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He's been here too long.
Eddie doesn't know how long, if it's been days or as long as a week, he just knows it's been too long. His face is streaked with ash, his hair dirty and tangled, and there's blood on the t-shirt he'd been wearing to work the day he'd ended up here. His blood maybe. Or the blood of those weird little children that had attacked him at some point.
That's how he'd ended up with the knife in his hand. He'd taken it from one of them, stabbed them back, stabbed them over and over, chopping at their grabbing hands. Their blood is on his shirt and his hands and he hasn't slept in way too long, but he's afraid to let himself rest in this place. All he wants is to get back to Darrow, back to his familiar bedroom and his friends and his band and his job.
He's tucked into a small corner in what he thinks is some fucked up version of Petros High. Eventually he'll have to move. He keeps hearing things shifting out there in the dark, skittering on a thousand legs like a bug, but bigger. Too big.
Big enough to hurt, he knows.
It's just that he's terrified. Broken. Something inside him is unravelling, because when he was in the Upside Down, at least he was never alone, and now he's by himself. He's found and lost people, seeing them just ahead before they disappear into the ash. Right now, he thinks it's likely he'll die down here, die again, and no one will ever know what happened to him.
Hawkins can go on thinking he's some kind of devil worshipper, he doesn't care, but he wants Darrow to think better of him. He wants people to know he didn't just leave.
The skittering gets closer and Eddie forces himself to move. He leads with the knife, the blade trembling in his hand, then hurries to the door of the office he's hidden himself inside. Behind him in the dark, the bugs get closer and he throws open the door, then rushes down the hall toward the exit.
Outside, the ash keeps falling. It never lets up.
Eddie inhales too deeply, breathes some in, and starts to cough. It's too loud, he's drawing too much attention to himself and he tries to step back into the school, but something has closed the door behind him and locked him out. Something else screams overhead and Eddie goes still, frozen in terror, as a shape materializes from the sky. It's not a bird. Not a bat, and not one of the awful bats that had followed him to Darrow. It's bigger than that, razor sharp talons on the ends of its feet, and they're coming right for Eddie.
At the last second, he thinks to raise the knife, but he just barely nicks the thing. It screams again, awful and loud, and dives for him, talons ripping at his upraised arm, his shoulder, across his neck. Eddie can feel hot blood coursing down his arm, soaking his t-shirt, and he stumbles back, then falls down the front steps of the shitty Petros High.
He's going to die here. He's going to take his last breath on this ashy sidewalk in another version of hell.
The flying monster shrieks and dives again, talons slashing, one cutting across his chest. He alternates between hot and cold as he stabs with the knife, still trying to defend himself, but the talons just keep coming, keep tearing at him, ripping into skin and muscle, sending more blood cascading down his front.
"No," he whimpers. "No, please."
Eddie doesn't know how long, if it's been days or as long as a week, he just knows it's been too long. His face is streaked with ash, his hair dirty and tangled, and there's blood on the t-shirt he'd been wearing to work the day he'd ended up here. His blood maybe. Or the blood of those weird little children that had attacked him at some point.
That's how he'd ended up with the knife in his hand. He'd taken it from one of them, stabbed them back, stabbed them over and over, chopping at their grabbing hands. Their blood is on his shirt and his hands and he hasn't slept in way too long, but he's afraid to let himself rest in this place. All he wants is to get back to Darrow, back to his familiar bedroom and his friends and his band and his job.
He's tucked into a small corner in what he thinks is some fucked up version of Petros High. Eventually he'll have to move. He keeps hearing things shifting out there in the dark, skittering on a thousand legs like a bug, but bigger. Too big.
Big enough to hurt, he knows.
It's just that he's terrified. Broken. Something inside him is unravelling, because when he was in the Upside Down, at least he was never alone, and now he's by himself. He's found and lost people, seeing them just ahead before they disappear into the ash. Right now, he thinks it's likely he'll die down here, die again, and no one will ever know what happened to him.
Hawkins can go on thinking he's some kind of devil worshipper, he doesn't care, but he wants Darrow to think better of him. He wants people to know he didn't just leave.
The skittering gets closer and Eddie forces himself to move. He leads with the knife, the blade trembling in his hand, then hurries to the door of the office he's hidden himself inside. Behind him in the dark, the bugs get closer and he throws open the door, then rushes down the hall toward the exit.
Outside, the ash keeps falling. It never lets up.
Eddie inhales too deeply, breathes some in, and starts to cough. It's too loud, he's drawing too much attention to himself and he tries to step back into the school, but something has closed the door behind him and locked him out. Something else screams overhead and Eddie goes still, frozen in terror, as a shape materializes from the sky. It's not a bird. Not a bat, and not one of the awful bats that had followed him to Darrow. It's bigger than that, razor sharp talons on the ends of its feet, and they're coming right for Eddie.
At the last second, he thinks to raise the knife, but he just barely nicks the thing. It screams again, awful and loud, and dives for him, talons ripping at his upraised arm, his shoulder, across his neck. Eddie can feel hot blood coursing down his arm, soaking his t-shirt, and he stumbles back, then falls down the front steps of the shitty Petros High.
He's going to die here. He's going to take his last breath on this ashy sidewalk in another version of hell.
The flying monster shrieks and dives again, talons slashing, one cutting across his chest. He alternates between hot and cold as he stabs with the knife, still trying to defend himself, but the talons just keep coming, keep tearing at him, ripping into skin and muscle, sending more blood cascading down his front.
"No," he whimpers. "No, please."
no subject
He shoved the coat against Eddie's chest, though he no longer needed it.
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"I can see... way better," he says, voice awed. "Wow. I... everything is so clear."
It didn't look like it would have, were the sun up, but it still looked like more.
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"It's a bit like a drug. Or so I've heard."
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Everything is more, but it's clear, too. His head feels free, lighter, like he understands things better, even though that isn't the case. In fact, Eddie is fairly certain he understands less.
"What do you mean so you've heard?" he asks, turning to look at Lestat again. "You've never been on drugs?"
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Lestat reached out, his fingertips touching the halo of Eddie's hair. "Substances do little for us now, unless consumed through the blood. Food will have lost its taste. Now, you will be consumed by other vices."
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Other vices is so vague and it makes him weirdly nervous, like Lestat might tell him he's suddenly going to be super into completely bizarre. More bizarre than having to drink blood just to survive.
Booze and weed he can give up, he thinks. Not having to eat feels weird, something he's a little worried about navigating with Chrissy, but he can deal with that when he comes to it.
no subject
Lestat rested a firm hand between Eddie's shoulder blades.
"Time no longer limits you as it once did. It may be a surprise how such freedom changes you."
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But then, for the second time, Eddie has gone a different way from what he thought was his own ending, so maybe he has no idea what the hell he's talking about.
"Shit," he says, breathing out slowly. "Everything is different."
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The next words he spoke were for himself as much as they were for Eddie. "You are not alone."
Lestat could only hope that Eddie would not wish to be, for loneliness was the greatest agony he could conceive of.