"EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE" Will Byers x Reader

Mind Flayer// chapter 21

Y/n's POV 

The room slowly forms around me as I regain consciousness. My eyes flicker slightly, and I close them again, echoes of the strain of my powers keeping my asleep. 

'Y/n?' A familiar voice whispers. 'Y/n, wake up.' 

I blink my eyes open slowly, trying to understand my surroundings. 

'Let her be, Mike,' another voice says. Is that Nancy? 

I let out a soft breath, trying to sit up. 

'It's okay,' Nancy rests a hand on my shoulder. 'Mike told me what happened.' 

'Bob?' I whisper. 'Will?' 

'Bob didn't-' Mike's voice breaks. 'He didn't....' 

'Will's sleeping,' Nancy cuts Mike off. 'He's sleeping in his room.' 

'I couldn't save him,' I choke. 'It's my fault he's dead.' 

'Sweetie,' Joyce sits down beside the couch. 'It's not your fault. You saved all of us.' 

'But Bob.' 

'Bob sacrificed himself for us,' Joyce wipes a tear away from her eye. 

I sigh. 

....

'The Chief's right on this.' Dustin says, as we sit at the Byers table. Max, Dustin, and Lucas somehow got here as well as Steve, Nancy and Jonathan. I would ask them what happened, but at this point I really don't want to know. 'We can't stop those Demo-dogs on our own.' 

'Demo-dogs?' Max raises her eyebrows skeptically. 

'Demogorgon dogs.' Dustin explains, placing both his hands together. 'Demo-dogs. It's like a compound. It's like a play on words...' 

'Okay.' Max says impatiently. 

'I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe...' Dustin continues. 

'But there's an army now.' Lucas cuts him off. 

'Precisely.' Dustin says. 

'His army.' Mike says slowly. 

'What do you mean?' Steve asks. I almost jump out of my seat, unaware that he was standing by the sink. 

'His army.' Mike repeats. 'Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too.' 

Mike grabs the paper of- 'The shadow monster.' Dustin says. 

'It got Will that day on the field.' Mike starts. 'The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him.' 

'And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?' Max clarifies. 

'To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything.' Mike explains. 

'Whoa. Slow down. Slow down.' Steve holds up his hands. 

'Okay, so, the shadow monster's inside everything.'  Mike says. 'And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will.' 

'And so does Dart.' Lucas adds. 

'Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us.' Mike finishes. 'The hive mind.' 

'Hive mind?' Steve questions. 

'A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism.' Dustin explains. 

'And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain.' Mike points at the drawing again. 

'Like the mind flayer.' Dustin points out. Lucas snaps his fingers. 

'The what?' Max and Steve ask.  

'The mind flayer.' Dustin says, pulling out his DnD book. 

'What the hell is that?' Hopper says, hands on his hips. 

'It's a monster from an unknown dimension.' Dustin starts. 'It's so ancient that it doesn't
even know its true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains
using its highly-developed psionic powers.' 

'Oh, my God, none of this is real.' Hopper grumbles. 'This is a kids' game.' 

'No, it's a manual. And it's not for kids.' Dustin points an accusatory finger at Hopper. 'And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor...' 

'-Analogy.' Lucas says. 

'Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is.' Dustin raises his voice. 

'Okay, so this mind flamer thing...' Nancy says. 

'-Flayer. Mind flayer.' 

'What does it want?' Nancy sighs. 

'To conquer us, basically.' Dustin explains. 'It believes it's the master race.' 

'Like the Germans?' Steve says. Nancy frowns at him, and Jonathan looks away. 

'Uh, the Nazis?' Dustin turns to him. 

'Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis.' Steve looks flustered. 

'Uh...If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally.' Dustin says, as Hopper lets out a loud sigh. 

'Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself.'

'It wants to spread, take over other dimensions.' Mike says. 

'We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it.' Lucas says. 

'That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!' Steve turns away. 

'Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it...' Nancy trails off. 

'We kill everything it controls.' Mike says. 

'We win.' 

'Theoretically.' 

'Great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with Fireballs or something?' Hopper inquires. 

Dustin chuckles. 'No. No, no Fire.. No Fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because...' he stammers a bit, '...because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it...it... It likes brains. It's just a game. It's a game.' 

'What the hell are we doing here?' Hopper walks away. 

'I thought we were waiting for your military backup.' 

'We are!' Hopper says. 

'How are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns.' Mike says. 

'You don't know that! We don't know anything!' Hopper shouts. 

'We know it's already killed everybody in that lab.' Mike points out. 

'We know the monsters are gonna molt again.' Lucas adds. 

'We know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town.' Dustin says. 

'They're right.' Joyce says, walking into the room again. 'We have to kill it. I want to kill it.' 

'Me, too.' Hopper replies. 'I...Me, too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here.' 

'No. But he does.' Mike looks towards Will. 'If anyone knows how to destroy
this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know its weakness.' 

'I thought we couldn't trust him anymore.' Max says. 'That he's a spy for the mind flayer now.' 

'Yeah, but he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is.' Mike points out.