• The Best Hargrove • Steve Harrington x Reader •

Chapter Twenty-One

You finally worked up the courage to jump in. The cold water hits your skin so fast, that it sent shivers all over your body. Everything was so dark, you could see nothing but black, and the flashlight didn't really have much effect on that.

You swam all the way to the bottom, which was at least 25 metres or so. When you reached the bottom, all that could be seen were rocks, seaweed and dead fish bones. You searched around trying to find any sign of a gate, only to turn around and see a bright red light. Bingo.

You swam over, avoiding all the rocks in your way, until you finally reached the source of the red light. There were a lot of what looked like black vines coming out of it, and in the middle, it looked like cobwebs. You reached your hand down to touch it, but something on the other side scared the shit out of you, causing you to drop the flashlight and begin to swim back up.

Once you reached the surface, you couldn't help but take the biggest breath, taking in all the air you could get due to your previous lack of oxygen. "I found it" you announced, grabbing onto the side of the boat. "You found it?" Steve repeated, to which you nodded. Everyone on the boat smiled with joy and relief.

"Dustin, you are a goddamn Einstein, Y/N found the gate!" Robin spoke into the device, letting the kids know that you had found what you were looking for. "It's pretty wild, and it's bigger than a snack-sized gate, but it's still pretty damn big" were the last words you spoke before feeling something wrap around your ankle and drag you down. Luckily, you had grabbed the side of the boat and Steve had grabbed you in time, but that didn't last long when you suddenly got pulled all the way down back to the gate. You hadn't taken enough air, so it was harder to breathe now.

You had been dragged through the gate, dragged to what was probably the upside down. You had never been in it, but you had heard everyone else's stories and description about it, and from what you were seeing, creepy and disturbing was a very good way to describe it. Dark particles floated everywhere, and there were also vines covering everything. It looked exactly like the scenery from the real world, but covered in goo and vines.

You had been dragged across the ground by the same vines that had pulled you inside. All you could do was scream and wave your arms. You stepped up, finally ridding yourself from the grip of these vines. You took a good look at the house all the way across what seemed like the lake, just without the water. Your back burned so bad from being dragged across the rough ground.

You looked up at the sky to see bat-like creatures coming your way. To defend yourself, you grabbed an oar from the boat which was beside you and tried to hit one, but a vine had pulled you down and held you there from your neck, making it extremely hard to breathe and even scream.

The pain intensified and became more gruesome when one of the bats planted itself in your torso. Then another one did the same. You hit them away but soon became incapable of that when some vines tied down your hands, and didn't stop them from practically starting to eat you alive.

Suddenly, an oar hit both the bats away, and you looked up to see Steve, Robin, Nancy and Eddie. "Hey there" Steve greeted before hitting another one away. You were finally able to grab a hold of one of the bats and swung it down, hitting it so hard to the ground that it didn't move. "Nancy, behind you!" you warned, seeing as a bat was flying towards her. "Agh! Get this thing off me!" she groaned in pain. You grabbed it by the tail and slammed it on the ground, ripping it off of her as you did for the other one.

You swung another bat on the ground a few more times, before ripping it in half and tossing one half away, spitting out some blood from your mouth.