Chapter Text
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Mike. Wake up.
Please, you have to-
wake up -
Reality falls onto Mike like oxygen being sucked back into a room. He’s breathless, his chest hurts and his eyes are sore and wet. His mind makes desperate, feeble, attempts to comprehend what was happening.
Where was he? He had just finished a campaign, and he had been heading upstairs for dinner.
Mike’s eyes are barely able to adjust to the light as though he had been in the dark for ages. Had he somehow fallen asleep?
And no one woke me?… and I missed dinner…?
His eyes suddenly sting. Mike instinctively tries to bring his hands to his eyes, only to find that he can’t. Something strong and root-like had twisted itself around his limbs, locking him into place.
What the-?
“Shit,” He says in between a coughing fit, suddenly noticing a damp, stale scent in the air in his attempts to bring oxygen back into his lungs.
Someone was pranking him, of course. He had known Lucas had been planning something that didn’t involve him. Everyone had been shady around him for weeks. Mike spent a whole three days trying to figure out his plan to no avail - the group had even begun “secret meetings” without him.
But tying him up in where? A forest?
“WILL?” He calls out. “LUCAS!” He tries again. “DUSTIN? MAX!” He shouts, but there is no response. His voice becomes hoarse.“This is a shit prank, you know!” Mike yells, scrubbing his stinging eyes with his shoulder. His voice echoes in the pale blue light.
Pale blue…?
Mike stills. His eyes adjust to his surroundings. Root-like structures were holding him in place, but they were moving and withering across his body. Every time he attempted to move, the vines reacted, tightening their grip on him. When he looked up, vines were coiling along the walls and floors. Little particles floated in the air around him. Somewhere in the distance he could hear thunder before the space around him was bathed in scarlet light for a split moment, revealing more of where he was.
Was this-?
Mike writhed around, panic rising in him. This couldn’t be. He’d never been to the Upside Down, but he had heard stories. From Max, Will, and Nance. How cold and hollow it felt, how there were living roots and thunder…
It wasn’t like he ever wanted to go to the Upside Down. He had always just felt… left out, but he had never admitted that. It felt too insensitive given everything, but shouldn’t he have known the terrain of who he was fighting against?
One time he had tried bringing it up to Nance, during that summer. It was a day before a crawl. He found Nancy in the living room one night, nursing a cup of coffee, sitting on their father’s La-Z-Boy chair. She never sat in their dad’s chair unless it was past midnight and there was something pressing on her mind. After her graduation he hadn’t seen much of his sister. Nancy spent most of her time out in town. Will told him he suspected there was a falling out between her and Jonathan.
“What are you…?” Nancy sighed, frowning at him, whispering. “It’s one in the morning. Go to bed.”
Mike didn’t say a word. He just sat down beside her, staring off at the carpet in the pale light peeking from the blinds. The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator.
After a moment’s silence, Nancy sat down her cup of coffee. “Mike, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing - Nothing…” Mike shook his head before he found the courage to keep speaking. “It’s just that - I’ve been thinking. About the crawl stuff, and everything going on,”
Nancy nodded, waiting for him to continue.
“And I just - I don’t know, I feel like I’m not as prepared. El’s been training, Dustin’s helping with the telemetry tracker, and everyone else is - well, doing something.”
Nancy furrowed her brows at him. “There’s nothing else we can do. We’re all trying our best right now, along with everyone else in Hawkins…”
“I’m saying I was wondering if there’s…” the words strained to come out of him. “… any chance I could help. I mean, like, maybe help with whatever it is you do all day.”
As though remembering something she’d rather not think about, Nancy’s sucked in a steadying breath. “Maybe you could help Dustin and Steve.” She offered, her face brightening slightly at the suggestion.
Mike frowned and shook his head. “I’ve been with them before, and it’s pointless-”
Nancy’s face hardened.
“-for me to be there.”
Nancy sighed. She looked more tired than usual, and she smelled like fresh paint. It was then Mike noticed how she wasn’t dressed for bed, and there were bags under her eyes.
Nancy sighed. “ I’d never thought I’d say this, but there’s nothing else we can do right now, Mike. Dustin and Steve are good with the crawls, and Vecna’s been quiet - which I don’t like at all - but I’ve already driven myself in circles trying to help. We just have to lay low for a while.”
Mike nodded. Of course Nancy wouldn’t understand. To her, he’d always be her baby brother. “You’re right. Goodnight.” Mike got up from the couch, making his way back down to the basement.
“Wait, Mike-” Nancy called out, but he had already shut the door.
And now, it seemed as though Mike had gotten his wish.
Fuck.
He was somewhere inside a building, but he didn’t know where. The walls were of white bricks, and the floors were linoleum. Was this Hawkins High? Before Mike could contemplate where he was any further, heavy footsteps echoed off the linoleum, followed by the low, monstrous growl of a creature. Mike's mind raced faster than his heart. Was it a Demogorgon? A Demodog? He had nothing to kill them with - no fire, or bat, or gun, but who was he kidding? He was tied up. There was nothing he could do.
He was going to die.
The creature turned the corner.
The growl turned into a deep, rumbling, laugh.
Mike’s eyes went wide. His brain barely processing what he was seeing.
Vecna.
No, we- we killed him. I watched Joyce hack his head off. I saw the Mind Flayer, I saw-
The memories had begun to feel hazy, as though they were slipping away, but they felt so real. It had to be real…
“Did you really think it would be that easy?” Vecna growled, sending a shiver down Mike’s spine. He inched closer and closer to Mike with achingly slow steps. There was a proud glow in his dark blue eyes, the last part of him that looked human. “I don’t under-,” Mike said, writhing even more and gasping for breath. “I don’t- understand!” He shouted, barely being able to think. Nothing made sense. He had just graduated. He was about to eat lasagna. Goddamn lasagna. The kind his dad secretly hated. The kind Holly always had two plates of.
Vecna closed the space between them. Mike could see the sickly red veins across his skull-like face and the fleshy spikes that jutted out of his shoulders. It was worse than Mike had imagined.
To hear about Vecna was one thing. Mike could conceptualize him, break him down into hazy nightmarish visions, something as mythical as a grim fairytale monster. Yet to see him made Mike wonder if Hell was real.
Vecna brought his left hand to Mike’s face, caressing his cheek. Mike whimpered, closing his eyes, trying to move his head away.
“Oh, Michael… life cannot be a dream.”
FALL, 1987
“Mike, wake up, please, you have to wake up.”
Will is breathless, shaking with adrenaline and fear, grasping Mike’s shoulder, trying to shake his friend awake. A moment before, Mike was running to him, calling him a sorcerer. Will could’ve sworn there was a glow to Mike’s face as he said that. It reminded Will of the looks Mike had given him all the time in the summer…
The summer…
Don’t think about that right now. Will says to himself.
He had relished in that brief hug, and for a moment Will was elated - maybe he had finally figured everything out. Maybe things would be… good from here. The probability of defeating Vecna felt possible somehow. A surge of hope struck within him so suddenly he was dizzy. But then, Mike started holding him a little too tightly before pulling away so suddenly and stumbling on his feet. “Will…” he said, his voice shaking in a way Will had never heard from him before.
He had sounded scared.
Mike’s eyes had closed, and then he toppled to the ground.
Now, Will and Joyce are above him, trying to shake him awake. In grasping Mike’s shoulder Will stares at his own hands. Hands that had been used to conduct the kill. The snapping of large, monstrous bones. Their limbs had snapped as easily as…snapping pretzels in two. A sick feeling rises up within him at the feeling. He had been the one to break their bones but he had also been the one to feel it happen. He can still feel echoes of what the Demos had felt. What it felt like to have your bones broken. The grinding of the broken pieces as the limbs struck the ground.
“Is he okay? Is he hurt?” Joyce is rambling, trying to figure out what to do with Mike being unconscious. “God, I would’ve killed those goddamn bastards if I could.”
There were still dead soldiers everywhere, and so much blood. The Mac-Z was practically destroyed. Any moment now, reinforcements would arrive. They needed to leave, but with Mike unconscious…
“Mom, please,” Will says, his chest aching in panic. Something was wrong with Mike. Did he get struck in the head? Will looks him over. Nothing, and no blood that was his. “Mike, please, you have to wake up.” Will is pleading now, shaking him frantically. He turns to Joyce. “With Mike like this, we can’t go through the tunnels.” Will says worryingly, hating how much his voice is shaking. “And the Mac-Z gate is closed…”
A walkie warbled in the distance. Will and Joyce’s attention snap over to it. Was it from a dead soldier, someone calling reinforcements?
“Does this thing have a goddamn signal? I REPEAT, Ranger, the Paladin is down! The Paladin is goddamn d-”
Will breathes out a sigh of relief. It’s Lucas, carrying a walkie, which Erica is viciously yelling into.
“I copy, I copy!” Lucas shouts into his walkie, rolling his eyes at his sister before running over to them and seeing Mike on the ground, trying to catch his breath. “Mike?” He turns to both of them. “What the hell happened?”
“Vecna,” Will manages to say. “He was here. He came here and he..” Breathe. “He took the kids. All of them.”
Lucas’ face falls. “I know. Derek, Mary Glenn…”
Will shakes his head. “No, not just them. The others too. None of them made it out of Hawkins.”
Lucas runs a hand over his face. They would all need a new plan now. “Shit,” he mutters.
A rumbling begins in the sky. The three of them look up to see lights moving through the clouds.
Helicopters. The reinforcements. They needed to leave.
“Lucas, Will, are you both able to carry Mike to the tunnels?” Joyce says.
Lucas and Will exchange a quick glance before nodding. They hoist Mike up into their arms and head for the tunnels.
I failed… Will keeps saying in his mind, carrying Mike in his arms. I failed… the voice repeats relentlessly.
I…I failed…