papaslittlexperiment
Will doesn't really remember it--the Twisted World, where everything is dark and decaying, devoid of any life not born from twisted plants and shifting shadows.
Beyond the fear, and the ache of pumping legs, and the burn of lungs desperately trying to take in air so he can keep running--from the monster that stands like a man, but has a face like that of a flower made from flesh, lined with hundreds of razor-sharp teeth that glisten with the gushing saliva of a beast starved; from the sentient shadow, a spider-like thing made up of crisscrossing particles of twirling black; from the demonic bats that ark down from clouds flashing with red, the sound of their flapping, leathery wings and hungry screeches eclipsed by the clapping roar that accompanies the flashing crimson.
Will doesn't remember much but reaching vines, terrifying monsters, cold that freezes, and pain.
And red. So much red.
Lighting up the blue-tinted world with deafening claps of crimson thunder. Staining whatever clothes he'd scavenged from once-familiar houses, twisted and rotten in this cold world.
Smeared on the back of his hand, in the shoulder of a jacket, the top of his lip. The taste of iron on his tongue when he takes too long to wipe it away.
Blood, dribbling and gushing from his nose whenever he uses 𝙄𝙩. When his legs are too slow or too tired to carry him away from the nearest danger. When he's curled up in his latest hole of temporary safety, eyes finally falling closed after days spent open, constantly watching, with the sound of blood rushing and his heart beating, like static from some far off radio, and his mind drifts into the void.
There, separated from his aching body, in the darkness, is the only time Will feels anything truly resembling peace. Because there, in The Empty, he can find them.
--
Rest of the summary is under the chapter titled "Summary."
I do not own Stranger Things and am in no way profiting off of this.
A "what if" Will wasn't rescued.