Starless Night (A Twilight/Stranger Things Fan Fiction)

Chapter 12: Blood

The first thing I was aware of, when I came back to consciousness, was Edward's voice in my ear.

I knew, as soon as I heard it, that it wasn't real. That my imagination had snapped. I had been overstressed and undernourished, probably dehydrated, and my mind had reacted by compensating for the pain with the only thing it knew could ease me. Even knowing that the voice wasn't real, though, I did not complain. If this was insanity, I would take it happily.

"Bella," the voice said, gentle and velvet, full of worry. "Bella, open your eyes."

It took me a few moments to comply, but when I did, I immediately wished I hadn't.

I don't know what I'd been expecting, but it hadn't been this. I was sitting in a dark room, dimly lit in some spaces but not in others, and as soon as I had my eyes open, I became painstakingly aware of the fact that I was not the only person in this room—and that, for that matter, I was not the only human in this room.

It had been days—though it felt like more—since I'd seen another human face. I'd been with only vampires since I fell into this strange alternate reality, and I was strangely surprised to see eyes that weren't red or gold. Green eyes and brown eyes and blue eyes looked back at me all around.

Many of them looked to be asleep, but the one across from me—a man with blue eyes, probably in his mid-twenties—was watching me with wakeful curiosity.

I couldn't help a small, shocked gasp. The man, and everyone around him, appeared to be chained to the wall, bound at the wrists and ankles with shackles, seated on a cot that had been tilted so he couldn't lay back. He was strapped to the cot at the waist and legs, and he was all gauntness, his cheeks hollow and his eyes a little sunken in, his arms boney. He was clothed in clothing that looked ancient.

He was also strapped to two different machines—one appeared to be an IV drip, and the other...

I felt sick. The other needle, in his other arm, was bruised a deep purple all around, and it looked like it was slowly drawing out his blood.

A horrible wave of fear crashed through me. In my head, Edward's voice tried to soothe me—"Shh, Bella, shh, you're going to be okay"—but the voice only made my panic more complete, because it was a reminder he wasn't here, would never come here, not even to save me. I jerked and only then did I realize.

I looked down at myself, at my body, and gave a muffled gasp.

I was hooked up to two IVs, just like everyone else here—some sort of drip, and then another IV that was steadily sucking blood out of me. And just like everyone else here, I was also thoroughly chained up.

"Bella," Edward's voice crooned, full of pain and worry. "Bella, please, breathe. Struggling will not help. Breathe, Bella, Breathe."

It took a long time for me to start listening, and by then, some of the people around me had looked up from their slumber, watching me lazily through tired eyes. They all looked so... exhausted, so fragile, like being so much as touched would make them crumple to dust. When I quieted down, most of them went back to sleep.

Not the boy across from me, though. He spoke up.

"Are you alright?" he asked. His voice was very gentle. Edward went silent in my head.

I tried my best to breathe through my panic. "No," I said. "What is this place?"

The man looked away a little, frowning. I wondered if he wasn't going to answer, but after a moment, he did.

"We... don't really know." His voice broke a little, and I felt a little mortified, seeing a perfect stranger so vulnerable, but I rethought it after a moment—this wasn't just some day in a high school building. "But after the collapse... well, there are only two ways to stay alive: you can be on the run from the Demogorgons all your life, or you can turn yourself in to the Volturi." The words sent chills across my skin—no wonder the other version of me hadn't survived this world. "They keep us on an IV drip to give us what we need to stay alive, and make our blood taste appealing to them. But to them... we're just food."