As he had woken up that following Sunday morning after a full evening of fictional rabid dogs and the soft beeps and glitchy sound effects that filled the arcade in town, Will Byers had risen from the couch he'd been sleeping on with a sore back and a subconscious worry for his dark haired best friend. He didn't have the gall to question why Blue had been awake at such an early hour in the morning, but then again, Will wouldn't have wanted Blue to ask him about his nightmares either.
Regardless of whether Will was actively thinking about the nightmare he'd had or not, the dark images seemed to continue to plague him in the daylight. Joyce had come to get him not too late that morning, and even as Will had watched Blue's home drift off further and further as the car pulled down the street and out of sight, the boy could still imagine those twisting, violent roots and branches, crawling upwards and wrapping around his calves and knees with the strength of forty men.
Will imagined, if Blue hadn't woken him up when he did, that he would have been swallowed whole by the forest in no time. He usually abandoned the though quickly once he got to that point, his gaze roaming around his surroundings in search of something else to think about. Will couldn't have imagined that his nightmare was anything more than just that; temporary and imaginary and nothing to be afraid of. It was imaginary, only a mere violation of his brain's unconscious sense of peace. There was one thing the boy was wrong about: it was most definitely not temporary, and as Will poured through the first half of the next week, drifting in and out of consciousness in his classes from the lack of sleep, the nightmare would follow him, dancing across the backs of his eyelids like tattooed violence.
That following Wednesday, Will had trudged out of his house like a zombie, running on an unacceptable amount of sleep, if any at all. Every joint in his body felt stiff like his limbs had been pried off and reattached while he was sleeping, and the soft tint underneath his eyes confirmed the restless nights he'd been experiencing. It almost seemed like as Will approached the finish of his second full week of being home, Blue was growing a bit more open, a bit less physically exhausted and soft spoken whereas Will seemed to be turning inwards, growing more tired by the day.
He hadn't had the heart to bring up the night before to Blue when he had climbed the stairs that morning to find the boy pouring himself a bowl of cereal. He looked well rested, oddly enough, as Will hadn't fallen asleep until the light outside had started to grow brighter, and even then, enough light had begun to dribble into the basement that Will could see the gentle trembling of Blue's shoulders. Will hadn't had the heart to ask him that following morning how he was feeling, or if he had really been crying. He hadn't had the heart to do anything about the situation, knowing very well that if he was in Blue's place, he would have wanted to be left alone. That was Will's problem, as he laid and stared at Blue's back, remaining still as though he was frozen stiff: he wasn't Blue.
Yet through the week, he continued to feel like he was draining. There was nobody to blame for this but Will, and he knew that. He only wanted the nightmares to stop, like some part of him felt as though they weren't just meaningless dreams. His anger, his hurt, his confusion and his lack of knowing seemed to grow into something on it's own. Will had remained silent for the majority of the drive to school that late Thursday morning as Jonathan has pulled the family car up to the school's front curb, overlooking the front lawn and watching the students clamoring in from the parking lot, towards the front doors.
At this point, Will thought, who was to blame for the way he was feeling? His dreams were dreams and nothing more, but the forest lived inside of him, vines and roots climbing up around his lungs as the days went by and he couldn't remember. Could he even blame himself any more? He could, and he would, but was it really the right thing to do?
Will hadn't given Jonathan a mere moment to question him about why he'd been so quiet the entire morning, before he'd hopped out of the car only a split second after it stopped. He could see that Jonathan had been debating whether to ask, his brows knit tight as he stared ahead of the road like he could sense Will's energy from a mile away. He'd opened his mouth to say something as Will had climbed out of the passengers seat, but the boy had shut the door too quickly for anything to be said, sparing a wave to Jonathan as he turned away from the car. Truly, he wasn't in the mood that morning to talk in general, let alone talk about how tired he seemed to be.
Mentally hyping himself up, if only to persuade him to actually walk into the school building, Will reached up and pulled his backpack taught against his back by the straps as he walked along the pavement leading up towards the two front doors at the front of the structure. Will scanned the front lawn of the school property, taking note of the fact that, even more so after Jonathan's car puttered easily out of the drop off area, the entirety of the property seemed to be empty after the sudden but brief rush of students. Will hadn't bothered to check the clock before he had left that morning, not being too distressed to get there on time as he didn't have the energy to spend worrying about it. All he knew was that he only needed to get through a few hours, and he would be on his way towards Blue's home to see him. If anything had prompted him to get out of bed that morning, it was the feeling of looking forward to that.
Checking the clock was something he was going to have to get used to now, Will though grimly to himself, as he trudged slowly down the sidewalk. He'd made the decision, a spur of the moment one at that, to ask his mom to call in and tell the school he would be back to regular classes by the beginning of that week. He was regretting this now, letting Lucas and Blue drag him half asleep down the hallway to their classes for the past several days, and relying on them to keep him from knocking his head on the desk should he drift off into the palm of his hand. He could see the worry in Lucas' eyes when Will found himself falling asleep, unable to control the sheer exhaustion that took over his entire body. He knew that Lucas wouldn't ask unless provoked, however: it was Blue that Will was a bit more worried about. He wouldn't hesitate to tell him he seemed off. Oh, didn't he know it, though.
The first two weeks were almost over, and they'd gone by at the speed of light to the boy. His own thoughts caved and shifted every single day, as he tried to figure out what he had done and who he had been, who his friends were. He was finally beginning to feel like he knew them, really knew them, if not the way that he did before, incredible close to it. He had spent the past couple lunches with the three of them all together, listening to them tell stories of the things the party, as they liked to call it, used to get up to in their spare time. They told Will stories of campaigns that took them days to complete, of days spent at the arcade and in town and messing around in the woods like a bunch of troublemakers.
There were plenty of stories about how docile they could be as well: spending entire days in the summer just sitting inside, watching movies and talking about idiots in their class, neglecting the idea that they only had a limited amount of time before school would come back to bite them.
These sounded beautiful, desirable to Will, and his heart yearned to remember these times as well as his friends did. He felt more like he was watching their stories on a television screen, not quite there but close enough to touch it, to feel the joy second hand. Any feeling that he had harboured before, anything ill towards his friends and the idea that they didn't fit into the picture of what Will Byers was to him; he took them back, fully. He couldn't imagine himself being with anyone else. He couldn't imagine being friends with anyone better, and as he spent more time in Blue's presence, the boy began to grow on him as well.
Will hadn't expected his mind to change, but something about Blue sat right with him. He felt safe when he was around him, like nothing bad could really happen if Will stuck by him. He imagined that, before his accident, the two of them must have been thick as thieves.
Whether he wanted to admit it or not, what Lucas had said in passing fit inside of Will's mind like a puzzle piece.
In some weird, unexplainable way, Blue wasn't like them.
As Will pushed open the two front doors and stepped inside of the main hallway, the only thing the boy could focus on was just how silent the school seemed to be. There was the ever so subtle chatter from the first door to his right, slightly cracked as though the last student entering had forgotten to pull it closed, but that was the only sound that graced Will's ears as he stepped into the foyer. The door thudding shut behind him practically boomed through the empty framework of the hallway, causing Will's shoulders to tense only for a moment as he crept inside. As he took careful note of his footing, the boy reached back and pulled his backpack off of his shoulders, feeling around for the zipper and, once his fingers found it, taking a hold of it, unzipping his bag and reaching a hand in.
Once his fingertips grazed the paper that he was searching for, Will yanked it out of his bag and slung the half open knapsack back up onto his shoulder, unfolding the slip and staring down at it. It didn't seem to matter the amount of times he'd already seen his classrooms; it was going to take him a while to fully remember where they were. As his gaze crossed over the word 'Mathematics', Will spotted the number 'R104' placed rightfully beneath it, taking note of the fact that the room was on the same floor that he was. No need to go hunting, as if he wasn't already late enough. Will glanced between the two hallways stemming from the main hall up ahead of him, his only other option besides those being the staircase at the end. Ignoring the stairs, Will approached one of the hallways and peered down it curiously, like he was making a decision that was incredibly pertinent. In a way, it was: he could practically see his teacher's frustration with him in meter form, a little dial that went from a pale yellow to a harsh red. The hand on the metaphorical dial inched closer to red the longer Will took and, with that being his only solid motivation not to bail out and just spend the rest of the class in the library by himself, he began down the right side hallway, eyeing each of the doors to make sure that he was going the right way.
As the first door approached, Will noticed the number '117' engraved into a small back plaque that hung on the hard wood surface. The boy continued his walk down the hallway until he crossed yet another door, this one reading '115'. With a slow, easy sigh, Will picked up his pace as much as he could and carried on down the hallway with the knowledge that he was indeed going the right way. His legs felt like they might give out from underneath him, his exhaustion paired with the absolute disinterest in learning anything that early in the morning begging him to turn around and go somewhere else. Will knew, however, that he couldn't ignore it forever. It wouldn't do him any good. Hell, it wouldn't do his friends any good to be worrying about him.
If anything, putting someone else in priority gave Will a little bit more incentive. He didn't know where such an awful habit had come from, though deep down he knew he must have been thinking the way he did for a while now. He seemed to put absolutely everybody else before him, whether he was doing it knowingly or not he was never really sure. If he couldn't make himself go to class for his own benefit, he would go for his friends. He would go so they wouldn't worry, so they wouldn't question him too much.
He knew he should care for himself more, but as everything around him slowly began to settle into place, he still felt like the framework of an abandoned house, misplaced and decaying and unsure of every part of himself. He wanted to be Will, he wanted to be who he had been. As Will tugged his sleeves down over the palms of his hands, goose bumps tickling his arms from the early winter chill outdoors, it seemed like no matter how hard he tried to grasp at his old memories, they seemed to slip away from him. He didn't really know how else to explain it, except that it was torturous. That was it, though, wasn't it? He wasn't just tired, maybe that was just half of it. He was sad. He was lost somewhere, trying to claw his way out. Maybe the forest really had trapped him, and he hadn't even known it.
As Will Byers continued down the hallway towards the classroom he was looking for, he finally pinpointed it. Torture. It felt like torture.
He wanted the nightmares to stop. He wanted himself back.
As Will approached a blind turn in the hallway, he could hear a couple of voices breaking the silence from ahead of him. There were just muffled enough by the thick divider that jutted out from the otherwise flat wall to Will's left, and so he continued on rather carelessly, his feet dragging only slightly as he walked. As he rounded the corner, Will lifted his sleepy eyes from his stare down towards the polished floor beneath him to look upwards for the door he was searching for. Had Will been in a cartoon, something like Looney Tunes, a violent, gimmicky screech would have echoed through the hallways as he froze in place.
Up ahead of him, no more than several metres away, was a familiar face that Will would have been happy to have never seen again. Particularly alone.
Troy was walking in the opposite direction that Will was headed, getting closer with every second that the boy didn't move. He had his head down, his dark eyes pointed towards the floor, but as he lifted his gaze and noticed Will standing there like a deer caught in the headlights, any sense of his boredom on Troy's face shifted into pure, wicked entertainment.
Kicking himself into gear, Will blinked himself back into the present and whipped around to break into a run, energy creeping up on him like he hadn't been entirely down trodden only a moment before. Any thoughts in his brain that had been passing through before had been completely eradicated by one, definite goal; he needed to get out of there. He would have, too. If when he had turned around, he hadn't run directly into what he had initially thought was a solid brick wall, but was actually the thick, tall body of the boy that Troy seemed to always have slinking around next to him.
Strong, large hands grabbed Will by the upper arms, and before he could yell or wriggle out of the grasp, he felt his feet shoot out from underneath him as he was shoved down onto the rock hard linoleum floor. Will let out a gasp as though he'd had the air knocked right out of him, a violent but passing pain shooting up his back as he landed directly on his butt. From behind him, he could hear an enthusiastic cackle from Troy.
"Byers! There you are!" the boy's sharp tone announced from behind Will's back, prompting him to whip his head around and stare in poorly hidden worry up at Troy. Will took the moment to ease himself up onto his feet, shooting his gaze consistently between the two of them in case they thought it would be best to knock him down once more. His knees nearly gave underneath him, his stance only slightly wobbly as he searched every crevice that the two boys had left between them and their respective directions that might let Will get out. He needed to get out. He knew one thing in that moment was true, and it was that.
"Leave me alone" Will hissed in passing as his eyes became slightly frantic, head turning either way in search of an exit, aiming to have sounded a little more intimidating than the panicky whimper that escaped his lips. Troy had begun to approach him now, only a couple inches taller than Will but enough that he seemed to loom over the boy in that moment.
As Troy grew closer, practically less than a foot away from Will now, Will peered past Troy's shoulder like he was a ghost, taking note of the now empty hallway that he could easily make a break for. That he knew he should make a break for.
"What was that?"
"I said... leave... me alone!" Will urged through gritted teeth, not even bothering to look Troy in the face as he jolted, flinging himself forward at a speed that Will didn't think he could possibly reach. He was unable to look towards anything else but the open hall, his one chance at getting out of there before anything could happen to him. He would go to Blue's after school and he would get to class before they could reach him and he would be totally fine, at least for another day. That was enough though.
That was what Will wanted to happen, and he willed it to be so. But as he felt a hand clutch at the hem of his jacket, he knew he wasn't going anywhere in that moment. His vision of peace shattered before him as he was torn away from his hopes, stumbling back only slightly from the yank that Troy had given him to keep him from going anywhere. He was willing to put up with humiliation if he got out of it quick, he didn't care. He only wanted out.
His hopes for something passing crumbled as Troy reared back and threw a solid blow directly into Will's right cheek, his face ripe with anger.
Will realized then, even with the obscurity that surrounded his memory, that he was certain he'd never been punched in the face before. He was certain that he hadn't and, through the hot blast of pain that surged through the entire right side of his face, he was certain he didn't want to experience it again.
Will had teetered back and fallen onto his butt once more, this time the ache from his tailbone couldn't even compare to the throbbing electric sensation that splattered up through his cheekbone and ear. A gentle ring droned inside of Will's eardrum. He let out a choked gasp, reaching a hand up to touch the spot where he had been struck. His fingers were immediately met with a sluggish dampness, and a whole new sense of panic awakened in Will's stomach; blood. Through the ringing in his right ear, Will could hear the voice of Troy's accomplice, only slightly muted but loud enough that he could hear the hesitance that cloaked his voice, like maybe he was realizing that this wasn't a good idea. It didn't seem to matter though; Troy was standing in front of Will once more before he could take a moment to remember his surroundings.
He only caught the glimpse of blushed red knuckles, a flash of a terrifying image before he felt yet another heavy blow, this time to the front of his face, pain skyrocketing up towards the bridge of his nose and through his upper lip. Will could have thrown up in that moment from the fear he was experiencing, twisting his head away and raising an arm as though he was trying to shield himself. He knew he must have looked pathetic, but he didn't even care.
As Troy grabbed a hold of his arm, trying to pry it down as he shouted something into the momentarily deaf side of Will's face, Will didn't really care how he looked. He wanted someone to help him. He needed it.
"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Will could barely hear the unfamiliar voice through the pounding in his ears, his eyes squeezed shut like he was terrified to see the sight in front of him. Only mere milliseconds after the unfamiliar shout, Will felt the collar of his jacket loosening as Troy released it, followed by the thundering of footsteps as the two boys tore off down the hallway. He could feel the pulse of his veins pumping in every inch of his face, and the taste of iron tainted the boy's tongue as he pressed it against his slowly swelling upper lip. His eyes flickered open, squinting as though he was expecting another blow to be coming his way. Instead, the soft, aged face of an elderly teacher was in his sights. The older man was crouched down in front of him, offering Will out a hand.
Everything in the following hour had felt like a slow blur, his head still throbbing as though someone had taken a jackhammer to the side of his face. No matter how intensely he had begged for the office not to call home, they had done so without any hesitation. In a last ditch attempt when there had been no answer, Will had persuaded them to call his older brother at Hawkins High, having enough in him to convince them that his mother was out of town.
The only consolation of this was that Will knew Joyce was at work, and maybe, just maybe, Jonathon would think to let Will talk his piece before telling her about this.
When the car had practically tore into the school parking lot, Will had climbed lazily into the passenger seat, a small package of ice pressed to the quickly darkening bruise beneath his right eye. He had only caught a glimpse of Jonathan's face, but it was enough for Will: he looked like he was about to burst into tears, staring into Will's face like it had been 50 years since he'd last seen him. "What happened?" Jonathan had asked in an almost muted whisper, an attempt at sounding calm when he was everything but.
He shifted the car into drive and began to pull out of the parking lot, and Will stared into the passenger mirror, getting a glimpse at the state of his face for the first time since he'd been beaten. He hadn't thought his face was so delicate, but the mirror confirmed it for him: a thick, purple bruise was slowly deepening beneath his right bottom eyelid, paired with a thin split in right side of his upper lip, dried blood tainting his pale pink lips. He looked an entire mess, and he wasn't sure if the blood on his mouth had been from the nose bleed he'd gotten or the cut itself. He didn't care. Blood was blood, and as he stared into the mirror at his roughed up face, the sight of the mirror grew blurrier, tears dripping onto his cheeks.
"I'm still going" Will whispered in response, entirely blocking out Jonathan's question as he let his head rest carefully against the window pane. He didn't need to explain.
Without question, Jonathan had pulled out onto the main road, heading towards the direction of their home.
Will hadn't realized just how similar Blue and his older sister, Nancy, looked until he had knocked on their front door that afternoon, his cheeks long dry from the lengthy, well needed nap that he had taken when he had gotten home late that morning. Will had reassured Jonathan that he would be fine going over to Blue's, that he would just spent the afternoon with Blue playing games in the basement or something delicate like that and he would explain his face to Joyce when he got home.
It had taken a bit of convincing for Jonathan to let him leave, but eventually the older boy gave in, leaving Will with an affectionate squeeze, letting him know to be ready by 9:30. His car had pulled slowly out of the cul-de-sac, as though he was dwindling and making sure Will was going to be safe, but by the time Will had reached the front porch, Jonathan's car had disappeared from sight. The cool November air blew against his pale complexion, sharp like the crack of a whip against his bruised face. Around him, snowflakes drifted down towards the ground like they were lighter than air itself. It likely wouldn't build up to badly, no more than a foot, Will imagined, but he could dream.
Will had hurried down the lawn towards the front door of the home and placed several sharp knocks on the door, drawing his coat tighter around his chest as he stared at the smooth wooden surface in front of him. Thinking about having to explain his appearance to Blue made him physically cringe, but he knew he would have to do it eventually. It was the idea of the act that made him shiver. It had only been a couple seconds before the doorknob twisted, slowly but surely yanked open from the inside.
"Blu— oh."
A pair of crystal blue eyes peered back at him through the opening in the door, the crack widening until Nancy was leaning against the edge of the door, keeping her hand perched on the knob. Her gaze widened as she took a good, long look at Will's face, causing the boy's cheeks to flush a brighter red, even in the cold.
"Will" Nancy spoke quietly, as though he appearance on their doorstep shocked her deeply. The boy knew, however, she was reacting to his face more so than his presence. "He, uh... he just left" the young girl continued, causing Will to pause as he was rubbing his hand against the sleeve of his jacket in an attempt to make himself even warmer. Left? Blue had known that he was coming over after school. Pressing his tongue against the back of his teeth, Will opened his mouth to speak, but Nancy continued with her sentence before he could.
"—He just went out into the woods for a bit, out back. If you want, you can just come in and wait..." Nancy suggested, her gaze clearly not centered on Will's eyes, but rather on the shiny bruise underneath it. Will felt like his throat was closing, praying that he wouldn't have to explain himself more times than he needed to.
"U-uh, n-no, that's alright..." Will had said through a gentle shiver, sliding his chilled fingers into his pockets as he glanced out towards the corner of the front of the house. "I'll just go catch up with him. Thanks, though" Will had said in a subtly rushed tone, taking off of the doorstep before she could question him any further.
His sneakers squished only slightly against the semi-frozen grass as he rounded the side of the house and peered out back towards the woods. From where he was standing, Will could see the dip of a manmade path sliding down into the woods behind it, not yet covered by the light snowfall. Clenching his fists inside his pockets as if that would build up the heat inside his jacket quicker, Will hurried down towards the path and peered down into it, slowing himself only a bit to take in his surroundings as he descended into the woods.
Everything looked identical, as thought there were really no defining markers to let Will know where he was going. The only thing that he could keep himself on track with was his footprints, showing up in the thin layer of snow that had already begun to build. Will kept his eyes on the treetops above him, checking his footing every once in a while to make sure he wasn't going to be tripping over anything. Until he had some sort of idea where Blue had gone, the snow having started likely just after he'd left his home, Will took pleasure in the quiet of the woods.
"Blue?"
Will called out gently, not a scream but loud enough that anyone within close proximity could hear him. The sky hadn't yet gotten dark, but the clouds overhead had begun to dim, even in the early evening hours; Will's least favourite part of the winter. As the boy continued down through the path, he turned his gaze upwards once more, staring up at the snowflakes as they blew ever so delicately against his rosy cheeks. He felt lost in the moment, if only for a little while, taking in the breathtaking view as he watched the snow fall. The flakes seemed to pick up pace for a while, most definitely not a full blown storm but more than a light dusting. Will didn't seem to mind, however: the cold soothed the heat that radiated from his wounds.
When Will had looked back down after walking for several minutes, however, he realized he wasn't where he had expected to be.
Turning his gaze downwards towards the forest floor, Will's sleepy gaze grew wide as he realized he'd been trampling over soft patches of moss and jagged twigs for what probably racked up to several minutes. He'd completely strayed from the path, which wasn't entirely a big deal, he'd thought, until he turned back towards the way he'd came. The snow really had picked up, dotting his eyelashes and burying his hair in a light shaking of white as it had completely repaired any indents that Will's boots had made behind him.
"Blue?"
His own voice sounding a little bit foreign to himself, Will whipped around to the direction that he had been walking in. He couldn't see much except for the thick brown trunks of the trees surrounding him, and the thick snow that was falling down to the ground around him. Will hadn't even realized, until he had stopped and taken a good long moment to think about where he'd teetered off to, that his breathing had started to hitch, his heart thudding against his chest. No direction seemed familiar, everything a replica of the areas surrounding it. Nothing, not even houses dotted the distant horizon that Will could barely see through the thick, dead foliage and trees. Fear struck him like an arrow directly through the heart.
He was lost.
The forest felt like it was almost closing in on him, even if he knew no such thing was possible. Fingers grasping as his jacket like he was holding on for dear life, Will twisted frantically around, trying to figure out which way he had came. Stepping out of the patchy moss he had been standing in, Will's footing gave out beneath him as the moss detached itself from it's rooted base. The boy let out a yelp of surprise as he collided with the soft dirt beneath him, the slip not causing him any excess physical pain as he pressed his fingertips into the snow, the cold tickling his nerves like a live wire. He was lost. He was lost and he couldn't breathe and his heart was hammering against his chest like the engine of a freight train going at full speed.
He was lost. He was lost and he had no idea which way he had came or which way he should go.
As Will stared down into the snow that he had collapsed in, for the second time that afternoon, he could feel his eyes brimming with tears. His vision began to blur, to go wobbly as he let the tears drip into the snow beneath his gaze. Had he discovered another, less desirable fact about himself that evening? In one way or another, Will Byers was a cry baby. Will Byers was a cry baby and an empty slate and Will Byers had as good of a sense of direction as a broken compass. He was going to die out there, some irrational, terrified part of him said. As panic began to seep into his veins, turning his joints to jelly, black dots graced the corners of Will's vision.
He was lost, and he was going to die.
From behind Will, shaking him violently out of his trance and bringing him back to the moment he was in, footsteps crunched on top of the discarded branches that laid on the forest floor.
"Will!"