𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 ➳ 𝘣𝘺𝘭𝘦𝘳 [ON HOLD]

➳ 𝐬𝐢𝐱: 𝘢 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘺 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘨𝘰

It was cold. It was windy. The sound of susurrating trees was growing louder and louder every minute. The sky seemed darker than ever — it was gloomy. Moonless, as they say. The clouds were appearing to be much heavier than they were. A loud rumble shocked the sleeping residents of the city of Chicago — some had been woken up. The sky brightened up for a few seconds as the lightning began striking every two minutes or so.

All of a sudden, a louder sound of the roll of thunder struck as if the sky was groaning out of anger — followed by the countless raindrops falling down the ground and the roofs of each of the city's residences. It was thundering really really bad. This hadn't happened for months in the same city, and it was surprising to have it back tonight; November 1st, 1985. 3:57 am.

A small figure of a boy — about five foot and seven inches long — was laying down on a queen-sized bed with a checkered pattern sheets, colors being brown, black, white, and a tiny bit of maroon. The bed was arranged right next to the bedroom's wall decorated with a yellowish brown wallpaper with a so called diamond patterns as a design. There was no space between the mattress and the wall — meaning, they were compressed into each other.

The bedroom itself wasn't so big, but not so small either. It was the perfect room dimension for a fourteen year old. The first thing that could be seen once someone entered the room was the study desk located at the doorway's right. Then behind the swung open door, there was a simple closet. Next to the study desk was another table, but longer, and it was forming like an L shape. The longer 'L' part was the one located next to the study area while the shorter 'L' part was arranged in front of the longer's butt. A few meters away from the shorter table was the nightsand. Then, there was a dresser situated next to the closet and ahead of the foot of the bed frame.

The boy was laying straight down on the mattress, his lower body up to his chest tucked underneath the covers while his arms were exposed as they both were wrapped around a soft cushion resting on top of his chest and stomach. His eyelids were flung away from one another — eyes focused on the dirty-white ceiling above as he thought deep about the reason why he was up in the middle of the night when he was supposed to be asleep; the fact that he had school in nearly three to four hours.

"Will! What's wrong? I couldn't find you! Are you hurt? I'm gonna get you home, okay? I'm gonna get you home, hold on."

Will was woken up by a dream — a nightmare. The dream was the absolute same scenario as when he was being followed by the Shadow Monster exactly a year ago, and was thankfully saved by the one and only Mike Wheeler — except it wasn't the monster who was following him; and it was present time. It was a group of people — disrespectful, ungrateful people — who were chasing Will as they yell loudly; calling him slurs, offensive names, booing him, hurting him with words. He hid and sat behind the same wall from last year, where Mike had found him — in real life and in his nightmare. The group wasn't a normal, random group of bullies who would call you names to make fun of you — but it was a group of people who hated gays. They were chasing Will for a reason, and he knew what it was. He knew why.

But the thing here was: why was Mike there and the Party wasn't? Why was Mike fast enough to save Will despite the fact that he wasn't even with him the previous minutes of his dream?

Will would admit it; he dreamed of Mike almost every night for the past four weeks. He didn't know why, since he wasn't even thinking of him everyday as if Mike lived in his mind rent free. In fact, he tried forgetting about him. Well, not entirely forget, but he wanted to stop thinking about him everyday — wondering what he could be doing. Does he think about me too? Will thought once. He knew he was acting weird towards his own bestfriend. Why would he be thinking of Mike all day, all night, but not of the rest of the Party?