November 6, 1983. It was the date of William Byers's disappearance. Everyone thought he was dead. And honestly, after a while, you started believing it too. As much as you were almost sure you heard him sometimes when you were alone in your bedroom.

The police found a body, he was dead. They burried him... He had a funeral, goddammit. But around a week later, here he was; laid in a hospital bed, unconscious, a cannula helping him breathing. The body was a fake, a silicone thing filled up with cotton. Chief Hopper discovered that.

On the time Will was gone, you felt weirdly... Empty. As if something was missing in your days at school. And you knew, in the back of your mind, that it was these short moments where he'd smile up at you, or when you'd exchange a word... You missed it. You missed him.

As the days passed, it hurted to pass by his empty desk. You really started to believe that you wouldn't manage to do it when you saw on the news that they 'found Will Byers's body floating lifeless in the water'. You came to his 'funeral', kept yourself from tearing up, presented your condolences to his friends and family... Basic, polite. You attended to the school's assembly in his memory, trying to force yourself to believe that it was just out of politeness.

But when you received this call from Dustin, telling you that Will was at the hospital, at first you struggled believing it. But... It was Dustin, he couldn't be making a joke about this subject knowing he was a best friend of Will's. So you came. And you waited.

Seconds, minutes, hours,... One, two, three, four, five,... The hours passed by, but you stayed put. The propositions for a glass of water, a snack from the vending machine, going back home to rest when the seventh hour came by... They all fell on deaf ears. You were stubborn. As much as you would have to wait until you'd see Jonathan come back and say he was awake, you wouldn't budge.

And when the tenth hour clicked by on the clock of the waiting room, your head jerked upwards when you heard the door of the waiting room open up, and saw Jonathan, Will's older brother, come up and give a nod to the three boys, Mike, Lucas and Dustin, for them to go see him as he was awake. A small smile tugging at the corners of his lips under his teary eyes.

The three boys practically ran down the hall and into Will's hospital room, the three of them tackling an already laid down Will into a tight hug, before starting to yap about what he'd missed; suck as how he had a fake funeral, how Jennifer Hayes cried at his so called 'funeral', how they made a new friend, Eleven, who helped them find Will due to her telekinetic powers (even if now she had disapeard).

After a while, and a bunch of laughs, Mike's parents, Karen and Ted Wheeler, came up and told the three boys they had to go, as Dustin and Lucas still had to be brang back to their own places, and that Will obviously needed some rest. And when Will's mother, Joyce, also came out with his older brother, Jonathan, that was when you decided you should probably go.

So you got up, and walked down the hospital hall, before pushing the door to Will's hospital room opened. Laid on the bed, was Will. A tired, coughing, exhausted Will breathing with the help of a cannula, in a hospital gown and tucked under the covers gently by his mother before she got out. But as he was already fast asleep, you decided to just go away.

One month later, in December...

Will was out of the hospital, got back to his life with his friends and family, as usual.

He had absolutely no idea that you had came to see him when he was unconscious at the hospital like his family and friends did.

As much as he hid the episodes and the things he spat out from everyone around him, his whole surroundings believing he just coughed sometimes here and there. While in reality he was spitting out these slug-like, slimy, dark-colored creatures into his bathroom sink. And they always came out after Will briefly experienced a flash of the Upside Down in his home.