Eddie My Love

Chapter Twenty Six: Maybe I'm Not Dead After All

All I can hear is my own breathing. My eyelids are heavy, but I have the urge to open them. I open my eyes to a familiar darkness. Maybe I'm not dead after all. Something echos in the distance. Someone's calling my name. As the voice gets closer I realize it's El.
"Eleven!"
"Y/n!"
I see her. Her back is turned to me.
"Eleven over here!"
She turns around and runs towards me. We hug.
"What happened to your arm?" I ask her.
"What happened to yours?" she replies.
We both chuckle.
"I need you to wake up and tell me where you are" Eleven says.
"I don't know if I can"
"You can"
And just like that she was gone and I was alone. I close my eyes and try to wake up but every time I open my eyes I'm still in the abyss. I close my eyes again and try to remember what happened the last time I was awake. I feel the sensation of falling and open my eyes. I'm staring at an orange sky. I look around me and see red cliffs. There's something climbing them. I squint to see better and hear that awful screech as the creature's head opens up. I sit up with a gasp. On the ground in front of me is a sword. It's Eddie's sword.
"Eddie?" I yell.
Nothing. I put my hands on the ground to stand up and feel something squish beneath them. I quickly pick up my hands to find an eye. A literal eyeball. Just sitting there. And not too far from it is what appears to be Vecna's severed hand. The one with the long ass claws.
"Are you there y/n?" I hear Eleven say.
It's like I can hear her but only in my mind. Like how you can hear your own voice in your head.
"Yeah I'm here" I reply.
"Where are you?"
"The upside down still I think, but it's not like Hawkins anymore."
"That means it worked"
"Thank god because I swore if we did all that and it didn't work"
We both laugh.
"You need to open a gate and get out of there" says Eleven.
"How?" I ask.
"Imagine Hawkins. Like the upside down was before. Find Mike's house and concentrate. You can do it. I know you can."
I take a deep breath, grab Eddie's sword, and imagine the upside down Hawkins that I was in before. The landscape began to change around me. All of the sudden I was back at Eddie's trailer. I looked down and the eye and hand were still there.
"I hate to say it but these might be useful like in a museum or something."
I find a plastic bag and use it to pick up and hold the dismembered body parts. I head outside and follow the road the way I had done when I originally went to Hawkins to find Eddie. After what felt like hours of walking and avoiding creatures I made it to the Wheeler house. I walked into the living room and focused on a spot on the ceiling. I closed my eyes, held out my non-mangled hand, and concentrated on opening an interdimensional gate between here and the real world. Easy peasy. The ceiling began to creak and I opened my eyes. There was a tear forming. I could see the outlines of people through the fleshy film. This is gonna be gross. I begin stick my hand through. I gag.
"Nuh uh not doing that."
I raise Eddie's sword to the gate and slice it open. The below the gate on the other side gasp and move out from under it.
"Sorry" I yell.
"No your good not the first time I've had slime splattered all over me" Steve says looking up through the hole. "Did you grab that rope on our way out Nance?"
"Uh yeah hold on" Nancy replies.
"Hey can I throw a couple things through before I try to climb the rope. I kinda really only have one good hand." I say.
"Oh yeah I forgot about that" Steve says.
"Move" Eleven says as she steps under the gate. "I can bring her through"
I grab Eddie's sword and the Vecna bag and hold on tight. Eleven levitates me through the gate and sets me upright on the floor.
"Thanks El" I say.
"No problem." she says.
"Here I'll help close the gate."
I hand the bag and sword to Dustin and help El close the gate.
"Woah sick sword" Dustin says.
"Yeah it was Eddie's" I reply.
He looks at me with wide eyes.
"Eddie's?"
"Turns out our Kas theory was right. He just wasn't Kas when we tried to find him earlier. That's all that's left of him. He killed Vecna with that sword."
He smiles at the sword.
"And what's in the bag?" asks Lucas from the other side of the room.
He's sitting on the floor with Max's head on his lap.
"Oh that? Y'know just an eyeball and hand from the one and only Vecna."
Dustin drops the bag, a wave of disgust washing over his face.
"Ew why do you have that?" he asks.
"I don't know I thought that it'd be kinda cool in a museum or something." I say.
"Like a museum of Hawkins?" Jonathan asks.
I shrug my shoulders.