๐๐ ๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐๐;
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 ๐ข๐ญ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ. 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, ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐จ๐๐ค๐ช๐ก๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐.
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 ๐ค๐ฐ๐ญ๐ฅ, 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 ๐๐ถ๐ด๐ต๐ช๐ฏ sitting over him, tears squeaking down sobbing cheeks with vague promises of safety and recovery. Eddie had known, even then, that ๐๐ ๐ฌ๐๐จ ๐ ๐๐ค๐ฃ๐๐ง.
It made sense, then, that they'd ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ง๐ต. 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 ๐ด๐ต๐ข๐บ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ.
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 ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ง๐ถ๐ค๐ฌ๐ฆ๐ณ awaited him next, the broken boy, ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฃ๐ข๐ฏ๐ช๐ด๐ฉ๐ข๐ฃ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ช๐ฆ ๐๐ถ๐ฏ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฏ, let a breathy promise slip from a throat screamed raw; "๐๐๐๐จ ๐๐จ ๐ข๐ฎ ๐๐ช๐๐ ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ฎ๐๐๐ง."
โฃ
Originally written and shared as part of Verbuary 2023: https://tinyurl.com/56upf2m3
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