Chapter Text
He felt weak whenever Vecna came for him. While his friends—and the other kids—were being attacked by the Demogorgons and dragged into the Upside Down, Will felt completely helpless. Suddenly, the creatures erupted from the ground as the gates tore open, and from those gates the demons—Demogorgons—poured out. I kept screaming. I could feel the soldiers firing at them with guns and flamethrowers because, somehow, Will being inside their vision allowed him to feel everything they felt. It hurt.
When they burned the Demogorgons, he felt it in every fiber of his being. He couldn’t do anything but scream. He collapsed to the floor, screaming and screaming, while all the Demogorgons dropped around him in excruciating pain. It was the hive mind—everything was connected. He could see different places all at once, and the pain was unbearable. His body thrashed violently as the sensations tore through him.
While all of this was happening, the massive gate—made of flesh and crackling with raw energy—slowly pulled back, revealing the embodiment of Vecna: One, Henry Creel. The soldiers opened fire, but it was useless; he was invincible, indestructible. No amount of ammunition harmed him. Even fire, roaring toward him, was blocked with a casual sweep of his power.
Then, with monstrous hands that extended into sharpened, twisted shapes, Vecna killed the soldiers one by one. Bodies fell like broken puppets. When the last shot faded, he turned and glided toward Will—still shaking on the ground. The pain abruptly disappeared. Will blinked through tears and watched as his mother was hurled violently aside, crashing near an overturned military vehicle. Some of the Demogorgons stood at the edges of the chaos, not attacking—simply waiting—while the others marched toward the children.
Reaching Will, Vecna lifted him effortlessly into the air and drew him close.
“Can you see them… William?” Vecna asked, his voice low and cold.
Will’s breath shook. “Stop… please—”
“Can you see the children?” Vecna repeated, firmer this time.
Will choked on a sob. Through the monsters’ eyes, he saw everything: children being dragged through dirt and blood, Lucas screaming as claws tore into him, the fear, the helplessness—every agony flooding through Will’s nerves.
“Do you know why?” Vecna continued, circling him like a predator examining prey.
Will couldn’t speak. His throat burned with cries he couldn’t release.
“Why I choose them,” Vecna said, “to reshape the world?”
The images intensified. Scared faces. Broken voices. Mike on the ground, barely dodging a killing blow as the children he tried to protect were dragged away. Will felt his chest tighten until he thought he might collapse.
“It’s because they are weak,” Vecna whispered. “Humanity is weak.”
Will could feel, through the hive mind, the children being carried deeper into Vecna’s lair.
“Easily breakable. Easily reshaped. Controlled. The perfect vessels.” Vecna leaned closer. “And you, Will…”
Will looked at him with a trembling, terrified expression. Tears streamed down his face.
“…you were the first,” Vecna said, touching his cheek. “And you broke so easily.”
Flashbacks erupted in Will’s mind—running through the pitch-dark landscape of the Upside Down, the towering form of the Mind Flayer, the moment he was tethered to the hive mind.
“You showed me what was possible. What I could achieve,” Vecna said with chilling certainty. “Some minds, it turns out, simply do not belong to this world.”
He stepped back.
“They belonged in mine.”
Then he released Will. The boy fell to the ground as Vecna walked toward the gate. Upon entering, the gate slowly sealed shut behind him.
Will lay there, trembling, as visions flooded his mind once more. Through the Demogorgons’ point of view, he saw Robin directly in front of one of them, about to be ripped apart.
“No… not them. Please,” he begged silently.
Then Lucas. Then Mike. He saw them all simultaneously. They were going to be attacked—slaughtered.
Will couldn’t bear the thought of losing his friends—of losing Mike, the boy he loved. He couldn’t imagine the people he cared for being torn apart by these monsters.
And then… something inside him shifted. A surge of power rose within him—raw, unfamiliar, unstoppable.
He closed his eyes and remembered Robin’s words: “I was looking for the answers in someone else—but I had all the answers. I just needed to stop being so goddamn scared.”
He clung to every happy memory he had of Mike—the smiles, the laughter, the quiet moments only they shared.
“Scared of who I really was,” Robin had told him. “Once I stopped being scared… I was free. It was like I could fly.”
A memory surfaced: Will sitting on the swing, Mike sitting beside him for the first time.
“Do you wanna be friends?”
One of Will’s most cherished moments. The beginning of everything.
He needed to stop hiding. He needed to accept who he was. To stop denying himself.
The hive mind reacted.
Through the connection, Will suddenly saw through the eyes of every Demogorgon at once—and he took control.
With a single wave of his hand, the Demogorgon in front of Mike froze mid-strike floating. Mike stumbled back, shocked. For a second, he thought it had been El.
But it wasn’t.
It was Will.
Joyce Byers—Will’s mother—saw it too. Her son was standing there, hand outstretched, stopping the Demogorgon mid-strike. Mike couldn’t help but smile, stunned and overwhelmed. He didn’t know what to feel. His best friend was standing there with a confidence he had never seen before.
Will’s eyes were white—glowing, empty, powerful.
Through the hive mind, he saw Lucas being attacked. Just before the Demogorgons lunged, Will raised his other hand, freezing them in place as well. Then Robin. Every monster that moved toward his friends stopped as if the world itself had paused for him.
One by one, all the Demogorgons lifted into the air, suspended helplessly. Will’s body trembled with the strain, his breaths sharp and uneven. Still, he held them there, forcing every creature upward with the full weight of his will.
With a final, desperate pull of his arms toward his chest, the Demogorgons began to crack.
Bones snapped. Flesh split.
The sound echoed—sharp, brutal, final.
And then, like broken dolls, the creatures fell one by one to the ground.
Will collapsed to his knees. He stared ahead blankly, then wiped the blood dripping from his nose with the back of his shaking hand.
Mike stared in awe, a disbelieving smile spreading across his face. He ran toward Will and pulled him into a tight embrace.
“That was so cool, Will,” Mike breathed, trembling. “How did y-you do that?”
Will didn’t answer. His body went limp. He collapsed fully into Mike’s arms.
Joyce came running, dropping beside them, her voice breaking as she cupped Will’s face.