What's Left of Us

Battle of Star Court Mall

Set during the last scene of the Battle for Star Court Mall.

Mike

Mike woke up to Max grabbing his arm, yelling at him in a hurried tone, "Mike, come on. Mike, you've gotta get up, let's go please get up!". He wasn't sure of his immediate surroundings, but the last thing he remembered was Billy knocking him unconscious, but he quickly regained his senses when he realized El wasn't with them.

"Where did he take her?" Mike immediately yelled, almost pushing Max out of the way as he started running towards the entrance they had came from. Internally, fear began to set in, he knew no matter what happened he had to get to El. Max began shouting for Mike to wait up, but all he heard was his own heartbeat thumping in his head, his body tingling from the adrenaline setting in while his brain started racing a mile a minute.

The classroom, the three hundred and fifty three days, the thought of losing her, every bit of it running through his mind.

As he ran past the chain link fence he could hear Max's sneakers squeaking behind him. He heard the sound of what he thought were fireworks, but the thought didn't last long, it didn't matter. As he got through the front two doors to Starcourt he hesitated momentarily, trying to fully asses what was going on without losing his nerve as Max shouted his name again. Lucas, Will, Nancy, and Jonathan were all throwing fireworks from the grocery store at the Mindflayer. He couldn't see El which set of internal alarms that she was in danger, and without thinking twice grabbed a metal rod that looked like it had been ripped off a stairwell rail.

Furiously, Mike ran down the stairs, and as he did El came into view, with Billy towering over her. For a split second this felt like the Sauna test all over again, everybody watching on while Mike was the only one who felt brave enough to run in and save her.

Nows not the time he thought to himself. Mike saw El trying to scoot away from Billy and he knew it was now or never. At that moment in time, everything seemed to slow down, the thump of his heartbeat was present, if not even louder this time. Thump Thump, he took off, sliding down the last bit of railing and running up behind Billy as he pulled El back towards the Mind Flayer. Mike could feel tears swelling up, nothing in this world was going to let anyone or anything take El away from him again.

El

Pure fear. That was all she felt as she tried to crawl away from the Mind Flayer. She thought if Billy could be distracted for a moment, then maybe, just maybe she could crawl away. Inside her all the panic alarms were going off. She hadn't had her powers since earlier in the evening, and she had never felt more useless without them. As she got close to the GAP, Billy seemed to regain consciousness and notice her scooting away, he ran after her and started dragging her by her leg towards it - it's stench was enough to induce severe nausea, and its tentacles with razor sharp teeth already shooting out everywhere. Somewhere, in the middle of the pure chaos that was erupting all around her she noticed something out of the corner of her eye — no, someone.

Mike? She thought to herself. Suddenly she felt an array of emotions, an odd mixture of fear and calm. She wanted to scream at him to get away, he was putting himself in harms way to try and save her. As he got closer she saw the metal rod in his hand, and couldn't think of any plan other than that he was going to try and whack Billy with it. For a moment she sat there, without knowing the words to describe her feelings as she felt tears start to run down her face

He never stopped being my protector, she thought to herself.

As Mike was about 5 feet away from Billy, he cocked back the rod, and Billy turned around as he heard the light footsteps coming his way. But it was too late, El watched as Mike swung and made contact with the side of Billy's head, watching as he staggered to the side, catching himself on a mall bench and then slouching over, losing consciousness. Everything after that seemed to move in slow motion, Mike knelt down next to her and she could see tears streaming down his face.