A/N: Hey guys! I've been trudging along slowly and trying to better manage my anxiety recently, but I've finally gotten around to finishing chapter 4. :) I kind surprised myself because even though I do have an outline for the whole story, I felt stuck on this chapter when I was writing the little details. Then one day, I had the document for this chapter open, an idea struck me and then I just couldn't stop writing until I finished! It actually caused me to change my process a little... Instead of trying to write linearly, I'm just going to start wherever my imagination takes me and tweak it to make sense afterwards.
Speaking of change, I've also been making some slight changes to my outline for how the rest of this story is going to go so hopefully those changes make it more enjoyable! I added a few more plot elements and made changes that should make it flow better (also, I'm learning so much about pregnancy LOL). Hopefully, you'll see what I mean later. ;)
So for the update schedule... Life for me is still pretty chaotic, so here's what I'll do: I'm going to aim for weekly updates, but if I have to take a little longer, I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I'm going to keep it at a leisurely pace and just enjoy the process instead of making everything so serious.
I've updated this story's description a little bit. I don't want to spoil anything, but I suggest you look over the description again just to make sure you're okay with reading what's described.
One other thing is that I'm still taking suggestions for the sex and name of the Jancy baby, so if you haven't already given your opinion, I'd love to know. I'm liking a lot of the ideas I'm seeing so far!
And I think that's about it for updates, so without further ado, here's chapter 4!
Friday, May 15, 1987
El let out a frustrated little grunt as she nearly tore the folded bandana off of her face. Her friends sat quietly in a semicircle around her, staring expectantly and then looking to each other in response to El's outburst.
"Still?" inquired Max, her scarlet eyebrows tilted upward in a concerned expression while Will shut the radio static off.
The psychic brunette stared at Mike's blue paisley bandana in her hands as if it were the cause of her troubles. She couldn't remember being this disappointed with her powers since she had temporarily lost them a few years ago. No matter how hard El tried, she just could not locate the strange girl in the Hawkins Laboratory gown. She couldn't even picture her face in her mind's eye, but how could that be? El had assumed that she had come into contact with all of the children held captive by the man she called Papa for so many years, but nothing about this girl was even faintly familiar to her. And if El couldn't even make out the young woman's face, she would never be able to find her.
"Look," Mike said finally, scooting closer to his girlfriend to wipe away the blood on her lip with a tissue. "Maybe we should stop for tonight."
"El?" Max asked, lowering her head a little to get a look at the other girl's face. "What do you think?"
El let out a little sigh, looking up at her friends and playing with the bandana in her hands. "I'm tired. I think taking a break might be a good idea."
Just then, the doorbell rang, immediately grabbing everyone's attention.
"Just in time!" Dustin grinned, quickly standing up and grabbing the money Karen Wheeler had left behind for her son and his friends while she took Holly to a friend's birthday party.
As the other boy ran to the first floor of the house, Mike followed quickly, chucking the bloodied tissue in the garbage before climbing the stairs. "Hey! Dustin, it's my house. I'll get it!"
Mike flew after his friend and was so busy trying to beat the other teen to the door that he didn't see Dustin stop at the opening to the living room until he'd bumped into him and landed on the floor. Some time during the summer between 9th and 10th grade, Dustin had undergone a huge growth spurt and became much huskier than he was as a child. He even started having to shave his new, wispy little moustache much to Mike and Will's jealous dismay (Lucas had managed the most developed facial hair of the party already which he liked to wear as stubble to impress Max while Will was lucky enough just to notice a hair or two on his chin). In truth, all of the teens were growing. Mike had become much taller too, but his lanky body was no match for Dustin's sturdy form and so when he crashed into him, Dustin barely even flinched while Mike was knocked right off his feet. Steve had suggested football to Dustin before, but he just wasn't all that interested. He could have made a great quarterback if he weren't more focused on video games and fantasy adventures than running around after a ball.
Groaning, Mike picked himself off the floor while Dustin continued to stare into the living room.
"Ugh, damnit, Dustin," the dark-haired boy complained, rubbing the sore spot on his hip where he fell. "You're built like a goddamn brick, man."
"Hey," Dustin finally responded and used his chin to point to the television. There was a look on his face that implied he was cautiously scrutinizing what was in front of him. "Ya think that stuff is... real?"
Mike finally looked into the darkened room illuminated only by the TV. Ted Wheeler slept in his La-Z-Boy recliner snoring softly while the sound of the program filled the silence. On the television, there was an elaborately dressed blonde woman who Mike vaguely recognized taking calls from the audience at home. While the caller rambled on about her recently deceased ex-lover, the TV host called Madame Clara listened intently and nodded every so often. On her face, an expression which made her look like she already knew all the answers before the caller finished her story showed through a layer of brightly coloured makeup.
"Before I knew it, he'd boarded the midnight train and never came back," explained the woman on the phone. "And that was the last time I saw my dear Darryl. He was killed by another passenger on the train. I feel so lost without him. I just need to connect with him one last time."
"Melissa, my dear," Madame Clara responded immediately with her thick New York accent, already staring into the crystal ball in front of her. The charms on her sleeves raddled, making soft clanging noises as she moved her manicured hands around the sphere. "I do believe I see him. This is a young man with dark hair... Darling, was Darryl ever a member of the army? Or perhaps the navy?"
"Why, yes he was!"
"Okay, so I'm definitely getting a reading here..." The TV psychic inhaled deeply. "I'm seeing a silver or gold necklace... Something with a chain that looks like a necklace..."
"Yes, the gold chain he gave me for my birthday," the caller named Melissa replied excitedly.
"He's telling me that you need to be wearing that necklace on a regular basis," Madame Clara continued. "You need to wear it all the time to ward off evil."
"All the time?"
"All the time," Clara confirmed, looking into the camera intently as if Melissa were in front of her. "Also, he's telling me there's a big decision you'll have to make in the future."
"Oh, that must be the move," Melissa said. "I was considering moving to California but I've just never been sure about the timing..."
"Go for it, honey," the psychic replied, trying to wrap up in anticipation for the next caller. "He's telling me you need to go for it."
"Thank you so much, Madame Clara!" exclaimed Melissa, her excitement at the prospect of finally allowing herself to move audible over the phone.
"Ya welcome, darling. Have a wonderful evening. Next caller..."
Mike squinted and one side of his mouth curled up in disbelief. "Dustin, you believe that? That shit's fake, man."
"I don't believe in it," Dustin replied, exasperated at the way his friend's tone made him feel gullible. "My mom watches this all the time and sometimes I just wonder. I never would have thought that El or the Upside Down or any of that sci-fi bullshit was real either, but look what the fuck happened."
"El is nothing like Madame Clara," Mike retorted defensively with a roll of his eyes. Ever since he first met El, from the time when she was still the mysterious girl hiding in his basement to the present, there was something about her that just made Mike want to protect her. Of course, being a powerful real psychic, she could handle herself just fine when it came to most types of physical or even supernatural danger, but El's upbringing meant that she was at a social and emotional disadvantage. After he had finally learned that he need not protect his girlfriend from her own judgments of her abilities, harsh words and criticism were the things Mike still felt a compulsion to shield El from even in his older teens. Sometimes, his guard was misdirected.
"I'm not saying she is," his friend replied. "Look, forget it. It was just an idea."
"Whatever," Mike sighed, taking the money out of Dustin's hand and making his way toward the front door to meet the frustrated teen trying to deliver the pizzas they had ordered.
"Asshole," Dustin muttered under his breath and followed after Mike to help with the boxes.
Monday, May 18, 1987
Jonathan winced and held the phone away from his face to protect his sensitive ears from his mother's screaming. He couldn't see her, but he could hear that Joyce was jumping in place and sobbing happily. She was so loud that Hopper had to come over from his place in the living room and make sure she was okay.
"Joyce!" he called, rounding the corner with a look of utter confusion at his girlfriend's behaviour. "What in God's name are you–"
"Hopper!" Joyce exclaimed, wiping tears off her face. "They're having a baby! Oh my God, they're having a baby!"
Hopper stared blankly, a little concerned for his girlfriend's metal wellbeing. "... Who?"
With her freehand, Joyce gently slapped his arm in frustration with his daftness. "Jonathan and Nancy! Hop! Nancy's pregnant!"
Jonathan chuckled on the other line, able to hear every word between them even with the phone so far from his ear. The concern on Hopper's face melted away and revealed pleasant surprise.
"Oh shit, congratulations!" Jonathan could hear Hopper say.
Then he heard his mother's muffled sobbing, probably into her boyfriend's chest. "Hopper, I'm gonna be a grandma!"
For a minute or so, Jonathan could only hear the sounds of shuffling and the older couple's muted voices, too far away from the phone's receiver for him to make out what they were saying. Suddenly, Hopper's voice came through clearly.
"Hello?"
"Hopper?"
"Hey, kid," his mother's boyfriend said over the sound of distant voices in the back. "Your mom's gone to tell your siblings. She's running around like a madwoman, you know. She literally just dropped the damn phone and made a break for it. You should see it. Anyway, congrats!"
"Thanks," Jonathan laughed, trying to picture Joyce scurrying about the house to tell anyone who would listen that her baby was having his own first baby.
"So, 'bout to start your life as a dad, eh?" said Hopper, the swell in his chest almost audible over the phone. By the time he had began officially dating Joyce, Jonathan had already aged out of the need for a new father figure in his life. Hopper was able to earn the young man's trust a lot faster than Joyce's previous boyfriends given all he had done to prove his devotion to her and her little family, but Hopper had accepted that his relationship with Jonathan would just never be the same as that between him and Will or El. The younger kids were still growing up and needed Hopper's guidance over hurdles that Jonathan had had to climb by himself while Joyce worked her ass off and Lonnie bummed around wherever he was. Regardless, Hopper had a special place in his heart for Jonathan seeing as he had been so kind to El in his brief absence and being able to watch Joyce's oldest evolve into a father himself gave him a little bit of second-hand pride. "What's it feel like?"
"Honestly? It's surreal. Part of me still doesn't believe it," the younger soon-to-be-father responded, leaning his back against the wall with the phone to his ear.
"I remember that," Hopper replied, swallowing the little bit of soreness he always felt when he thought about Sara and Diane, his first child and his ex-wife. "You're never really going to believe it until you're holding the kid in your arms."
"I just hope I can do a good job."
"You'll be fine. I won't lie to you, kid, you'll wish the first month were a nightmare because that would mean you'd be getting some sleep, but after that, things get more routine and you–"
Suddenly, the background was filled with the sound of screaming, yelling, and loud footsteps threatening to trample Hopper where he stood. Jonathan could hear his mother's boyfriend groan, 'Here they come', before the phone was grabbed from his hands and the sound of Will shouting his big brother's name boomed through the receiver causing the future father to reel back again. It was at that time while the chaos that was Will, El and Joyce (plus Hopper good-natured attempts to reign them in a bit) rang over the phone that Nancy finally emerged from the bathroom, now taking even the smallest hint of her nausea as a warning sign that she should be near either a sink or toilet. It was for that reason that she had to excuse herself just as Jonathan was making the call, but she had returned just in time for El's many questions about where the baby was, how long until they got there, whether they would be a boy or a girl, what was their name, and a slew of others. She still didn't quite understand a lot about babies even after several explanations in the past, but the idea of being able to meet a newborn excited her.
It was a joyous evening that capped off quite a long day.
As Nancy had predicted the night before, Jonathan was indeed hungover when he woke up bright and early that morning. Normally, rolling out of bed with a headache and fatigue just to stuff camera equipment into his beat up old car and speed off to a destination so that he could run after Micah's models would have been the recipe for a bad day, but that day was different. It was officially day one of fatherhood and it was going to be a good goddamn day even if Jonathan had to run on Tylenol, coffee and cheesy romantic fantasies to accomplish it. With the weight of her secret finally off her shoulders, Nancy also left the apartment with an unshakable glee that put a bounce in her step and made her unavoidable interactions with the office gossip more tolerable. She decided she wouldn't tell anyone at work for another little while. Nancy was going to try her best to enjoy her pregnancy and the longer she could go without hearing anyone's horror stories about the terrors of bearing children or dealing with people with boundary issues poking and prodding at her stomach without her permission or entertaining nosy coworkers asking about her and Jonathan's future plans (it was bad enough when they realized the two of them were unmarried and cohabiting), the better. Still, the future was one thing the couple hadn't gotten the chance to revisit until later that night after listening to Karen cry much like Joyce had, Mike and Holly celebrate becoming an uncle and an aunt respectively, and Ted stiffly acknowledge the announcement in the same way that he acknowledged everything (not to say that he wasn't happy about it, because he definitely was).
That evening after he arrived home from work, Jonathan had been much more affectionate than usual, taking any chance he could to brush his fingertips along Nancy's knuckles or gently push her bangs aside to kiss her forehead, and it was no different when they were finally sitting together in bed. Nancy was adjusting her little blue night gown which she had been able to fit into since high school, wondering when the day would come that it would be unable to accommodate her pregnant belly, when she noticed his dark brown eyes on her staring from underneath his fringe. Catching his gaze with her own, Nancy stared back quizzically, earning her a smile that made her feel warm in her centre like she had just downed a hot drink.
"What is it?" she asked, now smiling herself.
"Nothing, just..." he trailed off, his eyes fluttering from the red duvet and back to her as his smile grew. "I'm so damn lucky."
Nancy didn't know how to respond to that because the warm feeling in her core had risen up into her head and gently swept away all rational thought. It might have just been her hormones, but regardless, all Nancy could do was let her smile grow brighter, her blue eyes looking glassy as she scooted closer to her future child's father and reached up to brush his fringe out of his face until her hand found a comfortable spot just over his ear. Jonathan let his head drop against hers until their noses brushed past each other and Nancy's hand slid into the crook of his neck. She could feel the hair on the back of his neck rise at the contact (she knew exactly where he was sensitive) so she rubbed her thumb just underneath his jaw and coaxed a contented sigh from him. He leaned forward to caress her lips with his own and Nancy's mind wandered back to when they had first hooked up in the guest bedroom of a reclusive private investigator's house after he had essentially heckled them into confronting their feelings. That time wasn't her sexual debut (hers had taken place about a year prior at the Harrington residence one night), but after burning through the determination it had taken for him to initiate their first kiss, Jonathan found himself with stage fright at the prospect of his own graduation out of virginity. That was when she had found this spot on his neck completely by accident, a spot that himself hadn't even been aware of before then, and was pleasantly surprised when she caressed this place and his body melted against hers with a little whisper of her name. Nancy couldn't stay in the past forever and her mind quickly returned to the present when his mouth seized her bottom lip causing her to let out a soft little yelp. It was far more intimate than a typical good night kiss, but it was still sweet and gentle. When they parted and their eyes opened, Jonathan gazed into her baby blues with the same heartfelt stare he had been giving her before. Then, he gently guided her body into a little spoon position against his, did a quick half-turn to switch off the lamp, and laid a soft kiss on her ear (one of her sensitive spots) before laying his head on his pillow, one of his hands finding and playing with her hair.
"G'night, sweetheart," Jonathan murmured behind her.
"Night, babe," breathed Nancy in response, bringing his free hand up to kiss his knuckles before holding his arm tight around her midsection and tangling her fingers between his.
At that moment, with both their hands layered over her stomach, she remembered; they still hadn't had any type of discussion about what they were going to do about this. They had been so caught up in the intoxicating bliss of it all that the topic never came up. It's okay, Nancy thought, snuggling against her boyfriend's body and causing him to pull her tighter. She could feel him sigh into her hair, warm air brushing her shoulder and winding down her neck. I'll just bring it up in the morning.
... But that nagging thought refused to wait for the morning. Nancy shut her eyes tighter and shifted slightly as not to disturb Jonathan. She waited a minute before wriggling around again, suddenly unable to find a comfortable position. Jonathan blinked behind her and wondered briefly if she would feel more comfortable on her back. Perhaps he could just lay her head against his shoulder to keep them close or maybe she would prefer not to be held at all – that was fine too. Before long and with a frustrated little sigh, Nancy relented.
"Jon," she muttered. "I can't sleep."
"You know what?" Jonathan asked after a brief pause. He sat up slightly and propped himself up on his elbow. "I actually needed to take a piss but I didn't want to stop holding you."
"We need to talk," Nancy said and then gestured to her belly in the dark, a movement she knew he would be able to see with the moonlight that illuminated their bedroom. "About..."
After short silence, her boyfriend sat up all the way and turned to flick the light back on. Jonathan adjusted himself to face her and sat lotus style with his legs underneath the duvet. "I know. Just uh, lemme run to the washroom?"
"Oh yeah, of course," Nancy nodded, chuckling a little as she sat up in bed.
Her boyfriend scurried off to the bathroom and returned within minutes looking much more comfortable than when he left. Upon his return, he took a seat across from her and held her hands in his, still a bit damp from when he had washed them. They stared into each other's eyes in silence, both unsure of where to start.
"So," Nancy said, breaking the quiet. "We're having a baby."
"We're gonna be parents," Jonathan replied, nodding as if to affirm what he had just said.
Nancy nodded too, staring back into his brown eyes. "Yeah, but..."
"You're worried," Jonathan said softly, watching her movements carefully.
"Yes," she replied, letting out the air she had been holding in. "Aren't you?"
"Of course," he admitted with a bit of a lopsided smile. "This means we have to figure out our savings, move out of here probably, stay in Hawkins a little longer than we thought..." he gave her a one-shoulder shrug. "But we'll manage. We always do."
His expression changed then and he straightened his back a little. Jonathan tried his best to seem calm, but she could see the internal panic bubbling in his eyes. Regardless, he chose his next few words wisely as not to place any kind of blame on her and give her a chance to be honest without feeling like she would anger him. "That is, assuming we both want to keep it..."
"I do," Nancy said so quickly that it even surprised her.
Jonathan's entire body loosened up and he was overcome with relief. "Oh thank God," he chuckled. "Okay, so that's out of the way. Is there anything else that's bothering you?"
"Jonathan..." she started, suddenly unable to form the words. "College... I mean, babies are expensive. How can we afford to go to college, especially in New York?"
Even though Nancy knew her parents would make sure her education was covered, she still considered the matter of funding Jonathan's education a problem for both of them to tackle. Their first pick was NYU of course, not just because Jonathan himself had always dreamed of attending, but because they also happened to have a top notch master's program in journalism that Nancy had her eye on. Plus, if they both managed to enrol, they would be able to move out of the small town of Hawkins and into the big city. New York City. No more suburbs with seemingly no exits that instead only wind back into cul-de-sacs. No more picket fences like perfectly manicured barbed wire. No more expectations of the tidy little nuclear family that always either suffocated them (in Nancy's case) or shamed their inability to achieve them (in Jonathan's). New York just seemed like the perfect place for them to escape the small town conventions of Hawkins and start really living their lives. Notions of tradition and fitting into a mould were just not things that these two Gen Xers valued and they longed instead for the freedom to live without such bonds, but happy as they were to learn that they would soon be parents, a baby made those desires harder to fulfill – this was especially true for Jonathan's dreams of university. Joyce had always meant to put a little aside for him ever since he had expressed interest at such a young age, but Lonnie always made himself an obstacle whether he was around to tell her that they had more pertinent things to worry about or gone and taking his financial contributions with him (what little child support he paid was never reliable). The Byers' were doing better now that Joyce had found better work as an investigator and Hopper was around to help their little blended family, but Jonathan could never ask his mother's boyfriend to fund his education. At that point, it felt like a boundary that he shouldn't try to breach. That left his and Nancy's collective savings which would need to be put toward the baby first...
"We can put a little aside for it," he told her, seemingly unfazed by the change in their plans. "We can take out a loan if we have to then pay it back after we graduate. Nance, I'll go to community college if it comes to it."
"Jon, no." That was exactly what Nancy didn't want. She didn't want for him to have to sacrifice – not anymore. "You've worked hard your whole life. You shouldn't have to settle anymore. You deserve to be happy."
"Nancy..." Jonathan squeezed her hands in his and lowered his head to look her directly in her eyes. "Listen to me: I am happy. My mom isn't lonely anymore and Hopper's a great guy for her. She isn't busting her ass at some retail job anymore and I love seeing her so happy. Will and El are growing up and adjusting well. They're becoming more independent too. I don't have to worry as much about them anymore. My job isn't perfect right now, but I know I'll get there some day. And you with your job too. On top of that, I get to see you every single day and," he paused to gently touch her stomach with his fingertips in an attempt to reach the little one developing inside. "I have a family of my own now. I meant it before when I said I was lucky. I can't remember the last time I was this happy. If I have to change things a little to keep what's really important, that's not settling. Not if I can choose what's important to me."
"Babe..." whispered Nancy, the pregnancy hormones threatening an emotional response. It felt so good to hear him say those words.
Jonathan chuckled. "It's funny. Of the two of us, I'm normally the one who worries about everything."
"I know," his girlfriend nodded. "I guess it's my turn, huh?"
"Am I rubbing off on you?"
"Maybe. It's okay though," a grin crossed Nancy's face. "I like when you rub on me."
The young man snorted in response. "Pervert."
The brunette wore a look of fake indignation and playfully slapped a mischievous-looking Jonathan's arm before he reached out to begin to guide her back to being the little spoon. He held her tight to him and brushed her ear with his lips. "Now where were we?"
Thursday, May 14, 1987
She had already accepted that her life was over.
She could hardly even remember how it had happened. Somewhere between the trauma of witnessing her two children slaughtered like lambs and being beaten multiple times over the head, that memory must have been violently torn from her psyche. At some point that day, this man – this demon – had just shown up and ended her life as she knew it when he stole her family from her. She wanted for him to end her, to end this, but instead he lingered. As she laid face-down on the floor, too weak and too sore to move, she could sense the smell of tobacco around her while Bach's Air on the G String stung her ears. The motherfucker was indulging in a cigarette while he enjoyed her expensive stereo system, his legs crossed languidly as he sank into the sofa. The man let out a big puff of air, smoke billowing toward the ceiling like white spectres from forgotten remains. He let out a dark little chuckle as strings and clavier flowed and rippled into the atmosphere.
"You people disgust me, you know that?" he said, taking another long drag off his cigarette. "But I'll give you one thing, uh," he paused and said his next two words with palpable condescension. "'Mila Parkinson': You're at least decent enough to have excellent taste in music."
The woman – Mila – only respirated feebly in response.
The man carelessly regarded the tobacco stick between his fingers, memories returning to his mind with the tranquility of a man who did not in fact have the bodies of a 7 year-old and a 5 year-old splayed out behind him. The man shut his eyes as the music began to swell and let his mind drift far away to a much happier place. He could almost taste the sunshine, brilliant and citric. Salty sea air was flavoured with the spray of the infinite blue waves. Her hair was glittering, her smile warm, and her laughter infectious. Jessica. It had been so long since he had last been able to hold his darling in his arms. She smelled of lavender perfume, sweat, sand and carefree bliss that day. That was how he wanted her to remain forever.
"She loved this movement so much," he sighed contentedly, living mostly in his mind and only partially in reality. "Could you believe she wanted to play this rather than Wagner's Bridal Chorus? Oh, what would our parents have said?"
Mila laid bleeding on the floor while the man continued to reminisce, his voice sounding as if he were murmuring from several yards away. Somehow through her blurred vision she was able to make out a familiar shape just beside her. She focused on the object until she could identify it: a small stuffed giraffe that had originally belonged to her 7 year-old son before he grew tired of it as he aged and it was passed on to his younger sister. The man's voice droned on and Mila concentrated what little energy she had left into moving the muscles of her arm, the appendage slowly and shakily making its way upward for her bloodied hand to grasp the plush toy, leaving red fingerprints in its short fur. One last time. Mila just had to see them one last time. The noise around her washed away. Everything had begun to sound like she was back there in the glass cylinder, cold and alone, her ears flooded with water. The only difference was that her heartbeat had become incredibly loud, beating against her eardrums in its rhythmic death throes. Mila shut her eyes as tight as she could make them. The artificial lights of her living room did not allow for complete darkness, but her entire mind was determined to work through these imperfect conditions.
Eventually, Mila felt herself plunging as the walls, floor and ceiling of her home seemed to melt away. All surfaces gave way to inexplicable void as Mila felt her eyes open again. As she stared into the familiar darkness, it began to ripple and tear as it always did for her. Light shone through the fissures until the void opened up to allow memories to pour in like a pool of water. These were the toy's memories. Every experience it ever had with her two children, every stimulus it might have sensed had it been a sentient being was in vivid detail before her. She could smell the baby powder she had used on her youngest and feel her oldest hug the toy to his chest during one of its old adventures in their garden. Mila heard her daughter babble to the toy giraffe in her crib and she could see the instant that her son had fallen in love with it as an infant. Tears stung the corners of her green eyes. Every second without them was agony, but soon. Soon she would be with them again. She could already feel herself slipping away.
Outside, the man finally returned from his own reveries to regard his victim and he noticed a stream of blood trickling from her nose and mixing with her falling tears, staining the carpet beneath her. The man's bliss drifted away to reveal searing disgust underneath. He glanced quickly at the green pendant around his neck only to find it inactive. She hadn't tried to attack him, but he was completely enraged at her anyway.
"Don't even have the decency to listen to what you did to me," he said through clenched teeth.
Suddenly, the front door swung open and someone stepped inside. The man never took his eyes off of Mila, even when her husband walked through the foyer and into the living room as he normally did. Looking up from his keychain, Mr. Parkinson stopped in his tracks and began to hyperventilate when he saw his children and wife's lifeless bodies in bloody heaps on the floor, the smell of their innards mixed with tobacco and a hint of gasoline making him want to vomit.
"M-Mila..." he managed, his legs threatening to buckle beneath him.
Without missing a beat, the murderer turned swiftly, drawing his weapon. Then, as if it were nothing, he shot the other man directly between the eyes, sending him flying backwards and killing him instantly. The souvenir Hawaii keychain Mr. Parkinson had been holding made a sharp jingling noise when it crashed into the ground.
Paying no mind to the carnage, the sadistic man turned back to the main target of his rage. "Shame on me for thinking scum like you could ever feel enough empathy to allow me that."
He took another drag from his cigarette to calm the storm swirling within him and then leisurely made his way through the backdoor, carelessly lighting and tossing a match onto a discarded laundry pile soaked with combustible liquid on his way out. As the little house slowly ignited behind him, the man briefly contemplated what would happen to him when his Brother found out. He then quickly dispelled the thought because fuck it. What was done was done.
Friday, May 15, 1987
It was hard to remember how she had gotten here again.
The void was much calmer this time much like when she had come here herself earlier that night, but it was also slightly different. Something about this dimension felt... wetter than it usually was. The lower surface was still covered in the same endless black water, but the atmosphere felt so thick with moisture that it was more like liquid than it was like air. It almost felt like when she was in the sensory deprivation tank back at the Laboratory. Shaking her head furiously, the teenage girl pushed that distressing thought as far away as possible. That was a long time ago and she would never have to worry about that again, she told herself.
Taking a few steps forward, El looked around to see if the mysterious girl would appear in the impossible blackness. She was sure that if she couldn't recall purposefully astral projecting, she must have been pulled into this inner universe in her sleep just like last time. Sure enough, El's eyes finally spotted a white speck against the black emptiness. It had to be her.
The young woman began to run as fast as she could toward the bright spot, the suffocating humidity around her feel less inclined to do anything too strenuous, but she continued anyway. El could feel herself closing the gap at a rate that should have been impossible if this world between time and space were at all affected by the laws of physics. The girl stood the same as she was, back turned to El with her gown and long auburn hair drifting about her even with no wind to carry it. Once again, the girl slowly began to turn to her, but before El could see her face, the void seemed to bend and then tear apart as if a massive hole had been clawed into it. El stopped immediately when a screaming, frantic and horribly bloodied woman burst through the distortion and violently grabbed her right hand. The teenage girl could see the red-haired girl in the hospital gown reach out to her before the woman fell and pulled the both of them into the infinite liquid darkness below.
El's voiceless cries could not penetrate the emptiness as her consciousness descended. Sounds and colours suddenly began to grow around her and she could distinctly feel the strange woman grasping her hand tightly from some place that she could not see. The colours turned into shapes and El's mind was flooded with senses that she knew didn't belong to her. She, or whatever it was that was feeding her these feelings, was being held by a small tan-skinned girl with thick eyelashes and dark hair. The shapes became more defined and she soon realized that she was in someone's living room. Inexplicably, El became aware that this girl was getting ready to walk to school with her big brother who was sitting on the couch reading a copy of Nintendo Power. Suddenly, their mother entered the room with a strange man; a pale-skinned, raven-haired man whose broad smile contrasted wickedly with his hateful eyes and made El want to run. He was holding a gun to the crying, panicked woman's head. He was man-handling her. He wore an evil type of glee on his face like some unholy creature starved for blood. He was absolutely unhinged.
The little girl dropped El's avatar to the floor in shock as her brother scuttled off of the couch and El realized she couldn't move. This man was about to do something unspeakably horrible and she could only watch. No, she whispered, eyes turning red with fresh tears. No, I don't want to see this.
The mother begged the attacker to leave them alone, but instead he said something teasingly before throwing her to the ground, her head colliding with the coffee table on the way down. The children started screaming and crying and El could do nothing at all. The strange woman's hands wrapped around hers felt so very heavy and would have left dark red stains on El's white Memphis patterned blouse if the woman were corporeal. Stop! Please, I don't want to see this!
The man stepped forward and began to brutalize the son first but the fabric of the scene started to shift and tear and the woman's grip wavered. El could feel her left hand being pulled away as the environment mixed seamlessly with the void.
"E..l..ven!" she could hear a familiar voice cry out. That was when another illusion began trying to manifest like two different scenarios layering one over the other in competition. Tearing apart from and weaving together with the carnage, El could see distorted visions of a long passageway, an old ghostly man in a shroud, and a shimmering green liquid, and then the entire image was overtaken by a darkness like a fire burning through everything and leaving only charred remains in its wake.
Then, there was a loud scream over the gentle tapping of raindrops on a window. It took El half a second to realize that she was the one who was shrieking.
Mike sat up immediately from where he was sleeping underneath her on the couch. Will, who sat wrapped up in a blanket like a caterpillar on the other end, jumped awake, as did Max from where she slept on the floor against Lucas' chest. Tears streaming down her face, El tried to catch her breath as her friends woke up around her. They had all fallen asleep in a circle while watching Aliens (the third movie in their marathon lineup) and binging on snacks. The discarded pizza boxes laid haphazardly on the ground near Will's feet while the rented VHS cases for Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Top Gun, The Fly, Christine, and The Empire Strikes Back were piled closer to the TV (all delivered to them personally by Steve once he got off work). An open bag of barbecue Lays potato chips sat beside an almost empty bag of M&Ms near the pillow Lucas was using for his head and a huge bowl half-full of popcorn was forgotten on the ground just underneath where Mike and El had been sleeping on the couch. Dustin was still clutching a bag of Twizzlers in his hands when he too was startled awake by the psychic's screaming.
"El!" Mike yelled, his heart pumping in his chest. He held his girlfriend's shoulders in concern. "What's wrong?!"
"Did it happen again?" Will asked meekly.
El just nodded and sobbed into her hands, completely disregarding the blood trickling from her nose. Instinctively, Mike wrapped his arms around her and let her cry against his shoulder.
"Are you okay?" inquired Max, crawling out of Lucas' arms to get closer to her friend and put a hand on her knee to comfort her.
When she was ready, the frightened girl looked up from her hands and turned to address her friends, Mike's arm still draped over her shoulder and his fingers entangled comfortingly in her hair. "It was... There was this man. He killed a whole family. I couldn't do anything. I just laid there."
Unfortunately, these kids were no strangers to death. It was no longer as disturbing as it once was to learn that people around them – even people they knew personally – were dying, but El's distress still put them on edge. The teens exchanged worried looks, each of them unsure of what to do or say next.
"What the hell, man?" Lucas finally cursed in frustration at what his friend was being put through. "This is bullshit. This girl randomly contacts you in your sleep and then fucks with you for no reason."
"No," El shook her head. "No, this time there were two of them. I think they both wanted to show me something, but..."
The girl let her head sink back into her hands and Mike held her closer, kissing her shoulder before resting his head on it. Will scooted a little closer to his step-sister too on the opposite side of where her boyfriend was and the other friends followed suit. El was tired and disheartened and she just wanted to be able to sleep. She wanted to be able to live life like a normal teenage girl. She wanted for the worst of her worries to be finals or Picture Day or detention. All of this mystery and terror was eating away at her mind. If it wasn't Hawkins Labs, it was Russians and if it wasn't Russians, it was whatever the hell all of this was. Sometimes, El wished that she never had these powers; that her mother was just a normal woman and not a test subject abused and then left to rot by the government for some "greater good". El didn't want to have to be punished for the circumstances of her birth anymore. The redhead in her dreams invaded her sleep, threw her life into yet another form of chaos, and couldn't even give her a hint as to what this was all about... or did she?
Suddenly, El remembered. The red-haired girl was pulling her left arm, trying to free her from the woman's desperate grasp. They were both yelling and she could hardly make out what either was saying over the noise of both their illusions, but she did remember that the girl had eventually defaulted to repeating one word over and over and over again.
Wide-eyed, El let out a sharp gasp and let her hands fall from her face.
"El? W-what is it?" asked Mike growing more frantic at the sudden change. "What's wrong? El?"
"Please, El," Max pleaded to the young psychic, looking up at her from where she was. "Talk to us."
The young girl blinked a few times, her gaze still distant, and whispered what was possibly her very first clue into existence. "Six."
A/N: Damn, that violent scene hurt to write... Since the first chapter of this story, I've had that in my head for some reason... Violence over Air on the G String. I think it's because of how the song was used in Evangelion many years ago. lmao I would definitely recommend reading it with that playing in the back. It's such a beautiful piece of music but it's so chilling in these contexts... Well, I find it chilling anyway!
Please leave your feedback for this chapter (or any chapter really)! It's greatly appreciated, it helps me improve, and it helps me stay motivated to continue. :)
Thanks for reading and I'll see you in chapter 5.