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Everything hurts.
It feels like all his flesh has been flipped inside out; his skin is searing hot, boiling in his own sweat, but inside is so cold and aching and raw... There are places in his body that he was previously unaware of that tingle uncomfortably, the phantom sensation of something having been there. It's in his throat and his ears and the base of his spine and in all the ends of his fingers, in his gut and pressing up against all sides of his ribcage... It hurt when He left. It was like ripping a weed out of the cracks in a sidewalk. His body had slowly grown accustomed to His icy presence, numbing every nerve to anything but what He willed him to feel, and now that that presence has been expelled from him, he just feels so... empty?
He had seeped into his mind and shifted through every single one of his thoughts and memories and feelings. He had rooted tendrils of smoke into everything, there was no escape; he had no other option but to just wait until He choked him out of existence. He's gone now. But there's still an echo. His body aches and his mind spins in confusion and he just feels violated. He just wants to stop feeling it, feeling anything, because everything just hurts.
There are muffled sounds around him. Rhythmic and melodic sounds, somewhat familiar... Voices. Those are voices. The sounds become clearer... The tones are sharp and desperate; sobbing. Begging. They keep saying a word... what does it mean... why does that word sound so important... Will. That's his name. Yes, that's right, his name is Will, the voices are calling his name.
He has barely any energy left. But he has to open his eyes, he has to respond, they're crying for him to wake up...
There are hands touching him... the sensation stings all the hypersensitive nerve endings in his skin, but instead of shrinking away like his mind begs him to do, his body instinctively relaxes at this touch. Warm. Safe. Love. Mom.
"Mom?" he hears his voice croak.
Both of the voices cry out in relief, and he's wrapped up in a tight hug, and every fiber of his being screams out in relief like he has never been held in his life, and all he is capable of wanting right now is to be held like that forever and never let go.
It doesn't hurt so much now. He is still incredibly drained, and barely conscious. But his mom has him cradled against her chest and his big brother is sitting on the other side rubbing his back, and it doesn't hurt so much. He's drifting away into sleep when he feels something.
Almost a tangible feeling... a sort of static electricity filling the air... but he feels it inside his head, too. A bright surge of energy, coming from everywhere and nowhere... it's almost familiar, but he can't pinpoint where he's felt that energy before. It's not Him. He was cold and dark, like fear and death. This energy is stronger, it's made of light and warmth. Safe, his mind supplies automatically. He must have felt it before, he must have.
There's a dim lamp across the room. In sync with the buzzing surge he feels in his mind, the lightbulb suddenly starts glowing brighter and brighter. Then, just as suddenly, the surge stops. The lamp returns to its original brightness. An odd sensation tingles up Will's spine. It's like when you've been driving for a long while with one car window open, and the wind is battering your ears and making your head pound with vibrations, and then as soon as you close the window, everything becomes clear and stable and quiet again. They all feel it.
C L O S E G A T E.
It's finally sealed.
It isn't quite "sleep", per se; Will spends the following indistinguishable span of time drifting in and out of consciousness. It's like the space in his head is too big, and his brain keeps knocking around inside it and can't settle. His awareness of his surroundings has dimmed to the lowest possible setting; everything is just a mass of energies, different blots of color and sound and varying temperatures that fade in and out or move around him. The warm, protective aura of his mother stays right next to him. Two other particularly bright swirls of light-- Jonathan and... another person, he can't tell for sure who-- move from his side to somewhere else, far enough away to dull the intensity of their presence but still close enough to perceive. Then there's a new mass of energy... coming towards him, farther away than the other two but somehow... brighter. Amidst other clouds of heat and rumbling noises, one small point of light flickering right at its center catches his attention. There it is again... that feeling of familiarity... he struggles to remember where and when he’s felt that light before...
The rumbling fades and the energies become clearer— two of them, one still much stronger than the other. The dimmer one is surrounding the bright light, carrying it closer. The more it grows near, Will feels strength returning to his mind, like he’s been out in the cold of winter and the light is a fireplace to thaw his frostbitten body. So familiar, why is it so familiar... The fuzzy distortion in his head dissipates enough to bring Will back to consciousness. The clouds of energy form shapes now, visible shapes and recognizable voices. His mother next to him. Jonathan across the room, Mike’s sister Nancy with him. And Chief Hopper, stepping in the door. He’s holding the bright light in his arms— no, wait, that’s a person. A girl. She doesn’t look like anyone he knows, but familiar, she’s familiar...
His mom lifts his body upright, making sure he’s steady, then stands up to go to Hopper and the girl.
“Is she okay?” He hears her say, making distressed, whimpering noises like she does when she’s fussing over her children, as though she knows the girl, too.
Hopper’s voice is a low and steady thrum of vibrations. He can’t quite make out his response, but his mother relaxes so the girl must be okay. Their two voices keep murmuring for a moment. Nancy says something in a worried, unsure timbre, and Jonathan’s voice rasps and mixes in with theirs, too. Hopper is still calm. Will notices the girl’s energy fluttering, the light becoming a bit brighter, like she’s waking up. His mom switches her tone to a soft, sweet crooning as Hopper moves to set her down on the opposite end of the bed that Will is in. The girl glows warmly at his mom’s gentle murmuring, and she’s caressing her cheeks and hair and holding her hand like she does with Will... Familiar...
It’s her, his mind starts shouting. The light, it’s her, it’s her! And he suddenly remembers where he’s felt it before.