Elijah Brooks's life is turned upside down when his best friend Will Byers goes missing one night. Teaming up with an unlikely group of friends, Eli finds himself transforming from a quiet bookworm to a courageous adventurer willing to do anything f...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
SLEEPINESS STILL TORE AWAY AT ELI'S LIMBS when he finally stirred awake, the sensation of a cold rag pressed against his forehead making him squirm. "Eli, sweetheart? Are you okay?" Joyce's fingers pricked the cloth off his head gently, her caramel eyes offering a flicker of warmth.
"Um, I think so," he groaned, rubbing at his eyes in attempt to make the colored dots stop dancing in his vision. Most of the nausea seemed to have vanished, leaving him clueless and sprawled on the Byers's couch.
"You scared me," Mike commented, and Eli finally noticed him standing next to Joyce's keeled figure, hands swamped in his coat pockets.
"Sorry," he apologized quietly, but meaningfully, to the raven-haired boy, brushing his messy curls with a slow hand. "I don't know what happened," he admitted, the embarrassment resurfacing in his chest.
"I think you were just a little dehydrated, dear," Joyce informed him in that same honey-smooth voice, offering his a glass of iced water. "Drink up."
"Where's Will?" Eli asked after a few hesitant gulps, turning to Mike inquisitively. "Is he okay?" His eyes finally trained past the two figures to observe the cryptic, unexplained drawings of blue and black lines taped all over the walls. It was not the first time the Byers home had been decorated so frightfully, but it drew curiosity inside Eli anyway.
"He's in his room," Joyce answered for the boy, who still had concern ridden on his freckles. "He's not doing too well, I'm afraid."
The Brooks boy shuffled upwards, sitting straight and eyeing the woman pleadingly. "Can I see him?"
"You sure you're okay?" The woman pressed, watching him lift the glass upwards in another sip. "I don't need to call your father to come get you?"
"No," he refused with a stony expression, and he could sense Mike's similar discomfort. Now that he knew the truth, anyway. "No need. I just want to be here for Will."
"Okay," she conceded after a moment, offering him a tight-lipped smile and encouraging pat of his shoulder before retreating to the kitchen.
Eli let her go, his leg beginning to bounce anxiously as he sat there for a moment, letting the delirium from waking up settle down. "Are you okay?" It was Mike that broke the silence, stiffly taking a seat beside the keeled over brunet. "That didn't just seem like dehydration," he spoke meekly, his pale fingers pricking one another.
"I'm fine," he replied dismissively, attempting to gloss over the heat in his chest from Mike's apparent concern. "We should be worried about Will. Is he awake?"
