𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐁𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥 ; ᵂᶦˡˡ ᴮʸᵉʳˢ

iv ; The Sauna Test

8am, the perfect time to wake up on a Monday morning during summer break.

Ethan quickly gets dressed, brushes his teeth, and gets a quick, cold shower. He goes downstairs to grab some breakfast and use the bathroom. As one does in the morning.

He walks back up the stairs, holding a small pack of M&M's, a cup of yogurt and a spoon. He walks into his room and turns on the radio, playing Monday Morning by Fleetwood Mac. He turned the volume up, to where he could at least not hear the neighbors dogs bark as loud as they could. He sit at his desk snacking on the sweetened yogurt, holding a pencil in his hand.

He was writing in his green notebook, about life. The Upside Down, the lab, the party, etc. Trauma dumping, basically.

The radio turned onto the next song, Atomic by Blondie. Ethan hummed the tune, tapping his leg to the beat. The writing and time to himself faded quickly as  he finished the yogurt in his hand. The boy groans, throwing his head back to be dramatic. He finishes the end of his sentence before adding a period, and a  sharp pain strikes him in the chest.

He groans and almost yells in agony, holding his chest. He stumbles into the bathroom to grab some Advil and quickly downs it with some tap water. He pants as he leans on the sink, trying to catch his breath and not focus on the sudden pain. He thinks back to last year, with the black veins and him seeing things when the party found him in the AV room.

He walks back downstairs, gulping down some more water, to slip on some sneakers and ride around town for a while. He hadn't talked to anyone in almost 24 hours, he hadn't even seen his mom come home. Which was strange, sure, but Ethan trusted his mom enough that she was just with Joyce or Hopper.

Ethan rode off the street into a bike trail into the woods, where he carefully rode over the rocks and dirt. Looking at all the pretty flowers and tall, green trees.

He wondered how Jaeden and Hallow were doing. They were both in a new home, on the edge of the Hawkins perimeter. The two kids and Ethan rarely talked anymore, as their foster parents normally spoiled them with vacations and road trips. They knew about them having horrible trauma, but not much else, thankfully.

But the curiosity always seemed to push him. Like a ticking time bomb. He was ready to explode with questions he couldn't answer.

He grows angry at his whole life and he starts being more harsh on the bike as he climbs up the hill. The lab, his lab friends, people being pricks, being born unable to hear, he couldn't even hear what could've been Will's last words on the radio in 1983. The fact he couldn't even talk to one of his best friends without him talking about swapping spit with Eleven made him want to implode.

Ethan sped down the hill dangerously fast, he didn't even notice his speed until moments before he bumped into a rock, sending him flying down the rest of the hill, his bike following suit.

He finally toppled into the ground, landing a good concussion, but the bushes below him took some pain away. He'd end up with some scratches, bruises, and the concussion.  It wasn't all that hospital worthy so he took a couple minutes to try and stand up and stay awake. He stumbled over to his bike, which to his surprise, wasn't a whole mess. He stood it up, ready to try and get on and go home. The sunlight hurt his eyes, the soft noises of the woods hurt his ears, like everything he could hear and see increased and he felt like he was dying.

A tight force squeezed his neck. He couldn't breathe. The bike fell back onto the dirt, as he tried clawing whatever was around his neck, but looking at his arms, the veins were turning black. The cuts on his arms and legs weren't bleeding red anymore.

It was black, it was scarring over the cuts, black.

Just like '84.

He tried screaming, but it was like being trapped in a dream. Like a paralysis demon was slowly killing him and he couldn't do anything. He tried teleporting, but he couldn't. Trying to spawn a spark fire also didn't help. He couldn't focus on his power as he was gasping for air. He felt his own eyes rolling back in his head. He tried clawing at the sensation around his neck, feeling a shadow-y yet fleshy something around his neck before he fell down to the ground, face first.