lost in the labyrinth of my mind

Chapter 3

Mike was worried.

Who wouldn't be? Hell had come to Hawkins, Max was in a coma, and Eddie was dead. His parents still refused to see the danger (which was a plus as much as a detriment, as it meant they were in no rush to move). And El was in the centre of the conflict, and Mike could do nothing to protect her; he could give her speeches and his honest love for her, but it was no protection from death. Mike has no idea what he would do if he lost her again. The year Mike thought she died was the darkest time; agony, anger, and a thorn poking and bleeding him. Mike knows he will not be able to survive that again.

While Vecna/001/Henry seemed to have vanished, everyone agreed that he was waiting to strike. Maybe healing from the wounds Nancy, Steve, and Robin afflicted him with. But Vecna wasn't El's biggest problem right now. Her biggest enemy was herself. She was running ragged, trying to find Max wherever she was in her mind. El said that she was there. Mike doesn't want El to be wrong and Max to be truly dead, but the facts are simple: Max was in a coma, and there seemed to be no signs of her living.

But El and Lucas refused to hear it. They would tense up and leave whatever room if they even thought her condition was being brought up. It was horrible to see Max, always pissed-at-him Max broken and pale, lying on the hospital bed with tubes and wires running through her body. Just seeing her made him understand Mrs. Mayfield's decision.

Mike didn't feel like torturing himself, so he rarely visited her. He knew that probably made him a horrible friend and person. But he couldn't do anything for her, and he would probably be the last person Max would want to see if she ever woke up.

He only came to make sure El was eating on the days (every day) when El used every visiting hour to be by Max's bedside, making sure El was when visiting hours were over. He tried to do the same with Lucas; he would allow no one but El and Erica to lead him away for a break. He witnessed Lucas' scorching words to his parents, something out of character for Lucas, who always held his parents in high esteem.

Mike didn't think when he entered the hospital room at the end of visiting hours to take El home. Well, he did. Mike thought of the description he heard about those under an attack by Vecna.

He got into people's minds and used their darkest fears and guilt, making them see and believe lies. Their skin was pale as if they had been drained of blood. They were rolled back as in a seizure. They were levitated, and their limbs were gruesomely broken like twigs. Their eyes were gouged out: leaving tears of blood before they died. All while nothing in the physical world touched them.

Mike only did as his instincts demanded and ran to them to shake them awake as if he could shake them out of a psychic attack. One hard jolt and El and Lucas zoned back into life. He hadn't noticed before that the three of them had their hands clasped together, that the radio was static until he saw the furious look on their blood-streaked faces.