The Freak and the Jedi

Chapter seven: The Massacre of Hawkins Lab

The five of us had found refuge at Skull Rock, crouching beneath the huge rock formation hoping the demon bats would soon leave. We had run to the woods after saving Steve, who still bled profusely out of the injuries caused by the creatures. Robin's hand firmly grasped mine, both of us shaking in fear at the sight. With no weapons to defend us with, there was no way we could ever outrun them.

When the flock of bats had left, Robin took a couple more deep breaths, coming out slowly off the rock to check they were gone.

"Oh... okay, that was close," she said, dusting herself as she stood straighter, her gaze still fixed upwards among the trees.

"Yeah, too close," Eddie was out of breath, still under the rock.

Steve stumbled forward, barely keeping himself up on the nearest rock. "Oh... shit."

We all looked at him, remembering his wounds. "Steve?" Nancy called him, her eyes widening at the sight. "Jesus," she ran to him, helping him up.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he tried to reassure us, but Nancy was already panicking.

"No, no, no. You're not. You're losing blood. Come on, sit. All right?" she guided him to the floor as Robin, Eddie, and I stared, not knowing what to do next.

Thankfully, Nancy had everything under control. She started cutting pieces of her shirt off to bandage him, while Robin crouched in front of him.

"Okay. So the good news is, I'm pretty sure wooziness is not a common symptom of rabies, but if you start having hallucinations or muscle spams or you start feeling aggressive, like you wanna punch me, or something, you should totally let me know," she rambled.

"Robin," Steve called her.

"Yeah?"

"I kinda wanna punch you."

Robin laughed. "Sense of humor's still intact. That's a good sign," she smiled, although her hands were still trembling.

She got up and walked to me when Nancy started patching Steve up. As soon as I heard his groans I turned around, the situation making my stomach turn. "I hate blood," I said with my hand pinching my nose, trying to block the smell.

Robin frowned next to me. "You see blood every month."

Eddie coughed violently from my other side, scratching the back of his neck as his eyes met anything but me.

"That's different," but I didn't have time to continue, for Nancy was already finishing patching up Steve behind us.

Eddie was now climbing up one of the rocks. "So, uh... this place is like Hawkins, but with monsters and nasty shit?"

"Pretty much," I answered, helping Steve up alongside Nancy.

"Wait, watch out for the vines," Nancy called to Eddie before he could step on one. "It's all a hive mind."

"It's all a what?" Eddie's eyes widened when he saw the vines moving slowly around the rock.

"All the creepy crawlies around here, dude, they're like, one or something," Steve explained. "You step on a vine, you're stepping on a bat, you're stepping on Vecna."

Eddie nodded his head. "Shit."

He proceeded to walk down carefully, guided by my directions to help him down without stepping on anything.

"But everything from our world is still here, right? Except for people, obviously?" Robin asked too.

"As far as I understand it, yeah," I answered her question once Eddie was safely by my side again.