This new image from “Stranger Things” shows how much more GRUESOME this one death was supposed to be

Since more and more people are showing love for the Netflix series Stranger Things, there’s more and more information coming out about how Season 1 came to be. And every tidbit we can get is incredibly interesting, especially since the series was so well thought out. But there’s one scene in particular that’s definitely worth reflecting on. (It should noted that if you’re not done with the series yet, you should look away.)

Let’s continue. When Eleven went to the other side and saw the fate of Barb, it’s incredibly disturbing. Just one look, and we know that her character just won’t be coming back. Eleven screamed once she saw Nancy’s best friend in such bad condition, and that scream told us everything we needed to know. But — it was supposed to be so much worse.

In an interview that ScreenCrush set up with Aaron Sims, from Aaron Sims Creative (the company which also worked on Pete’s Dragon, among other gorgeous films) Sims shared the second round of the original concept art for Barb’s final scene. Brace yourself, as it’s a bit gruesome.

You can see that she’s completely ravaged — most of her body has been gnawed off, and she morbidly still has her glasses on (even though we see her lose them in the empty pool).

“In the final design, [The Duffer Brothers] ended up veering away from that because it became too unrecognizable,” Sims explained. “It was difficult to tell exactly what had happened to her; it wasn’t an issue of it being too graphic, but rather, that the viewer needed to see something that was very recognizably dead.”

This is the version we saw (still really creepy and graphic, gotta say — that SLUG):

That original concept definitely played into two themes that Stranger Things used throughout its episodes — webbing, and slugs. It was intentional, and Sims promised the ScreenCrush staff that those two aspects would be explained better in future seasons.

So, while we still miss Barb, and hope she’ll have a few good mentions during the second season,  it’s nice to know that she could have looked, uh… more tortured than she actually did.