Author's Note:
Sorry! I promised to post this chapter yesterday, but something came up and I got delayed. Better late than never though, here it is. I hope you all enjoy it. See you tomorrow with another chapter!
As much as I wanted time to freeze, it didn't. Life went on anyway. Unfortunately, everything kept moving forward. Two months passed. For me, it was almost six months, if considered time passed when I was in the other universe. November arrived faster than I expected, and once it did, it felt impossible to escape it. It was almost the sixth of November.
Even my family noticed the change in my behaviour. They kept asking what was wrong. If I was sick. If something had happened. I said I was fine, but no one believed me. I spoke less. I snapped more. I barely listened. Sometimes I caught them watching me, worried, waiting. It made my chest feel tight.
The closer that damned day got, the worse it became. I was constantly tense, bracing for something to go wrong. Every sound made me flinch. I went over my plans again and again until they blurred together, finding new problems I couldn't fix.
I couldn't relax. I couldn't stop counting. The number was always there. A countdown. Six days left. I told myself I was ready, but my hands shook when I thought about it. In six days, everything would begin, whether I wanted it to or not.
I had plans. Too many of them. Lists in my head, steps memorised until they looped on repeat. What to do first. What to do if that failed. Places we could hide. Multiple escape routes planned. What I could not change, no matter how tempting it was. I prepared for every version I could think of, every small variable I could control. And still, it felt useless.
Because no matter how hard I tried to think about anything else, my mind always drifted back to the same place. All the planning, all the fear, all the numbers led to one unavoidable point. One decision I was deliberately not stopping. That event would be the beginning of everything. A pivotal moment that would start the whole chain of events.
Because no amount of preparation changed the one thing that mattered.
Will.
In the last few months, after I joined the party, we had grown closer. Not suddenly. Not dramatically. Just… quietly. Sitting together more often. Talking without forcing it. Laughing sometimes. Somewhere along the way, we stopped being just people in the same place and became friends. Real ones.
He understood me. He didn't need to be loud about his friendship—being loud was my part. But for heaven's sake, he was the first to notice how something was affecting me. That my smiles were becoming too forced. That they never reached my eyes. He didn't confront me about it. He didn't push. He was just there, quietly comforting me with his presence. And that only brought us closer.
And I was about to let something horrible happen to him.
I was a terrible friend. A disgusting one. I knew what was coming, and I was still standing by, letting it happen. Letting him be taken. Letting him be scared, hurt, and traumatised. All for the so-called greater good.
If not him, then someone else. Someone weaker. Someone who wouldn't survive. They would always target someone. If Will wasn't taken, it could destroy everything. The timeline. The balance. The world. I didn't know exactly how it would break—only that it would. And it would be worse.
Even if I wanted to stop it, I don't know if I could. I had only just started training. I couldn't take down a full Demogorgon on my own. Not yet.
This was necessary. That's what I kept telling myself.
The greater good.
Oh my God. Is this how Dumbledore felt?
The thought made my stomach twist violently.
Will.
Will.
Will.
Something turned sharply inside me, and suddenly I couldn't breathe. I stumbled to the bathroom and barely made it to the sink before I threw up. My hands shook as I held onto the counter, my reflection pale and unrecognisable in the mirror.
I felt sick. Sick of myself.
How could I allow this to happen?
But what choice did I have left?
There wasn't another path. Not one that didn't end with more blood, more death, more loss. The only option was to let it happen. To let him be taken. To help him survive. And then—to get him back as fast as possible.
That was the plan.
Even if it destroyed me.