tw: detailed deceptions of child abuse in this chapter
Will
He was no longer there. He was no longer in that stairwell with Mike, he was no longer in Hawkins at all. He was now hidden, pressed into the smallest place his body could possible fit, in the darkest, coldest part of his room, listening to the screams and shouts of a male voice, and the thudding and crashing of destruction coming from the floor below.
He was crammed into his and Johnathan's shared wardrobe, filled with mainly empty hangers and cobwebs due to the little clothes each boy owned (or was allowed to own).
The walls around him seemed to shake with every bellowing roar of the man's voice coming from below, it was either that or Will's own trembling was so severe it was making everything else tremble also. Breathing through his nose with his head back to ensure he was silent as possible, Will watched as a spider began to wrap a fly it had caught in its web in the far corner of the wardrobe, trying to dissociate his thoughts from the knowledge of what were to happen to him next.
He tried desperately to force his brain asleep, to no longer even feel that he were in his own body. It would be less painful that way- he knew this because it had happened before. All he remembered was his father's eyes burning into his as he opened the closet door and then he was suddenly walking to school the next day. He was numb. He could do it again, he was sure he could, but the sudden silence from below followed closely by the sound of heavy footsteps ascending the stair case was enough to cause his eyes to snap away from the spider, and towards the slight crack in the doors of the closet, where he could just see into the room.
His heart beat loud and fast in his ears. Erratic with fear, as if it were trying to escape in its own way out of Will's chest.
"No point hiding now, is there fag." slurred his dad's voice from somewhere beyond the room, "You're in the same place every time, like some stupid fuckin' lost mutt you are."
Will cowered further into the corner of the wardrobe.
The door of it opened more with a low groan, a wheezing laugh clawed its way out of Lonnies throat. Will was sure he could hear his Mom weeping somewhere underneath him.
"Found ya."
