, but the sounds came out so sharply, and so harshly that it felt like his vocal cords were tearing.

He could hear so many voices around him, that they all blended together into an animalistic sort of sound, almost immediately bringing his headache back.

"Tally?" Nancy's voice cut through the rest of the noise somehow. "Can you hear me?"

Tally forced his eyes into focus. The blurry shaped and lights in front of him slowly began to morph into people. Nancy was hovering directly over his face, the other sat at his feet with concerned expressions.

He nodded. It hurt his neck, but he still did it.

"Good," Nancy's eyebrows furrowed into one point on her face. He'd seen her wearing that expression many times in pre-calc. "How do you feel?"

Tally suddenly became aware that Nancy was holding his hand. Gripping it. Tightly. For some odd reason, it made him nervous.

"Like I'm going to throw up," Tally groaned, forcing himself to sit up. He propped himself against his wooden bedframe, pressing his head against the corner of the mattress, forcing himself to function normally.

"What did you see?" Dustin asked as Nancy reached for the glass of water sitting on Tally's bedside table. She handed it to him, and he smiled in appreciation, too exhausted to thank her verbally.

Tally shook his head slowly. What had he seen? Frankly, he had no idea. He could barely even remember.

"There was this big... thing," Tally said,  not sure how to describe the silo-like structure he'd seen moments before.

"That's very specific, thank you," Steve muttered in a deadpan tone.

Tally shook his head, trying to ignore the older boy's comment. "It wasn't a good thing. El looked scared of it. I was scared of it. And there was this... man."

The word that popped into Tally's head still lingered. Papa.

He took a sip of water from the glass in his hands, wincing at the pain swallowing caused. He wanted to crawl into a small, dark space—a closet, maybe—and never come out again. Or at least stay their until everything in his body stopped aching.

Nancy made a sort of humming noise of concern as she rested her hand on Tally's forearm. "Your nose is bleeding again."

"That happens to El all the time," Max said in a tone that sounded like it was meant to be reassuring, but really just gave Tally nausea. From what Dustin had told him about El, she wasn't someone that he wanted to be.

Tally pulled the sleeve of his shirt over his hand and used it to wipe away the blood.

This had been happening often enough that he'd stopped wearing white.

It was like his lungs were shaking as he watched the way the dark crimson red faded into the navy blue of his sleeve. He felt Nancy rest her hand on his shoulder gently.

Almost unconsciously, Tally felt himself leaning into her touch.

"I guess you won't be doing that again for a while?" Dustin asked, wincing as if he could feel Tally's pain.

Tally laughed lightly. It made his ribs hurt. "I guess not."

Steve suddenly made a strange noise, causing everyone in the room to look at him. "It'd be better if Tally stay with us, right? So we can keep an eye on him? Just in case?"

"I'm grounded," Tally muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose, still frustrated at his mom.

Dustin and Max looked at each other in a way that made Tally uneasy. It was like they were communicating telepathically.

Tally laughed lightly as he realized what they were thinking. "No."

"Tally come on," Dustin said, smiling. "It's to keep you safe."

"No way," Tally said shaking his head rapidly. "No fucking way."

Based on the way Max was smirking, she and Dustin had already made up their minds.

He was sneaking out.

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