The Vanishing (Stranger Things AU)

The Vanishing, Chapter Two

You inhaled smoke deeply from your cigarette and you pressed your back against the bark of the tree, you had wandered for about 10 minutes into the woods, dropping the red cups softly on the ground, marking your path with a smile, daydreaming about the moment when Billy spotted you waiting for him, the way his eyes would light up as they always did when he saw you, his devilish smile spreading across his cheeks as he would wrap his thick arms around you and pull you close, telling you how beautiful you were and you'd kiss his soft, plush lips and whisper how much you cared for him.

As the time crept by you started to get anxious, fiddling with your cigarette and shifting on your feet as you looked around.

You tilted your head back and blew smoke up into the darkness and looked at the branches above you, meshed together, swaying slightly in the breeze.

crack

The sharp, unnatural sound cut through the night like a blade and your face whipped towards the blackness, the noise of something crunching under pressure hitting your ears.

"Billy?" You called out, your eyes scanned your gloomy surroundings, squinting as you looked for any sign of him approaching.

crack!

You jolted as the noise was closer this time and came from behind you, quickly you peered around the trunk of the tree and licked your lips nervously.

"Billy?! Is that you?" but you saw nothing except the night, wrapped around the trees like a shroud. Your skin bristled with goosebumps and your breath became shallow, rapid and panicked. Something was out there, you were sure of it.

"Don't fuck around!" You called out, your voice shaking as the clouds of your breath surrounded your face as you swore the air around you grew colder.

"Billy, I'm going back, okay? This isn't funny!" you called out towards the noise, briefly pausing and listening intently for a response, but none came. It was as if the trees were holding their breath as you pleaded internally for the silence to break with any other noise than one you had just heard, the one that had sent shivers crawling up your spine and made your gut wrench tightly, even the cold breeze that scraped your bare arms didn't make a sound as it slid by you. Licking your lips, your eyes fell to the dark forest floor and you looked for your red cup marker, to signal the direction you needed to walk in to get back to the house.

"What the fu–" your eyes widened as they darted across the ground.

It was gone, you spun around on your heels looking for it, but found nothing.

"Where...I dropped it, right here" you told yourself.

"It was right here!" your voice becoming louder and distressed as it echoed out into the night and you fell to your knees pushing the dead leaves and dirt around trying to look for it.

And then you heard it again.

SNAP.

The sound was directly behind you now, so close you almost felt the reverb from it. You froze on the spot, your mouth slightly open, small startled breaths leaked out of your throat into the cold air, your fingertips curling into the mud beneath your hands and you wanted to turn around to see what was there, but you couldn't.

"Billy...?" Your voice was weak and barely audible, you peered up to frantically look again for your markers on the ground, but you saw none, they had all vanished.

You knew you needed to move, your brain was screaming for your body to get up but your muscles defied you.

"Get up, get up, get up." you whispered to yourself.