ϛ86Ɩ 'ɥʇ0Ɛ ǝunſ
You carefully pulled a small shard of glass from your hand, wincing at the pain as you bit down on a wad of fabric to muffle your noises. Somehow a piece of glass was shattered, the small points digging into your hand. Managing to keep your screams in, you sat down and focused with shaky hands as you picked them out one by one.
As you pulled the last noticeable piece out, you leaned your head back and sucked in a breath, taking the fabric from your mouth and setting it beside you. Looking over your tattered jeans and injured legs, you took a few much needed deep breaths to calm yourself down.
This is literal hell.
You thought to yourself, forcing yourself to stand and quietly making your way over to the makeshift shower with a hesitant cough. The weird vine-like-mush made you wince every time you stepped on it, especially as you pried it away to disconnect the showers curtain rod.
The curtain itself was paper thin and torn to shreds, but that wasn't what you needed it for. Every motion you did was agonizingly slow, heart racing as you knew one sound could blow your cover completely. You took the rod and shortened it down as much as possible, throwing it in your bag before a loud cracking noise made you cover your ears.
It sent a pulse through the ground, shaking the floors making your legs feel weak as you fell to the ground. Thankfully, the shaking and loud noise was enough to make your fall practically unnoticeable. You bit down on your tongue, trying to cover your ears the best you could from the sharp noise that made them feel as if they would bleed.
Suddenly, the noise stopped. But the howls of the demodogs caught your attention as they all started heading in the same direction. Carefully standing, you tried to rid yourself of your headache as you peeked through the boarded windows. In the distance, you saw a bright blue-ish white glow coming from somewhere around the mall and it seemed all the dogs were heading that way as well.
Having practically nothing to lose, you grabbed your bag and carefully made your way out of the cabin, stepping into the dark and cold world of the upside down. You had grown accustomed to the noises of the dogs and demogorgons, even figuring out that they had certain patterns they would follow at certain times.
There was a single path that would get you to town 80% of the time without any altercations, and you were happy to take those odds. As you walked along, you found yourself somewhat missing the noises around you, as the dead silence made it somehow worse for your sanity.
After what felt like hours, you made it to town, heading toward the light and stopping along the edge of the trees that lined the giant parking lot. The mall....more specifically somewhere under the mall was where the glowing was coming from. You assumed the dogs had made a hole straight through the building as the light brightly showed.
The closer you got, the more you could feel the small pulses from whatever was happening, but when a few dogs emerged from the light, you decided to turn back and not take a bigger risk.
Making your way back to the cabin, you started to hear the dog's familiar noises come from behind you. You could see your shelter in the distance and decided to run for it. The noise of your footsteps were loud, immediately alerting the dogs to your presence as they raced through the trees.
Your lungs burned in your chest, but you continued on, eventually making it to the door and swinging it closed only to have a dog manage to make it in the room. Grabbing the pole from your bag, you smacked it across the face, letting it slam against a wall before lunging at you and knocking you over. You kicked it back, huffing and seeing the pole sitting across the floor just out of arm's reach.
