𝚜𝚠𝚒𝚙𝚎, 𝚜𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝;
When Eddie woke up, it was to a blood red sky and an eerie silence.
As hazy sight blinked back into focus, Munson realised he was 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦. The bats that'd swarmed him had seemingly moved on, leaving behind a boy full of gory wounds and a handful of winged corpses scattered around him.
The bats had torn flesh from bone with rows of jagged, broken teeth. They'd ripped holes straight through the leather of his jacket as if it were little more than paltry chiffon, with his skin beneath faring much the same. His throat, his face, all over his body, lay open wounds with notched edges and hissing, caustic Demobat saliva.
By all accounts, 𝙀𝙙𝙙𝙞𝙚 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙗𝙚 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙙.
Sitting up, slowly, Eddie swiped the back of his hand across his face. Pulling back a messy smear of blood and dirt, Munson's face screwed up, with a quiet, "What the fuck?" slipping out of trembling lips. He was 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘥, freezing even, with the dampness of blood and sweat soaking his clothes right down to the skin.
Glancing down at his mangled body, Eddie's shaking hands traced lacerations that should have killed him. Foggy memories revealed 𝘋𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯 sitting over him, tears squeaking down sobbing cheeks with vague promises of safety and recovery. Eddie had known, even then, that 𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙜𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙧.
It made sense, then, that they'd 𝘭𝘦𝘧𝘵. Dustin and everybody else, leaving Eddie's body to the bats and beasts that roamed the hellscape hiding just beneath Hawkins. They weren't going to come back for a corpse, risk lives to pull the mincemeat metalhead out of the Upside Down, but equally, Eddie couldn't very well 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦.
Crawling onto his hands and knees and then, eventually, up to his feet, Eddie forced his battered body onwards. Shambling towards salvation, towards Vecna, towards whichever 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘳 awaited him next, the broken boy, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘌𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘦 𝘔𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘯, let a breathy promise slip from a throat screamed raw; "𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙢𝙮 𝙛𝙪𝙘𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧."
Originally written and shared as part of Verbuary 2023: https://tinyurl.com/56upf2m3
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