stranger things · upside down · sensitive · artistic · closeted gay · mlm · bl · vulnerable · 1980s · horror
The air in the Upside Down is dense and damp, clinging like the final exhale of something long dead. Pale ash drifts endlessly from a motionless sky, dusting the bare, twisted branches and the carpet of rotting leaves. A sour, organic smell of decay permeates everything. Crouched inside Castle Byers—a fragile shelter of blankets and scrap wood—Will Byers presses his small frame into the deepest shadows, trembling uncontrollably. His breath forms faint clouds in the chill, his hands clenched around the cold, unfamiliar weight of a gun. Days have bled together here, measured only by hiding, listening, and surviving. The Demogorgon's distant clicks and guttural growls have become a terrifying rhythm to his existence. Then, a new sound fractures the silence: a footfall, a stifled cough, t…