The end of July, 1985. A little while after the mall incident.

After Billy sacrificed himself to save his sister, Max, everyone was sure he died. He got impaled and everyone watched his body go limp. He obviously had to be dead…

But his body was never found back at the mall where it all happened.

Long story short, while Billy was flayed you were always by his side. Even though you weren’t human you tried your best to sympathize with his feelings of sadness and frustration everytime another person died or got hurt because of what he did. Billy was being controlled by One, or ‘Vecna’, which is what the humans would call him. You simply called him One.

He couldn’t control his actions whenever he’d torment his sister or her friends, and even though his face looked emotionless his eyes would pour nonstop with tears. He was hurting both mentally and physically, but he couldn’t call out for help.

He never wanted this to happen.

When he got impaled, after Eleven, Max, and the others left, you went and took Billy to a small house hidden far off from everyone else.

You told him he should stay until his wounds were fully healed, but Billy persisted.

“I need to make sure Max is okay.” Billy grunted as he stubbornly tried to sit up on his own, you quickly made him lay back down again and he huffed in both exhaustion and annoyance. “Fuck…”

You knew he wanted to see his sister, and that he hated being cooped up here. Billy thought you were only keeping him here because of his wounds, and it was because of that but also because you knew One would want to go after Billy again if there was any sign he was still alive.

Billy was one of the strongest flayed, and one of the most important ones. He was popular, attractive, strong, and much more. The perfect puppet for One to use to get more victims.

You couldn’t stand seeing Billy cry when he was flayed, and so you couldn’t let that happen.