Chapter Text
“Cover your ear-“
Will heard this too late, and before he knew it, he was on the ground with an electricity line crashing down towards him, and a noise worse than any scream, any screech, any sound that haunted him. He felt blood gushing out of his ears , covering his shoulders and arms. But everything soon went quiet.
———
“Cover your ears!”
Mike screamed at Will, but when the noise finally came out of his mouth, Mike couldn’t even hear himself.
He could barely see what was in front of him, blood and rain and the storms of the upside down clouding his vision.
Before he could understand what happened, the world went white.
~
When Mike woke up, he found himself in a white room. He couldn’t see very well, everything was blurry. He saw 3 kids and 1 adult standing above him, but he could quite make them out. The adult was a brunette, along with one of the kids. One kid was a ginger, and another had black hair. While he was trying to get a better look at them, the adult brunette sprung up and hugged him.
“Oh Mike.. I’m so glad you are okay.”
Joyce. That must be Joyce. She was practically a second mother to Mike, and a better one at that.
When Joyce finally let go of him, the black haired and brown haired boys got up to talk to him.
“Mike! I’m happy you are alright! What happened?”
“Dude, he just woke up. Give him a break.”
Mike recognized them as his vision started to unblur as Dustin and Lucas. Always bickering, but that’s who they are.
He looked over at the ginger, who to no one’s surprise, was Max. She hadn’t said anything yet, but they were just like that with each other.
As Mike’s eyes scanned the room, his heart rate sped up when one familiar face was missing from the room.
“Where’s Will?”
Max’s eyes rolled slightly, and Dustin and Lucas turned to each other, a look of guilt in their eyes.
It was silent for what felt like hours till Joyce responded.
“He’s still asleep.”
Mike blinked. What does that even mean?
“Asleep?”
“Yes honey, asleep. He hasn’t woken up yet since what happened.”
Mike stared at joyce, blankly. What happened? What? When?
“How long have I been asleep?”
Joyce, Dustin, and Lucas shared guilty looks with one another.
“You’ve been asleep for a week, Sweetie.”
——
When Will woke up, he was in a quiet room. it was an empty room, pretty obviously a hospital room. No doctors and no people in there. He couldn’t hear his monitor. Maybe they turned it off, per request from last time.
He sat in bed, and rustled a bit, and the bed sheets were silent. Maybe they got an upgrade, he thought.
From the next room over, he heard something finally, although it was very faint. It almost sounded like a sound machine. He couldn’t hear anything else. At least I’m not deaf, he thought.
He stared up at the blaring ceiling lights and felt his eyes blinking himself back to sleep.
———
“What?!”
“Shh- it’s alright.”
Mike felt his chest rising up and down and heard his heart monitor going off. One nurse ran in to check and make sure he was stable. It took about 15 minutes, and Mike wished he could be anywhere but where he was. He wished he knew how Will was. Was he okay? What made him not okay? What happened?
When the nurse finally left she took joyce out with her in the hall and talked with her for a bit. He couldn’t hear all of it, but he could hear the nurse reprimanding her about getting him riled up. Joyce walked back in and sat on the chair next to his bed.
“Well Sweetie, we can’t tell you much about what happened. You need to get some rest. Relax. We are gonna go check on Will and we’ll come back later to tell you about it, okay?”
Mike nodded, almost pouty. He watched as Joyce, Dustin, and Lucas walked out of the room. Max hadn’t left yet. Mike was confused about this considering that she was blind, not deaf.
“Max? You realize they left right?”
No response. Mike sat up as much as he could and realized she was very much asleep. Instead of trying to get her to wake up, he looked at her and realized she needed the sleep. Her eye bags ran deep.
Mike needed sleep too. He laid on his side and started to drift off.
——
When Will awoke again, he was surrounded by three people. His Mother, Dustin, and Lucas. His eyes widened, a bit of a jumpscare, he thought.
He stared at them for what felt like an hour before he realized their mouths were moving. It almost looked like they were talking, but no sound came out. His mother and his friends had their heads turned in confusion. His throat felt fine, so he tried to squeak out words.
“I can’t hear you.”
His mother looked taken aback, Dustin and Lucas dumbfounded. Will himself was taken aback, for he couldn’t hear himself. He couldn’t hear.
“I can’t hear myself.”
His mother looked at him, worry in her eyes as she said something he couldn’t hear. Dustin and Lucas got up and ran to the other side of the room and came back with paper and pen.
She took it from them, and even Will without use of his ears could tell she said thank you, and started scribbling.
Will couldn’t hear it. Will couldn’t hear anything.
But that didn’t make sense.
Before Will could peace his thoughts together, she turned the notepad around and watched him read it.
‘Do you remember what happened?’
This is the first thing he gets asked when he gets woken up. Not ‘how are you feeling?’ or anything. Straight to the point. Okay.
Will is still too weak to move his arms and hands enough to write.
“Yes.”
Joyce sighs a sigh of relief and her shoulders drop. she turns the notepad back around and keeps writing on the page. He looks over to Dustin and Lucas, who are talking about something he can’t even make out with lip reading.
His mom turns the note pad around.
‘Can you tell us what happened to you and Mike?’
Will stares at the paper. How could he forget?
“Is Mike okay?”
His mom turns the paper around and writes,
‘Yes, he is in the other room and he is awake. He doesn’t remember anything.’
“Oh”
His mom nods solemnly. She points at her first message again.
“From what I remember, me and Mike were grabbing stuff from the store when the storm hit.”
Dustin and Lucas turn around to listen.
“The sky was red. We were stuck outside and I could barely see him.”
Will pauses for a moment. He remembers that Mike had brought up the painting. They had been arguing outside when the storm hit. Everything about Mike’s angry demeanor flipped into trying to keep them safe. He doesn’t include this, though.
“Me and Mike had just gotten into an argument about something, but it looked like something clicked in his head. He looked behind me and yelled at me to cover my ears. I looked back before I could cover my ears and saw an electrical line falling towards me. Then, there was this horrible noise. It sounded like if you put nails on a chalkboard and turned it up very high and made it sound like screaming.”
Tears had started to form in Will’s eyes at this point, so he stopped.
His mom, Dustin and Lucas stared at him blankly.
His mom slowly wrote down one more thing.
‘There was no storm in Hawkins the day of the incident.’
What? That wasn’t possible. It was raining so hard, and he could see the lighting and..
The sky was red.