Crack up at the Creepy
The one thing Will still couldn't understand about this place was how it could be so still. There was absolutely no sound in this place; save for his own ragged breaths, footsteps crunching through dry leaves, and the distant sounds of monsters.
That last one was the most unsettling to Will; because it told him there was more than one of the thing that brought him to this place—this world.
He had tried to get out—tried to get help from the outside. But the last time he'd tried contacting his mother through the lights, the monster had come (was it even the original one?) and forced him to flee. He'd only barely had time to tell his mom to run; and he knew that thing could make its way between this world and Will's.
After all, how else could it have brought Barb here? How else could it have brought him here?
If there was any sort of way out, though, Will had yet to find it. He was now deep in the woods, and the distant roaring of the monsters could hardly be heard. He wasn't going to let his guard down, by any means, but he was tired, so he settled down against a web-covered tree and caught his breath.
God, what had his life turned into? How long had he been here? He missed his friends so bad. He missed Mike's supportiveness, Dustin's nerdiness and energetic attitude; he missed Lucas' reprimands and subsequent noogies when he didn't do the right thing in a campaign; he missed Jonathan's music, and his mom's habit of ruffling his hair—he even missed Nancy's annoyance and lectures when he and the others made a mess or bothered her.
He only realized he was crying when he lightly hiccuped. He was so preoccupied by his sorrow, in fact, that he hadn't heard the leaves crunching as something approached him, and his face was buried in his arms as he hugged his knees, so he didn't see the visitor, either.
He heard her, though.
"What's wrong?" A bright, cartoonishly-peppy female voice asked. Will let out a cry as he jerked his head upward and launched himself to his feet, prepared to run. He looked around wildly for whoever had just said that, but didn't see anything. Oh Lord, was this place already getting to him? Was he already hallucinating?
That same voice giggled again. "Heehee, down here, silly!"
Will quickly looked downward, and gazing right back up at him was a bright pink...horse. Well, it would probably be more accurate to say it was a pony, since it only came up to about his stomach. Wow. So he was hallucinating, after all. And now, he knew he'd totally lost it, because at least it had just been auditory, before.
"I know this place is scary, but there's no need to cry!"
Will startled as the voice jerked him out of his thoughts. He looked down, and the pony was still there. This time, though, he'd actually seen it move its mouth. So the visual aspect of it was getting worse. Great.
Will groaned in misery as he slid down the tree until he was sitting down again, staring blankly at the pony. Looking closer, he realized something else about it. It had one of those symbols he had seen before on those My Little Pony toys on her...flank, he thought it was called? This image was one of three balloons.
Wow. His own insecurity must have been mocking him through this hallucination. Of all the things he could've hallucinated, it had to be one of the things his dad had once mocked him for playing with. The girl at the park, all those years ago. She'd given him her My Little Pony toy as thanks for him giving his own toy tonka truck.
He hadn't told her he didn't want it, of course. She was insistent on repaying him for doing something so nice for her. Though she'd never brought it up in any of her nervous conversations with him, Will believed that girl from all those years ago was Jennifer Hayes. They looked just alike; and it would explain the crush she clearly had on him; the one he felt bad about not reciprocating. Unlike the trade all those years ago, that was one thing they wouldn't be able to exchange, he supposed.
His father's old words came back to haunt him at that thought. The enraged questions of why he couldn't just be "normal"; couldn't return Jennifer's feelings. Will wanted to like her, he really did. But he just...wasn't interested. Years on, he still remembered the hollering match his mom and dad got into after he yelled at Will for playing with the pony toy. Will found that he actually gravitated to the colorful plastic pony, and after swallowing his pride and just trying it out, found he actually liked playing with it.
In the end, his mom won that argument, and he was allowed to keep the toy, but only because "Some poor girl wasted it on you. Be a shame to make it for nothing." He was told to put it away in his dresser and never play with it again, however. He hadn't laid eyes on the toy in years. There was probably a dusty, web-covered version of it in this nightmare world's version of his house.
"Hey, you keep spacing out. Are you okay?"
Will turned his attention back to the pink pony. He sighed. It was a hallucination; and a really bad one, at that. But it wasn't like he could get any lower. His pride was reduced to nothing, anyway. Hell, he was probably going to die in this awful place.
Would it really hurt so much to vent his feelings to a hallucinatory pink pony?
"It's just..." Will began, only for the pink pony to interrupt him with a dramatic gasp. "Oh my gosh! You're a Human!"
Will furrowed his brow and tilted his head in confusion. "Y-yeah...?"
The pink pony somehow started bouncing on her hooves and visibly vibrating in excitement. He wasn't sure how a horse could do that, but Will chalked it up to the whole 'hallucination' part of this weird experience.
"Well, the thing is, Lyra's always gone on and on about how she knows you guys are real, but you're just a myth in Equestria and Twilight says it's all a bunch of mumbo-jumbo andHumansarejustscarycampfirecreaturesandI'msoexcitedtomeetyouandthisissocoolmyname'sPinkiePieand-"
"Shh!!" Will whispered harshly. The pony's voice was so loud, he could hardly hear himself think, let alone piece together what she was saying, considering how fast her speech had become.
He also really didn’t want her to attract more monsters.
The pony stopped talking and looked at him with a bright smile. Somehow, despite it being a horse's mouth, it didn't look weird or creepy. It looked...genuine, strangely Human, and, weirdest of all...reassuring. She exuded so much optimism, her mere presence caused his mood to lift a bit. It made him feel like everything was going to be alright.
"Sorry! I ramble sometimes! My name's Pinkie Pie! What's your name?" The pink pony excitedly asked. Blinking at the odd, extremely girly name, Will shakily gave his own.
“W—Will… Will Byers…”
"Will, huh? That's a nice name! How'd you get here?"
Will frowned in confusion. If she was a hallucination—a figment of his own mind—why would she not know that?
Will shook his head. It was fine. He didn't know how hallucinations worked, and he needed to vent, anyway; even if he was, at the end of the day, only talking to himself.
"I was brought here by one of those monsters. It chased me down; there was this flash of light... and then... I was here."
Pinkie briefly frowned.
"Wow; that sounds scary! The only thing I did was accidentally scare Twilight while she was testing out a new spell she created! She accidentally hit me with it; and then I woke up here!"
Will’s brow briefly furrowed in confusion. He had no idea what the equine hallucination was going on about, but it didn’t really matter, he supposed. None of it did.
He ducked his head, hiding his face in his knees once more. He was never getting out of here. He wasn’t ever going to see his mom again. And he was going to die hallucinating about the very thing that had earned him so much misery from his father.
“Aww, what’s wrong?” He heard the pink pony ask again. “Are you homesick, too? Oh! Silly me, of course you are!”
Will felt warm tears sliding down his face, but refused to let the pink pony see them. “Just leave me alone…” he weakly said, defeated. He could somehow feel her frown when she next spoke. “Hey, everything’ll be just fine, I promise, okay?”
Will lifted his face from his knees to look at the mocking hallucination with teary, tired and sad eyes. “No it won’t! How can you even say that?! There’s no way out of this place!”
Pinkie smiled at him softly. “I can say that because I believe! Nothing’s ever hopeless! And this world might be scary, but it’ll be no match for you if you just show it you aren’t afraid!”
Will blinked at her miserably. “How am I supposed to do that…?” Pinkie smiled brightly, then began to sing a bright, peppy tune.
“When I was a little filly and the sun was going down…”
Will cocked a brow at her, now thoroughly convinced he had finally crossed the event horizon and just lost it.
“The darkness and the shadows, they would always make me frown… I’d hide under my pillow, from what I thought I saw…”
Will frowned briefly. He used to do that all the time back when he would have nightmares and the like, until Dad had yelled at and called him several unsavory things for his cowardice.
“But Granny Pie said that wasn’t the way to deal with fears at all!”
Despite himself, Will felt his despair beginning to melt away a bit. Even if none of this was real, the tune was still nice. He was honestly impressed with his sleep-deprived mind for coming up with an entire song like this.
“She said: “Pinkie, you’ve gotta stand up tall! Learn to face your fears! You’ll see that they can’t hurt you, just laugh to make them disappear!’”
Pinkie punctuated this with a “ha ha ha!”, and Will felt a small smile beginning to spread on his face.
“Soooooo, giggle at the ghostly! Guffaw at the grossly! Crack up at the creepy! Whoop it up with the weepy! Chortle at the kooky! Snortle at the spooky!”
Pinkie performed a little dance as she sang, and Will’s smile spread further. Even if this was all a figment of his imagination, it was beginning to make him feel hopeful, again.
“And tell that big, dumb, scary face to take a hike and leave you alone andifhethinkshecanscareyouthenhe’sgktanotherthingcomingandtheveryideaofsuchathingjustmakesyouwanna—!”
Pinkie then laughed hard, and Will couldn’t help but giggle with her.
“LAAAAAAAAUUUUGH!”
She collapsed, laughing hysterically, against the tree right beside Will, who found himself joining her in the laughter. Tears ran down his cheeks. A few sobs joined in the laughter, but they weren’t of sadness. He was just releasing all the pent-up despair he’d been feeling his whole time here. All the loneliness, sadness, and fear… the laughter had banished it all.
When Will finally calmed down and wiped his tears away, Pinkie Pie hopped cheerfully to her hooves. “Feel better now?” She asked brightly. Will chuckled weakly as he sat up straighter. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” And Will really did. He was starting to feel like he just might get out of here, after all.
At this, Pinkie bounced in place excitedly a few times, then lunged forward and wrapped him in a tight hug. “Yay! I just love cheering up my friends!”
When she pulled away, Will’s sudden look of horror perplexed her. Still smiling, she tilted her head to the side. “What’s the matter?” She asked brightly, not missing a beat.
Her soft fur.
Her cold, hard hooves.
Her bouncy mane.
There was no mistaking it, Will realized. She was…
She was…
“YOU’RE REAL?!”
His scream echoed throughout the forest.
“Of course I am, silly!” Pinkie replied cheerfully, hopping excitedly around him as he stumbled to his feet. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Will clutched his head as it began to spin. As Pinkie Pie cheerfully led him off to the small shelter she had apparently built nearby, Will followed his new companion numbly, still in shock.
He had a feeling the rest of his time here was going to be quite unique.