Chapter 23: Will's Episodes Begin
POV: Adam
February brings warming weather and a false sense of normalcy that settles over the Byers house like a comfortable lie, spring air filtering through windows that haven't been opened since November's nightmare ended. Will has been steadily recovering—gaining weight, sleeping through most nights, even laughing at Jonathan's terrible jokes with something approaching his old humor.
But Adam knows better than to trust the illusion of healing.
His system has been tracking dimensional residue in Will's neural patterns since the rescue, monitoring infection levels that fluctuate like a fever that never quite breaks. The readings are subtle—background radiation that most instruments wouldn't detect—but they're growing stronger with each passing day.
[SUBJECT: WILL BYERS]
[DIMENSIONAL CONTAMINATION: 15%]
[MIND FLAYER INFLUENCE: DORMANT BUT PRESENT]
[INFECTION PROGRESSION: ACTIVE]
[ESTIMATED TIME TO MANIFESTATION: 3-4 WEEKS]
It's starting. The second wave. The thing that turns victims into vessels.
They're sitting around the dinner table—a new family tradition Joyce has instituted with the desperate enthusiasm of someone trying to build normalcy through sheer force of will—when it happens. Will freezes mid-bite, his fork suspended halfway to his mouth while his eyes roll back to show only white.
"It's watching me," he whispers, voice flat and distant like he's reporting weather from another dimension. "It's always watching me."
No. Not yet. It's too early.
Joyce drops her own fork with a clatter that echoes through the sudden silence. "Will? Honey, what's wrong?"
But Will doesn't respond. He sits rigid in his chair, staring at something only he can see while his breathing becomes shallow and rapid. Adam's system erupts in warnings that make his borrowed teeth ache with sympathetic vibration.
[CRITICAL ALERT: MIND FLAYER MANIFESTATION]
[HOST CONSCIOUSNESS: COMPROMISED]
[DIMENSIONAL BREACH PROBABILITY: 78%]
[IMMEDIATE INTERVENTION REQUIRED]
"Will!" Joyce shakes him frantically, her maternal panic overriding any concern for gentleness. "Come back to me, baby. Come back!"
The contact seems to snap something loose in Will's consciousness. He blinks rapidly, confusion replacing the vacant stare as awareness returns in stuttering increments.
"I... what happened?" Will looks around the table with the bewildered expression of someone waking from a dream they can't quite remember. "Why is everyone staring at me?"
He doesn't remember. The episode, the voice, the presence—none of it.
"You had another bad dream, sweetie," Joyce says with forced calm, though her hands shake as she smooths Will's hair. "You're okay now. You're safe."
Bad dream. If only it were that simple.
Adam excuses himself with mumbled words about needing the bathroom, but instead of heading upstairs, he stumbles to the kitchen sink and vomits with the violence of someone whose system is rejecting more than food. The knowledge of what's coming—Will's slow possession, the tunnels spreading beneath Hawkins, the final confrontation that will cost more than anyone realizes—sits in his stomach like acid.
I can't stop it. I can monitor it, track it, prepare for it—but I can't stop the infection from spreading.
By the time he returns to the dining room, Joyce has coaxed Will back to something resembling normal conversation, though her eyes never leave his face and her hand remains protectively on his shoulder. Jonathan catches Adam's gaze across the table, reading the pale complexion and careful movements with the sharp attention of someone who's learned to notice when people he cares about are struggling.
He knows something's wrong. With Will, with me, with the careful balance we've all been maintaining.
That's when Bob Newby arrives, announced by a cheerful knock and the sound of someone who genuinely believes that most problems can be solved with enthusiasm and good intentions. Joyce lets him in with the grateful smile of someone whose emotional resources have been stretched to breaking and desperately needs reinforcement.
"Hope I'm not interrupting dinner," Bob says, settling into the chair across from Will with easy familiarity. He's been spending more time at the house lately—Joyce's new boyfriend, all RadioShack enthusiasm and teddy bear kindness, the kind of man who brings flowers and remembers favorite ice cream flavors.
He's good for her. Good for all of them. And according to the timeline, he's going to die in eight months.
Will slumps in his chair, embarrassed by the episode and the attention it's generated. Bob notices immediately, because Bob notices everything when it comes to the people he's decided to care about.
"Rough day?" Bob asks gently, without the dramatic concern that seems to make Will shrink into himself.
"I had another nightmare," Will admits reluctantly. "Except I wasn't asleep. I was just... somewhere else for a minute."
Somewhere else. The Upside Down is bleeding through, showing him glimpses of the nightmare dimension that infected him.
Bob nods thoughtfully, as if twelve-year-old boys reporting interdimensional visions is perfectly normal dinner conversation.
"You know, I used to have nightmares that felt real too," Bob says. "When I was about your age. This thing I called Mr. Baldo—he was huge and scary and had no hair, which seemed terrifying at the time."
Will looks up with interest, apparently grateful to hear that other people have experienced things that blur the line between sleeping and waking terror.
"What did you do about him?"
"I gave him a name," Bob says simply. "Made him less scary, more manageable. What do you call yours?"
Will considers the question with the serious concentration of someone trying to describe something that exists outside normal vocabulary.
"The shadow monster," he says finally. "It's like this huge shadow with arms and legs, but made of storm clouds. And it's always angry."
The Mind Flayer. Will is seeing the Mind Flayer.
"Perfect!" Bob says with genuine enthusiasm. "See? Now it's not just some nameless terror—it's the shadow monster. Just a thing, not a force of nature. Things can be dealt with."
If only you knew what we're really dealing with.
Adam watches this gentle, patient man comfort his brother with the kind of parental instinct that doesn't require blood relation to feel authentic. Bob has claimed this family without ceremony or official recognition, stepping into the role of protector and provider with the dedication of someone who's found his purpose.
I'm saving him, Adam thinks with fierce determination. Whatever it costs, whatever I have to reveal about myself—Bob Newby is not dying on my watch.
That night, while the house settles into the uneasy quiet that follows unexplained episodes, Adam slips out to rebuild his creature army with surgical precision. The dimensional aftermath of Will's infection has created opportunities—rifts too small for human passage but perfect for creatures seeking new hunting grounds.
Through Scout's enhanced senses, he locates two Demodogs that register as wrong even by Upside Down standards. They've been exposed to dimensional energy but somehow remain partially disconnected from the Hive Mind, like computer programs with corrupted code that makes them unreliable but potentially resistant to external control.
Freed variants. They've been touched by the Mind Flayer's influence but rejected it somehow.
Taming them requires more effort than usual—their minds are chaotic, fractured by competing influences that make establishing dominance difficult. But when the bonds finally take hold, Adam feels something new in their psychic signature: immunity. These creatures can't be controlled by the Mind Flayer because they've already survived its attempt at possession.
[TWO DEMODOGS TAMED: "FREED" VARIANTS]
[LOYALTY: 45% (UNSTABLE BUT GROWING)]
[SPECIAL TRAIT: MIND FLAYER RESISTANCE]
[NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED: INFECTION ANALYSIS]
[QUEST INITIATED: PREVENT WILL'S FULL POSSESSION]
[DIFFICULTY: EXTREME]
[FAILURE CONSEQUENCES: FAMILY DESTRUCTION]
As Adam returns to the house through shadows that seem thicker than they should be, he can hear Will's restless sleep through the bedroom window—muttered words in a language that doesn't exist, interrupted by gasps that suggest dreams are becoming harder to distinguish from waking reality.
October. Everything converges in October. Will's possession, the tunnel network, the final confrontation with the Mind Flayer.
But this time, I'll be ready. This time, I have eight months to prepare.
And this time, I'm saving everyone.
Through the bond, Scout sends acknowledgment from his position guarding the house perimeter, while the two new Demodogs settle into patrol patterns that will provide early warning of dimensional incursions. Adam has learned from his failures—Barb's death, Eleven's sacrifice, the casualties among his original creature army.
Some fates are fixed. But some can be changed if you're strong enough, smart enough, and prepared enough to matter when it counts.
Bob Newby is not dying. Will Byers is not getting possessed. And the Mind Flayer is going to learn that some families are worth dying for.
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