All you could feel was Eddie's blood, hot and slick under your palms as you pressed down on the wounds. Your screams echoed off the rotting vines, sobbed pleas for him to stay, to hold on, to not leave you here alone in the dark.

Time blurred after that. The frantic rush back through the gate. The van's engine roaring. Voices shouting over each other—Dustin crying, Nancy giving directions, Steve's hands on your shoulders, pulling you back so the paramedics could reach Eddie.

Now the hospital was too bright. Too clean. You sat in a plastic chair, still caked in muck and blood, a scratchy blanket draped over your shoulders by a nurse who'd looked at you with wide, pitying eyes.