Moonstruck - Stranger Things

Forgotten|16

W I L L

The first thing I notice when I wake up is the splitting headache taking over my brain. I look in confusion, not remembering when I went to bed last night. I was probably just tired or something.

I get up from my bed, and the headache starts to go away. It is replaced with a pain in the back of my neck, one that stings like a hundred bees. "Oh god," I mutter, trying to see it in the mirror. All I see is a small red spot and nothing more. I hear a knock at the door as my mom walks in. "Will, time to wake u- hey, you okay?" She asks, staring at my through the door frame.

"Yeah-yeah I'm totally fine," I say, shaking off the weird feeling.

one hour later

I sit down in my desk with a weird feeling in my stomach. First the head, then my neck, now my stomach, what's next? Shoulders, knees, and toes? It feels like nausea on steroids, and I can't help but to hold my stomach with my hands. I'm probably just sick or something.

I look at the door just in time to make eye contact with a familiar boy, even though I'm pretty sure I've never seen him before. He has brown curly hair, blue eyes, a red, white, and blue baseball cap, and a cold stare right into my soul. This boy, I feel like I've seen him before. I feel like I've known him before. He sits in the empty seat beside me, looking away.

"Why haven't I seen you here before?" I ask, and he looks at me again.
"Why haven't I seen you?" He asks, and I grow confused. Has he been in this class all along?
"We must have not been paying atten-"
"Will, Dustin!" I hear as I'm being squeezed by a boy whom I've never seen before. I see the other boy who I was talking to, who now must be Dustin, furrow his eyebrows at me. I try to escape from this weird guy's grasp.
"Who are you?" I ask after a few seconds of staring at him. He loses his slight smile and gets a serious expression.
"Okay, seriously, let's not do these jokes. I now I've been gone for a week, but I've been through a lot. I-I found her. But we were trapped down there. Then she brought me back here, and I lost her. I just bought you'd be more excited to see me," he says, sadly walking away.

All of a sudden, I feel something weird in my stomach. It feels like something is crawling around in there. I get up from my seat, feeling dizzy. The feeling gets 10x worse, and I take off to the bathroom. I lock the door behind me, not wanting anyone to witness whatever is happening to me.

I try to make my way to the toilet, but it's too late. I stand over the sink, coughing and hacking, until a slimy creature that could only be a slug crawls out of my throat and down the drain. And then something else happens, something even weirder.

All around me is nothing but slime and darkness. It's like I've been teleported to some other place, some monster realm.

But then everything is back to normal, and I'm left staring at the bathroom mirror in shock.

The same thing happens for 3 days, from everything to the strange connections with the two boys to the slugs coming up my throat.

. . .

"Something is going on here," I mumble, rocking myself back and forth on my bed. The slugs, the visions, the strange feelings, nothing is normal here. Something happened. I feel like someone has been tinkering with my mind. Maybe I'm just going insane. Maybe it's my own mind that's playing tricks on me.
"Can I come in," I hear Jonathan ask with a knock. "Yea," I quietly reply. He opens the door and looks at me with concern.

"Why haven't you come out of your room all night? I haven't really seen you in days because you've been isolating yourself so much.
It's already 9, you're usually out drawing or with your friends. What's up?"

"I don't know," I reply. "I've felt...strange for the past few days. These images kept coming into my head that seemed all too real for my imagination, and I've been- I cou-" I stop myself, not knowing if I want to tell him about the slugs, but it's too late now.

"I've been puking up slugs."

His expression transforms from concerned into scared, and he furrows his eyebrows. "You what?" He slightly yells, and I cover his mouth with my hand.

"Shh, Mom would go insane if she found out," I say. "I woke up the other day and felt really weird. When I got to school, I saw these two boys. One seemed familiar and apparently had been sitting beside me every day, but I have no memory of him. The other screamed my name and hugged us both, saying some really weird stuff. I got this awful feeling in my stomach and the rest of my body, worse than nausea. I could feel it crawling around inside me, but I thought I was just being paranoid. I left class and went to the bathroom, and puked up a 5-inch slug in the sink. It slithered down, and then I saw this place. All around me was nothing but darkness and decay. I could even smell the ooze dripping off the walls. These things have been happening for days. I don't know what happened or what any of this means, but I feel like it's somewhere in my memory. Something happened. Someone messed with my mind. I think- I think I've either been given fake memories, or have had horrible memories taken away."

D U S T I N

What is happening?

The strange boys, the girl that cries every time she looks at me, the weird and permanent gut feeling I have that tells me something isn't right, everything is just strange.

I sit alone at the lunch table. Have I always not had friends? It seems like I remember having some, but I can't recall. My thoughts are interrupted by the girl, the one named Gracie, who's been acting weird around me all week. She sits across from me and slams her hands on the table. She stares me in the eyes, and I feel slightly intimidated.

"Who or what are you, and what did you do with my Dusty?" She asks, and I just look at her.

"What are you talking about?" I ask. "Why are you being so weird around me?"

She just grabs my hand, and I see her eyes tear up. "I know you're in there, Dustin. I don't know what hey did to you, but there's no way that anyone could destroy your mind. Please, remember me. Please, I need you," she says, tears streaming down her cheeks. I watch as she walks out of the cafeteria, and I see her run to the bathroom through the window. Suddenly, my vision goes blank.

All I see is her and I, running through the hallways of some laboratory, hand in hand.
And this memory, it seems so vivid, so real.

YALL NO PROOFREADING BECAUSE IM LIKE SICK AND TIRED AND IM ALSO WATCHING CARS BUT PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK OR WHAT YOU'RE CONFUSED ABOUT

Lauren