Shadows Of A Broken Mind

by OPINT

The people of Hawkins have put the past where it belongs - behind them. But the upside down is only the tip of the iceberg. Dark things lurk in the forgotten corners of reality, and through the conduit of man, one of them has taken interest in a certain psychokinetic girl. My personal Lovecraftian take on S3, just warning you now, it'll be darker than the source

1. Chapter 1: Void

Hello! First fanfic so play nice. This chapter is going to pretty graphic, so there's that, but I did rate this T so…

Please please please leave reviews, I highly value critique. Thanks for reading!

Belshwood, Maryland, 1972

Huh. Huh. Huh. Huh.

The cold, crisp November air bit at his exposed skin. Like needles, cold little drops of stinging rain pelted his face, but it barely registered in his mind. All he could hear, all he could focus on, was the simple, rhythmic sound of his breathing; the simple, rhythmic motion of running as fast as he possibly could.

He couldn't let himself hear the laughing.

Huh. Huh. Huh. Huh.

The cold, hard ground of the woods was littered with rocks and twigs that scratched his bare, freezing feet, but that was of little importance. He could barely see in the almost pitch-black of the moonless night, but that too didn't matter. He weaved around a large oak tree that had popped into view scarcely a yard in front of him, and then immediately tumbled over a guardrail and onto a road. The rough concrete scratched the skin of his left arm and cheek, but the boy, scrambling to his feet, ignored the stinging pain and the warm trickle of blood down his face. A flicker down the road, about 300 yards down, caught his eye. There. Lights. Sirens. Police. On heavy legs and bleeding feet, the child sprinted toward the light.

As he grew closer, the single flicker of light turned into a veritable visual cacophony. Over a dozen vehicles were sprawled across the narrow, two-lane road. The blue and red light of police sirens and ambulances cut through the darkness, illuminating the area and projecting flickering shadows at odd angles. Through tear-blurred eyes, the boy managed to make out the letters on the side of the closest car, a large black Jeep. FBI.

The boy stopped running, the fatigue in his muscles and the pain of the cuts and scrapes having finally registered in his mind, and his legs buckled. A man in a paramedic's uniform came running over, accompanied by two other men in suits, and he grabbed the boy as he fell to the ground. "Hey kid, stay with me, don't close your eyes, stay with me, kid, alright?"

He listened without hearing. The paramedic. The men in suits. The police officers. They were all talking, some of them to him, surely. He wasn't there.

The boy was standing in the doorway to his home. The rain had just begun to fall, the dark clouds smothering any residual light from the setting sun. The walls of the front hallway were smeared with something red. It reeked of the irony smell of blood. A dark, crouched form was silhouetted by the lamplight from the end of the hallway.

"M-Mom? Mom, s-something's wrong with Mr. Hendricks, he's dancing around outside and he's naked and he has blood all over him and I tried to talk to him but he turned around and his eyes were bla-uhhh." The boy's breathless exclamation was cut short when figure rose, back to him, as there was enough light for the boy to make out some details now. It was a woman, wearing a white blouse covered in ribbons of scarlet. Another person was laying down, motionless, behind her, sprawled across the floor. The figure turned around. The boy gasped, not because of the blood covering his mother's face, causing her stringy hair to stick to her cheeks, or the nasty-looking cut across her collarbone, or even the tattered holes all over her clothing. It was her eyes. They were dark voids, as black as the sky, and looking into them, the boy felt his chest tighten. He felt a vicious cold seize his heart, a primal hunger, and he understood at once that what was in front of him was not his mother, at least, not anymore.

Whatever it was, its mouth erupted into a Cheshire-cat grin, it threw back its head, and it laughed. It sounded like a bleating goat, if the goat's throat were made of glass and chalkboard. The boy turned around and ran, but the mom-thing's laugh only followed him out the door. All around the boy, the void-eyed imitations of all the people he knew were laughing the same awful laugh, as they danced, spun, murdered, devoured. Fires danced from the rooftops of homes, the flickering light cutting through the dark and denying the boy the mercy of ignorance. He heard chanting, though he couldn't make out the words, intertwined with cries of pain and pleasure. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of some dark, huge, inhuman shape lurking in the forest to his right. Left it was.

"-come on, kid! Stay awake! Come on!" He was back. All at once, the bitter cold, the sting of the cuts, the fatigue in his muscles, the sound of gunshots in the distance, it all flooded his senses. He gripped the paramedic's hand and screamed, cried, wailed, into the pitch dark sky above.

Laughter was his response.