Chapter Twenty-One

At first, Piper wasn't sure what was happening to her. One moment she's staring up through the gate in Eddie's trailer, ready to make her escape. And the next she's falling through a void. The darkness around her is so dark and endless that it's almost suffocating. Piper could tell she was falling but couldn't tell you how fast or how far. She couldn't even know if she was screaming due to the silence she was surrounded by.

But eventually, after seconds or maybe even hours that passed, Piper did come to a stop. Her body slammed against the hard surface beneath her with a heavy thud. The air was knocked from her lungs so hard that all she could do and hear was the wheezing sound. Pain reverberated through her body as she became painfully aware of what felt like every bone in her body. The last time she'd felt pain like this was when the Mind Flyer impaled her with its tentacles – before throwing her ten feet across the Star Court Mall's food court. And even then, her mind was kind enough to block the pain out when she went into shock.

Piper slowly rolled over onto her side as she blinked away the tears that clouded her vision with her surroundings becoming clearer and clearer. When she was able to place together where she was, a scream ripped from deep within Piper's chest as she stared into the dead eyes of her mother. She scrambled back away from it as panic set in as she fought to get as far away as possible. Her hands and feet stumbling over the large, slimy vines of the Hive Mind that stretched out all around her. When she backed away far enough, Piper saw her father lying behind her mother's lifeless body.

"Do you remember what you have done?" a deep, grave voice seemed to echo around her, but also in her head. "…or have you forgotten already?"

"If only you had listened to your mother," Her father's lips moved, but the voice wasn't right. The opaque grey eyes stared lifelessly back at her. "…then we would've left for the dinner on time"

Piper shook her head as he spoke, the tears returning to her eyes as she sobbed and struggled to her feet.

"No…no…no…please…" Piper sobbed when her back hit against a wall. She reached up and used it as leverage to stand on her shaky legs.

She turned on her heels and left through the large archway of her family room and down the hall toward the front door. The moment the door opened, and she stepped out onto the porch the world around shifted and changed. She'd expected to see her neighborhood back in Detroit in front of her. But instead, all she saw was red. The cloudy thunderstorm of the Upside Down rolled above her. Broken pieces of what appeared to be a home floated around her, almost like mid explosion it just all stopped, and froze in place. She stood at the top of a staircase that led down to the slimy floor below with twisted trees forming a slight circle at the base. The loud chime of a grandfather clock sounded and caused her to jump slightly – her heart feeling like it was slamming up into her throat. Up above floated the large clock from the foyer of the Creel House the chime continuing to ring a total of three times before stopping.

"I have been looking for you, Piper…" the deep voice from before spoke, and Piper remembered that voice from the nightmares before. It was Vecna. "You thought that you could keep me away, but how nice of you to come to me."

Piper slowly moved down the steps toward the twisted trees below and with each step that she grew closer – she was able to make out the bodies tangled inside. Chrissy, Fred, and Patrick. Their bodies twisted and mangled with their eyes missing.

Piper thought to herself, " Is this my future?"

"But your friends were so close…to knowing the truth…to finding out everything…" Vecna continued

Within her mind, a story began to play. She was in the Creel home watching as a family came in through the front door. A husband and wife, followed by a little girl and a slightly older boy. Everyone seemed happy and excited with the wide smile spread across their faces. But the boy, caught Piper's attention the most, with the sullen look on his angelic face.

"Like you, I didn't fit in with anyone else. Except with me – all the teachers and the doctors – they said that I was broken. That something was broken inside of me. My parents thought that a change of scenery would be good for me…in Hawkins…"

As Vecna spoke, Piper found herself drawn to the little boy, following behind him like a ghost haunting the halls of the old Victorian.

"It of course was absurd. As if the world would be any different just because we moved cities…but then to my surprise our new home provided a discovery. A new sense of purpose…I found a next of Black Widows living within the walls."

Piper watched in amazement as she watched the little boy allow a black widow to crawl onto his hand, unafraid and calm, before standing from where he was knelt and walking past her. As he moved, so did the world around her. She now stood toward the back of the attic. The same boy now sitting in front of a few boxes, using them as a desk, with jars of various sizes housing a variety of black widows.

"I found comfort in them, a kind ship…like me, they are solitary creatures…deeply misunderstood. Gods of our world, and the most important predator in our world. They immobilize the weak and bring balance and order to an unstable ecosystem."

Piper walked closer to the boy and peeked down over his shoulder to see an intricate and detailed drawing of the spider that was before him. That same calm, sullen, emotionless look on his face.

"But the human world was disrupting this harmony…you see humans are a unique type of pest. Multiplying and poisoning our world while enforcing a structure of their own. A deeply…unstable structure."

She followed the boy now down the stairs as he walked toward the dining room on the main floor. A soft glow came through the windows of the home, some stained glass so different colors danced on the hardwood. The boy stopped in front of the large grandfather clock that sat right at the base of the stairs. The loud ticking coming from the machine made Piper's heart jump with each second – anticipating the three loud chimes that came at every hour.

"A cruel, oppressive world dictated by made-up rules…seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades…each life a lesser copy of the one before…wake up, eat, work, sleep, reproduce and die!" Vecna's voice echoed loudly in Piper's head causing her to reach up and grab at her ears from the pain. As if she could block out his aggressive, nightmarish voice. But it was no use…she could hear him as he continued.

"Everyone is just waiting…waiting for it all to be over…as they play in some silly little game day after day…but I couldn't do that. That I couldn't pretend and play along…but then one day, I realized, I didn't have to. That I could create and play by my own rules. That I could restore balance to a badly broken world…for good…"

Then it all began to happen quickly, flashes of moments one right after the other. Watching the small boy control and torture a bunny at the forest line at the back of the house. Then she was moving once again – the father sat in the living room as he hauntingly stared into the fireplace where a cradle rocked with the sounds of a screaming child as it was lit ablaze. Next, the family was in the dining room as the radio played Ella Fitzgerald. The father seemed hypnotized once more by the music as his family sat by. Then the lights flickered till the mother shot to the ceiling of the roof her bones and limbs twisted before her eyes exploded within her head.

"…my plan nearly worked…my father was arrested for the death of my mother and sister just like I had planned. I thought that I was free…that I had escaped. But I soon found myself waking up in a hospital under the care of one Doctor. One that I had very much hoped to escape. Dr. Martin Brenner."

At the mention of the infamous doctor's name, Piper now stood in a pristine white hall of what appeared to be a hospital.

"…but the problem is…he didn't want to help me. Oh no, the Doctor wanted more. He wanted to control me. When Dr. Brenner realized that he couldn't control me…he tried to recreate me."

A loud buzzing sound could be heard from behind the door that was in front of Piper. She slowly stepped forward toward the window to investigate the room. The little boy from before now sat strapped down to a chair, with a person tattooing into his arm. With the wipe of the cloth when they were done, she was able to see the 001 on his arm. Identical nearly to the one on El's arm.

"…he began a program, and soon others were born…just like Eleven…" Vecna spoke.

Piper twisted on her heels and began to race down the hallway away from what was in front of her. Out of this nightmare cycle that she had been in one too many times before. She ignored the smeared blood on the walls, the broken and twisted down doors, and the screams that seemed to echo endlessly through the halls. Eventually, Piper came to a set of doors that were boarded up locking her in.

"No!" She screamed as she reached to yank the boards out from the door frame. Ignoring the pain that shot through her arms she tugged and pulled on the wood. Ignoring the splinters and cuts that were forming on the palms of her hands from how hard she pulled. All she could think and focus on was the desperate need to get out.

"Piper," Vecna spoke from behind her.

Causing her back to straighten and a chill to run down her spine. Slowly Piper spun around and came face to face with the monster that had made the last few days of her life a living hell. A soft whimper passed through her lips as she watched him walk closer and closer to her. His feet caused a squelching sound against the tiled floors.

"What are you doing? It's not time for you to leave." Vecna tilted his head slightly "Now that I have shown you where I've been…let me show you where I'm going…"

"Please…let me go…" Piper cried, not caring how pathetic she sounded.

Vecna continued to walk till he was directly in front of her, looming down over her frame. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the horrific sight in front of her.

"Now, I am not ready for you…yet…I have something I want you to tell Eleven first…" He slowly raised his hand above her face "Tell…her…everything."

Just like before images started to go through her mind, helplessly watching as destruction happened around her. Cities torn apart and lives lost.

Absolute chaos.

And then…it was gone.