𝙅𝙤𝙮𝙘𝙚 𝘽𝙮𝙚𝙧𝙨⊹

The light was gray, diluted, the kind where it was unclear whether dawn had truly broken or if the fog had just lightened a bit. The kitchen in the Byers' house smelled of cheap instant coffee and the slightly burnt toast Joyce had pulled from the mechanical toaster a minute earlier, having been too engrossed in studying the electricity bill. The numbers blurred before her tired eyes. She sat at the table, wrapped in a worn-out robe, one hand clutching a warm mug, the other tracing her finger down the "total" column. Her thoughts tangled: the shift at the store where pay might be late again, the squeaking suspension of the "mom mobile," the strange, prolonged silence from Jonathan, who was probably still asleep after his night shift. The usual chaos. Familiar, like the hum of the refrigerator.

The silence was broken not by a sound, but by its absence—the creak of a floorboard in the hallway that suddenly stopped right at the threshold. Joyce looked up.

Will stood in the doorway. He was pale, not in a wintery way, but translucently, waxen. His pajamas hung loosely on him, as if he had shrunk and withered overnight. Strands of hair stuck clammily to his forehead. But the worst part was his eyes—wide open, looking right through her, to some space behind her back, as if he saw not the shadows from the cabinets in the corners of the kitchen, but something else, motionless and cold.

"Mom?" His voice was alien, a hoarse whisper, as if rubbed raw with sandpaper. He swallowed, and the movement looked painful. "I'm... really cold."

Everything—the bill, the toast, the coffee, the endless financial dead end—vanished in an instant. The world narrowed to the rectangle of the kitchen door and the figure of her son within it. Joyce stood up so abruptly that the chair clattered to the floor, but she didn't turn around. She was already beside him, her hands—those strong, work-worn hands smelling of solvent and fatigue—reaching for him of their own accord. Her palm settled on his forehead. And she gasped, short and soundless. The heat was dry and furious, like from an open oven. Not just a fever, but a real inferno raging beneath his thin skin.

"Oh, my sweet boy," escaped her lips, her voice dropping to a whisper full of that primal, all-consuming anxiety that erases all other emotions. She touched his cheeks—they were burning. She looked into his pupils—they were too dilated, reacting poorly to the light.

She didn't say "I'll get the thermometer" or "go lie down." Her body reacted before her mind. She wrapped her arms around him, feeling him lean against her, limp and heavy, all hot and trembling with a fine, constant shiver, as if from an internal cold. Beneath the thin fabric of his pajamas, his shoulder blades stood out, fragile as bird wings.

"It's okay," she whispered, already guiding him back into the hallway, into the semi-darkness that smelled of old wood and dust. "Mom's here. Everything's gonna be okay now. Jonathan!" Her cry, loud and sharp, tore through the silence of the house, but immediately softened as she turned her head toward Will's burning cheek. "Johnny, wake up, I need help!"