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Henry’s vision kept flickering with that horrible scene; his younger self bashing the man’s head in, touching the stone, killing for the first time in his life. The Mind Flayer had kept that from him, and seeing it hurt. It hurt like it was the first time all over again. This level of devastating mental pain was foreign to Henry. Usually, his only emotion was cool, calculated rage, fed by the ancient shadow.
“It wasn’t you.” Henry’s eyes flickered, recognizing William’s voice as it filled the air around him, as if he were in a dream. “It was never you.”
Those were the last words he ever expected to hear from his victim. They were words that cut right through him, tearing him open so that everything he had ever done was on display. “Leave me alone,” Henry choked out, hardly able to see through the tears in his eyes.
“That’s why the Mind Flayer didn’t want you in that cave. It didn’t want you to remember.”
Henry sucked in a breath, his bottom lip quivering. Tears began to stream down his cheeks, stinging as they ran across the cut on his face from Holly. Holly, who he had kidnapped and used and manipulated. Holly, who reminded him so much of his sister, Alice. He deserved the pain.
“I said leave me alone,” he all but begged, suddenly feeling so, so small. His heart pounded like it wanted to tear itself from his chest as he stared at the bloodied body in front of him. He had done that. He had killed that man.
You’re weak.
The monster sunk its claws into his mind as William spoke again.
“You were just a kid, a kid like me. And it used you. It used you to bring it here.”
Henry fought back a fresh wave of sobs, his breath shaky. All he could picture was the look on the face of that small version of himself. The pain. The horror. He couldn’t fathom that William, of all people, was trying to empathize with him. He didn’t deserve it. And the Mind Flayer agreed.
Of course you don’t deserve his pity. Nothing good comes from this world, and you are included in that.
Oh, but Patty. She was something good. In fact, she was the one thing in this world that he knew was good. Even remembering her name made Henry want to scream and rage. For the way she had loved him, and for what he had done to her.
“You’re just like me, Henry. A vessel.”
That word, thrown back at him for the first time, made Henry’s heart ache. It rang true in a way that made him want to claw his chest open. The very air he breathed felt foreign, like it was invading his lungs.
“But you can resist it.” Henry’s eyelids flickered. This time when he inhaled, the breath felt more like his own. But the Mind Flayer, sensing his internal struggle, whispered to him again.
You cannot resist me, Henry. Do not try. You and I… we are one.
“Don’t let it win, Henry, please. Don’t let it win.” William was begging Henry desperately, and a little voice in the back of his mind pleaded for Henry to give in. To end the suffering here and now, to fix his wrongdoings as much as he could.
To let dear Holly, who was so much like Henry’s sister, go back to her real brother.
But that part of him had always been too quiet.
Too weak.
Henry breathed in heavily, shaking his head as new tears filled his eyes. “No. It showed me the truth.”
But the words were being wrenched out of his mouth, only halfway his. The Mind Flayer did not want him to get even a taste of redemption. Not that he deserved it anyway.
The Mind Flayer forced Henry’s memories to the forefront of his mind, each one vague but painful to touch. Each one showing that the Mind Flayer owned him.
A spider crawling on his hand. His drawings of the Mind Flayer that plagued his dreams. His reflection in a clock. Twelve numbers. Twelve children..
“It showed me that this world is broken,” Henry gasped out.
A baby bombed and burning in its crib, a consequence of a war it wasn’t even fighting.
“That man is broken.”
Henry couldn’t quite catch his breath, his tongue a foreign thing in his mouth. The cognitive dissonance was so painfully real that it made the tears flow harder. Dark anger crept into the edges of his mind, its touch familiar; it was the Mind Flayer, trying to take back its full control.
“Don’t listen to it Henry. It is controlling you right now,” William replied, his tone desperate. Henry could tell the boy was in tears, and strangely that realization bought him a bit more lucidity.
“It has never controlled me,” Henry replied, but even as the words left his mouth he could feel the Mind Flayer’s attention on him waning. It was using his body to bring to life its physical form, with Henry suspended directly under its heart.
“And I never controlled it.” Those words felt like his own, but the Mind Flayer returned for a moment and dragged up more painful memories. Henry felt this strange, vulnerable version of himself slipping away.
“Don’t you see, William? I could have resisted it. But I chose—“ The word struck him painfully. “—to join it.”
Henry felt the Mind Flayer begin to unleash its physical form. Yet, he also felt the complete dependence, for once, of the Mind Flayer on him. So his next words were his own. “It needs… me.”
The Mind Flayer staked its clawed legs into the ground, beginning to rise in the real world.
“And I need it.” This was also true. Henry didn’t know how he could live without the Mind Flayer. It was all he had ever known, really. It had control over him in ways that he could not come back from. Had guided him to do things that his younger self, before touching the stone, couldn’t even fathom. Each murder had began to kill that little boy, bit by bit, in the back of his mind until Henry forgot who he had been.
“We… are… one.” A single tear slipped down his cheek, and he closed his eyes, slouching over his knees.
The Mind Flayer roared, and not just in his head this time. It had awoken. It had released its full potential upon the strange planet, its course set to ravage the group of people who had set out to kill it.
This was the end.
And then small footsteps found their way before him. Henry opened his teary eyes to find Holly standing in front of him, her iron poker pointed at his chest, and his heart ached. “Henry,” she said softly, her voice still shaking with fear. “Is… is what Will said true?” So she had been able to hear the boy also, still trapped in his mind with him. “Are you… are you still yourself? Is it the Mind Flayer controlling you?”
Henry couldn’t help the fresh wave of tears that followed her words. Holly could have ran. She could have escaped by now. But instead, she gave him a chance.
A chance to be heard.
“I… I’m not sure,” he whispered, but her gaze did not waver upon his. Yet, neither did her poker. “It doesn’t have a hold on me now, but it… could return.” Fear had crept into his voice, and he felt the Mind Flayer attempting to balance fighting the people outside with regaining control over him.
Holly nodded, seeming to understand. The fear in her expression softened a bit. “Henry, I… believe you. And I know how to help you. Max showed me.”
Henry gazed at her for a moment, and he realized she was telling the truth. The girl, Maxine, had escaped from his mind just before Holly had. Before he brought her back to this hellscape. “How?” he asked, voice barely above a murmur.
Holly lowered her poker, just slightly. “This is your first memory with the Mind Flayer. This is where you can escape,” Holly breathed, her eyes bright.
Henry felt his heart stutter and leap at that word. Escape.
But the Mind Flayer, feeling Henry’s hope for the very first time, roared in his head, and he flinched.
You are irredeemable. You are nothing without me!
Henry shut his eyes tightly, tears streaming. “No,” he pleaded, warring with the ancient beast. He heard Holly take a step back. The Mind Flayer wrenched his head to the side, and Henry gasped, eyes flying open.
Finish your job.
Henry sobbed brokenly, doing everything he could to keep the Mind Flayer from turning his gaze toward Holly. “Don’t make me hurt her,” he begged, voice cracked. “Let her go.”
“Henry, you have to fight it!” Holly cried out, her desperation striking a chord in Henry’s heart.
The Mind Flayer growled, but then it seemed to fade. Bewildered, Henry looked up to Holly, but before he could say anything to the girl he cried out in pain, his body crumpling to the ground. Every inch of his skin felt like it had been ripped into, his nerve endings burned until they blackened. His vision went white for a terrifying moment, and then back to normal, leaving him gasping for air as he rolled onto his back.
Of course this would happen. If he got hurt, so did the Mind Flayer. It was no wonder that it worked the opposite way. The group outside had begun tearing into the Mind Flayer however they could, and Henry felt everything.
But as he regained his strength, he found that the Mind Flayer’s control on him had fully receded. It had bigger things to worry about. And his head felt clearer than it had for as long as he could remember.
“Henry?” Holly asked quietly, searching for confirmation. Her poker was pressed just over his heart, but she did not strike.
With tears of pain and relief rolling down his bloodied cheeks, Henry whispered, “It’s… gone. It’s gone, Holly.”
Relief spread across Holly’s face, and she drew back the poker. “Are you okay?” she asked him gently, taking a step closer.
Henry squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again. Waves of pain kept washing over him as the Mind Flayer was attacked. This time when the lie left his lips, it was his own and not the Mind Flayer’s. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. You have to get out of here.”
“Then come with me,” she promoted him as he sat up, brushing the dirt off his arms.
Henry stood slowly, letting Holly take his trembling hand in hers. His bones seemed to be on the brink of shattering, and he had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out. “But, what if I’m not strong enough to escape it?” he asked the girl quietly, suddenly sounding as if he were her age.
Holly turned her gaze up at him, and he was struck by how mature she looked. Holly the Heroic, the name given to her by her brother, was fitting. She was stronger than his warped mind ever thought she could be. All of the children were. “Don’t worry. You have me with you.”
Henry nodded, pressing his lips together, and then stretched out a hand to move the rocks at the end of the cave, allowing them ample room to step into the red wasteland. The air felt eerily still here.
The eleven other children were nowhere to be found. He hoped with all his might that they had escaped.
Henry didn’t know where to begin looking for the exit, glancing around in a half-panic. But Holly was confident, leading him forward until a huge portal, fuzzy around the edges, opened 100 feet in front of them.
Holly tugged at his hand, gasping excitedly. The open portal leading to both of their bodies loomed over them as they approached it. He could see that the other children had escaped and were waking up. The sight brought him a bit of relief. “Henry, we have to go! It’s flickering!” Holly urged him, for it was.
But Henry froze where he stood. He could see his body— no. Not his body. The body of that thing he had become. He didn’t want that. Didn’t want to go, fully himself, back into a world where he had only caused destruction and pain. To leave here— to leave his mind— was to leave the only remotely safe place he’d ever known since that day in the caves.
Yet, this was one of the longest moments of complete lucidity he’d ever had. It scared him, but what scared him more was knowing that he could still fall back into the clutches of the Mind Flayer without warning. The flicker of a shadow at the back of his mind reminded him of that.
He looked down at Holly, and there was so much fear in her eyes. He couldn’t let anything else happen to her. That, he was certain of. “Henry, please. Let’s get out of here.”
He squeezed her hand, shakily exhaling. Fresh tears flooded his eyes as he fought to keep the Mind Flayer at bay. As the people outside fought it, bullets flying and fire searing its flesh, Henry felt the pain as if it were his own. It was debilitating. And it was also a reminder of what he was to every person out there, but for Holly: a monster who needed to be destroyed. “Holly, I… I can’t.”
When he looked at her again, she seemed tearful. “But I know you can be good. You… you just have to come with me. We’ll tell everyone what happened. Tell them that you’re you again.”
“I will never be just me again,” he replied softly, his spirit broken. He placed a shaking hand on her shoulder, crouching down to face her, and Holly’s expression turned to disbelief.
“But we’re so close, Henry,” she reminded him, her voice wavering.
A tear slipped from Henry’s eye. She looked so much like Alice. And what terrible things he had done to her. To her family. To her whole town. It made him sick to his stomach. The shadow, feeding on his disgust for himself, began to creep back in. “I’m so sorry, Holly. For everything,” he choked out, his breath hitching. And his final act of full clarity, he dropped her hand and stood, stepping away from her. “Go.” The Mind Flayer roared in his mind, having found him again, and his face contorted agonizingly. “Holly, go!”
Holly shot him one last look of despair, tears streaming, before she began sprinting towards the portal. Henry sank to his knees as the Mind Flayer sunk in its shadowy claws, sobs ripping painfully from his chest. The barrage of fire power from outside tore through the Mind Flayer. Henry felt every stab, burn, and bullet, and he shredded his throat raw from howling in pain.
As his vision tinged with red, he caught a glimpse of Holly leaping through the portal before it closed for good, and his heart soared with relief for her.
The Mind Flayer shrieked, weaving its way through his thoughts and memories. It wanted to make him feel pain, and pain he felt. Every death he caused and every person he had loved and lost by his own hands flashed before him, and he found himself thinking of his life from before…
That was it. That was how he could resist. The memories of the boy he was before he touched the stone were like fuel for the fire that would burn the Mind Flayer from his head. He forced himself to think of that little boy; he was brave, adventuring around the canyons in his Boy Scout uniform whenever he got the chance. He always looked out for the people around him, doing whatever he could to better the lives of others. He was full of love for his family and friends, willing to do absolutely anything to protect them. And he was so, so strong. Henry dug up every feeling he could, squeezing his eyes shut, and willed himself to be as strong as the lost version of himself once was.
The Mind Flayer shrieked, its cries ear-splitting and painful. It tried to cling to every horrible memory it could, but Henry battled with it, forcing it back, reliving every traumatizing event until each one belonged only to him. He burned it out until the shadow faded. Until it was gone.
He was finally free.
The beast still had control of his body, but it no longer had control of his mind. His mind— thoughts, memories, all of it— was his.
The portal opened back up, and Henry could see Holly frantically running up to Eleven as the powerful girl ripped her way into the belly of the Mind Flayer, telling her something he couldn’t hear.
But he knew what Holly had said when Eleven turned to his physical body, her arms outstretched and her expression conflicted. Henry felt the Mind Flayer using his physical body, turning his palms outward so his power warred with Eleven’s.
But it couldn’t reach him in here. He was safe in his mind. He fought for control, throwing everything he had at the Mind Flayer’s shadowy clutch on his body. And finally, screaming in agony, he broke through it.
With a single gasp for air and a second’s decision, Henry began to help Eleven rip himself to pieces.
Henry had never turned his powers onto himself, and the pain of it was like nothing he had ever imagined. It rivaled the pain he felt when he was first touched by the Mind Flayer. Rivaled the pain he felt as the physical Mind Flayer was being torn apart. It nearly overwhelmed him as he felt one leg shatter, then the other, and then as his arm was torn off. He stayed in one piece inside his mind, but he felt everything.
He crumpled in on himself and wept, but he did not stop. His palms were open, turned up to the sky, and he forced his chin to stay raised. He would not die weak. He would not die a coward. He may not be able to redeem himself, but he could end this without causing any more suffering.
And with his gaze on the portal, he watched as Eleven— his sister— began to push his wretched body into a spike. The agony made his breath stutter, and suddenly he felt as though his very being was starting to fade. Holly stood just behind Eleven, tears streaming quietly down her cheeks, and Henry sobbed harder, screaming, the physical and mental pain mingling until it threatened to consume him.
Good. Let it.
As his final act of resistance against the Mind Flayer, Henry Creel squeezed his fists and turned the full might of his powers in on himself.
And everything was dark.