Bloody Negatives {Stranger things}

Chapter Twenty-Eight

《Chapter Twenty-Eight》
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The next few minutes could only be described as a blur.

There was shouting and screaming, though Tally couldn't hear any of it. His head was throbbing too much to make out any of the sounds. He practically fell out of the boat, shaking wildly. Fear gripped his body in a way he'd never felt it before.

He wasn't even sure if he'd dived off the boat. It felt more like he'd teleported.

One minute he was dry and safe, the next he was swimming to the bottom of a murder-lake, after someone he barely knew.

In the past 24 hours, everything in Tally's life had spiralled completely out of control.

Part of him wanted to freeze. Let himself float back up to the surface. Climb back onto the boat and paddle ashore. Run back home, and pretend everything was normal. Pretend that his mother would still yell at him every time he tracked dirt into the house. Pretend that his father would still come home every day at 5:00 sharp. Pretend that Chrissy would still come over after school on Tuesdays to help him with his Algebra homework. Pretend that he and Jason would still spend hours practicing layups in Tally's driveway.

Pretend that everything was okay.

Fuck it, Tally told himself, shaking the idea out of his head. He'd already come this far.

No turning back.

Watergate didn't look quite how he'd expected. It definitely looked like an inter-dimensional portal, though an odd one.

It was red and orange, and an intense heat was radiating off of it. Almost like it was a gateway right into hell itself, and Tally's friends had just gone right through it.

Tally wished he could swear underwater, but he couldn't, so he kept swimming.

Entering the Upside Down was just about the strangest sensation he'd ever felt in his life. It was like being on an airplane, right before it lands. When the seatbelt is the only thing still keeping you sitting down.

The Airplane Feeling, but times 100.

Tally squeezed his eyes shut as he tumbled through what felt like an eternity of empty space. He was too scared to move once the tumbling stopped.

The scream quickly snapped him out of his fear.

Bats. Dozens of them. Flipping and flittering through the sky, diving and swooping at... at Tally's friends.

At Steve, and Eddie, and Robin, and Nancy.

They were all terrified. He could see it. He took a small step back, almost stumbling over, onto the ground.

He was trembling. A lot. Almost like he had his own personal earthquake happening inside of his body.

Another scream.

Tally closed his eyes. The world disappeared. He wasn't in the Upside Down. He wasn't at Lover's Lake, either. He was nowhere.

The finally shriek was what did it. It was so raw. Tally didn't want to hear a sound like that ever again.

So he cried out, arm extending towards all the violence happening before him.

The bats began to go shooting backwards. One by one, at first, and then all at once. They were flailing through the air in a way that made Tally uneasy.

What made him even more uneasy was that he was the one doing it to them.

By the time the first bat had crashed into the ground—making a horrifying splat as it did so—Tally decided it was time for him to look away.

"Tally!" Nancy shrieked, running towards him, her arms flying around his neck as she pulled him down to her height.

He wasn't sure what she was doing at first, until it occurred to him. She was hugging him.

The way she harshly pulled on his neck hurt a bit, but it was a good hurt. A happy kind of hurt.

"Thanks for saving our asses," Robin said meekly, her voice shaking as much as Tally's legs were.

Nancy at last pulled away, spending a moment looking into Tally's eyes before Eddie spoke.

"Shit."

They all turned their heads to see what he was looking at, and immediately Tally felt his heart drop.

More bats. More than he thought was possible.

"I can't take that many," Tally gulped, taking a small step away from the massive swarm of creatures that were charging towards the group.

"Woods," Robin said, turning quickly to look behind the group. "Woods, now."

They all began sprinting. Tally knew Steve was an athlete, it was surprising that he was fast, but the others were surprisingly quick as well.

And thank God they were.

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