꧁꧂

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜɪʀᴛʏ-ꜰɪᴠᴇ: ᴏɴ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀꜱᴛ ᴅᴀʏꜱ

Night had fallen by the time we'd gotten to Rick Lipton's place. It was odd to see hardly any cars on the roads and no one walking around, as if the town were deserted. Which wasn't a good sign.

"This doesn't look haunted at all..." I murmured, taking one look at the house. Yeah, it look abandoned, with some of the wood work chipping from the weather and the paint beginning to peel off. Anyone else getting the vibe we should've waited until daylight? No?

Dustin pressed his thumb against the doorbell and waited a moment as it rung. Getting no reply, he pressed it again. And again, and again, before Steve spoke over the rapid ringing of the bell. "Okay... well that's settled... I guess he's not here-"

The curly haired boy paid no attention to the other boy, knocking on the door just as rapidly before shouting. "EDDIE! IT'S DUSTIN!" Rule number fifty-eight: bring Dustin to these undercover missions more often... he's really good at the secretive parts 

"Great..." Steve continued to mutter while I sighed, moving to the side.

"LOOK, WE JUST WANNA TALK, OKAY?!" While Dustin carried on to shout through the door, I shone my flashlight through the window, followed by Robin and Max. "NO COPS, I SWEAR, WE JUST WANNA HELP." Inside, the house's interior looked like any other you'd expect, with things cluttered all over the place as if it were owned by an amateur hoarder. "EDDIE?!" There was no sign of life inside of the house, currently, though...

While the doorbell continuously rung, I gave Robin and Max an annoyed look at the boy's antics. "RICK?!" Dustin shouted, "REEFER RICK?"

"Oh- Don't scream that." Steve told the boy, like anyone was actually going to hear for what felt like miles.

"RICK?!" While I glared over at Dustin, I found myself looking over at Max, watching as she walked away from the window and to check around the side.

"He's not there-"

"REEFER RICKKKK." The shorter boy looked up at the taller boy, trying to explain. "He could just be really high..." Was he for real? He was not for real-

"Wait is that a foot?" Steve suddenly questioned, shining his light through one of the windows close to him.

"No, that's a shoe-"

"I'm loosing braincells listening to them right now..." I muttered over to Robin, shaking my head in disbelief. Is that a foot? No that's a shoe.

"Hey? Guys?" Happily turning attention away from the two idiots, I looked over at Max and followed over to where she had called for us, of where she was looking at another hut. There, one singular door had a light above it, on, with two windows either side.

As we got closer, I shone the flashlight in my hands through the windows and tiny, miniscule holes in the metal walls of the hut. It seemed, just like the main house, abandoned. With no lights on, and no locks there to stop us from wondering in, part of me worried that if Eddie was hiding here, he should be glad it was us and not cops, since his hiding sucks.

Robin peered into the hut, light first before her head. "Hello?" The taller girl called, popping her head around the door to look before she entered. "Is anyone home?" We slowly stepped in after her, looking at the place, hoping for some clues of the boy's whereabouts.

"Well, this isn't creepy at all..." I murmured, staring down at the floorboards that seemed to creak every time someone moved.

"What a dump..."

Glancing around the place, I found myself over at a desk, full of crap and trash that hadn't been thrown away by the last one there. "So take the tarp off!" I looked away and over at the two boys, of who decided to continue their bickering inside with us, which was... helpful.

Shaking my head to look back at the trash, I heard Steve answer back. "If you're so brave, you take the tarp off!"

Picking up a bottle of alcohol, I raised it up to the shining of Max's light. "It's not even finished..." I murmured, seeing half of its contents still there.

"So?" The girl asked me. "You don't drink now, do you?"

I smirked over at her playfully. "No... I mean- how many drug dealers do you think leave their alcohol behind? Not many I would think... unless they were in a rush..."

"Which means someone was here..." The girl nodded, catching onto what I was saying.

"Maybe he heard us." Robin joined in beside me. "Got spooked and ran."

"Don't worry." We all looked over at Dustin. "Steve will get him with his oar." He remarked, with Steve still stabbing parts of the tarp and boat with said oar.

"Ah- no- I know you think you're being funny, Henderson, but considering everyone in this room has nearly died about a hundred times," Steve cut in, still poking the boat with the oar. "personally, I don't find it funny in the slightest-"

Something jumped out of the boat next to Steve, tackling him against the wall as we all jumped back, eyes wide. Shit, well it was nice knowing Steve, I'll talk about his hair routine at his funeral-

Watching him shout out, I stared at him and the back of the figure's head which had taken him against the wall. Was that- oh my god we found him.

"WHAO, WHOA WHAO- EDDIE! EDDIE!" Dustin shouted rather loudly, which worried me considering the whole cops could be after his ass thing. "STOP! EDDIE, EDDIE!" As we rushed around to be next to Dustin, my eyes stayed wide as I watched. Not that it actually registered in my brain (may or may not have to do with the smashed bottle end at Steve's neck, not that I'm too sure) but feeling a tight squeeze of my hand from Max's own somehow helped me calm down a little bit. Was that her way of telling me he was going to be okay? Or that she too was scared for him?

Eddie's head turned to look over at the four of us, of who were very much on the edge. "EDDIE? It's me." Dustin emphasized, gesturing at himself. "It's Dustin." He confirmed. Thought it was Mike... "THIS IS STEVE." He continued, then gesturing over to the boy who was very close to losing his neck to the bottle Eddie was holding close to it. "He's not gonna hurt you, right, Steve?"

Steve had never looked so nervous in his life since being drugged by Russians. "Right, yeah." Steve confirmed quietly.

"Steve, why don't you drop the oar?" Dustin said to the taller boy. My god, he was still holding the stupid ass oar. Feeling Max's grip tighten on my own, I glanced over at her for a moment, seeing a face of pure worry. Steve awkwardly let the oar drop out of his hand, letting it clatter loudly to the floor. When this happened, Eddie held the bottle up higher, closer to the boy's neck, causing Steve to groan a little. "HE'S COOL. HE'S COOL." Dustin then continued to confirm.

"I'm cool, man." Steve tells him, voice still very quiet. "I'm cool."

"What are you doing here?" Eddie finally spoke, not taking his eyes off of the boy.

"We're looking for you." Dustin tells him. Why else would we be here? A little night trip on a rowing boat? In Hawkins?

"We're here to help." Robin added on, causing the boy to then look over at her.

"Eddie, these are my friends." Dustin informed him. "You know Robin, from band." At Dustin's words, the girl imitated playing the trumpet with the light in her hands, making a little noise with it. That's why we love Robin. "These are my friends Park and Max." He continued, turning to his other side to us. "You know Max- the one who never wants to play DnD? And Park- who moved to Cali with her family. She's back for Spring break." The two of us waved momentarily with our free hands, not even thinking about breaking our hands apart.

"Eddie," Dustin continued. "We're on your side." He said, emphasizing each word and pronouncing it slowly. Eddie didn't look away, still not moving his weapon of choice away from Steve. "I swear on my mother... RIGHT? GUYS?"

"Yes- yes we swear." Max nodded, with my eyes still wide as I followed the lead the others were making.

"Right, yes- swear on Mrs Henderson..."

"Yeah... Yeah... on Dustin's mother." We all agreed, mentally praying that Eddie would move the knife away from where it was.

"Yeah..." Steve murmured, still quiet. "Dustin's.... Dustin's mother..." Eddie stared at Steve and moments passed between us all, with the long, curly haired boy chose what was best. Eddie moved the bottle away from Steve and the four of us let out a heavy breath of relief.

"Jesus Christ..." The boy muttered, sighing as he practically collapsed over to us in relief.

While Steve got some air back into his lungs, Dustin slowly approached Eddie as the boy sat down on the side. It wasn't looking good for Eddie, I won't lie.

"Eddie..." Dustin squatted down to the boy's level. "We just want to talk." When Dustin reached his hand out to hold Eddie's, the boy twitched, moving his hand away. "Okay...?" As we tried to move closer, Dustin moved a warning hand out to us. Rule number fifty-nine: Dustin stop acting like I'm Dart. 

Robin slowly kneeled down next to Dustin, trying to catch Eddie's line of vision. "We wanna know what happened."

When Eddie looked over at us, he sniffed, shaking his head. "You won't believe me."

"Oh yeah?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. He had no idea.

"Try us." Max says. There was something about the look in his eyes that almost looked like hope. He was hopeful that we knew what he meant. And, oh bitch, did we know. 

⊹˚˖⁺

"Her body.... just, like, lifted up into the air and, uh..." The boy was traumatised to say the least. "And she just, like... hung there." Whatever the fuck was going on Hawkins, I was not liking it. Chrissy's death was not like what we'd seen before, but it wasn't the scariest thing we'd gone through in the last three years. "... in the air... and her bones- uh... she-" He whimpered a little, nodding like he knew he had to say it, but couldn't. "Her bones started to snap."

Yeah, that was enough for me. The bones? Snapping? Haha, funny joke, Eddie. Funny.

The idea of bones snapping wasn't a huge thing on my list of things that I liked. They are not supposed to snap, so why the hell did I need a picture of it in my head?

"Her eyes, man..." Eddie carried on. What about her eyes? I'm about to get God involved... "It- it was like there was something, like, inside her head, pulling." Well, that sounds horrible. Haunting. Nightmare-worthy. "I... I didn't know what to do, so I... I ran away..."

I would've done the same thing, so it wasn't like I could blame Eddie. Imagine the girl who wanted to buy drugs off you suddenly floating in the air and dying because her bones were snapping and eyes- no. Let's not imagine that. We would prefer it if we did sleep in the near future...

"I left her there..." Eddie murmured, lost and deep in his thoughts. When noticing the looks on our face, he scoffed, turning away a little. "You all think I'm crazy, right?" Man, hardly. It's only eleven in the evening, give it time-

"No..." Dustin shook his head. We're just trying to accept we're now working with some even paralysing spirit that snapped bones. Excuse us a moment, Eddie. "We don't think you're crazy."

"DON'T BULLSHIT ME, MAN." Eddie shouted over the boy. "I know how this sounds." He said, close to tears.

"We're not bullshitting you." Max tells him, voice deadly honest.

"We believe this." I say, voice quiet. "We've uh... seen shit like this." The boy then glanced up at me, shaking his head confused. Eddie let out an exhausted, heavy breath before Dustin took over.

"Look," He said quietly. "what I'm about to tell you might be a little... difficult to take." He confirmed. A little?

"Okay..." Eddie croaked, waiting rather patiently.

"You know how people say Hawkins is... cursed?" Dustin asked, getting a stare in return from the curly haired boy. "They're not... way off..."

"There's another world." Dustin explained to him. "A world hidden beneath Hawkins... Sometimes it bleeds into ours." As he listened to his words, Eddie seemed to connect everything in his head a little better, which was good, because we didn't need another person like Steve who took an hours to connect shit as it happened.

"Like ghosts and shit?" Eddie questioned.

"There are some things..." Max began. "worse than ghosts." The Mind Flayer... Fuck that bitch. Hate that bitch.

"Those monsters... that are from the other world?" I continued; arms crossed. Shivers ran all over my back just at the thought. "We thought that they were... gone. For good... but, uh- they've come back before. Multiple times, now... That's why we needed to find you. 'Cause if they're back, we need to know."

"That night..." Robin carries on. "did you see anything?"

"Dark particles, maybe?" Max asked, only getting a shake of the head as a response from him.

"It would almost look like dust," Dustin tells him. "swirling dust."

"No, man." Eddie replied, shaking his head, sure of himself. "there was nothing you could see or, uh... or touch..." Well, that set us back to square one. Great. "You know, I tried to wake her, man." He said, nowhere near over it. "She couldn't move. It was like she... she was in a trance or something."

"Or under a spell..." Dustin offered onto the boy's statement. Well, shit, we're dealing with witches now-

"A curse." The boy retaliated. A curse? Oh good news-

"Vecna's curse..." After Dustin's words, we all fell into a moment of silence. If we were at the point of naming something after another DnD creature, it wasn't looking good for us.

"Who's Vecna?" Steve questioned, eyebrows furrowed. He really hadn't understood the whole naming things after DnD characters. It was a pattern so easy to follow-

"An undead creature of great power." Well, that sounded lovely. We were in great hands over here, WITHOUT El's powers

"A spell caster..." Eddie added on.

"A dark wizard..." As we all stood and sat in the silence, we took in the fact that it had returned. All of it. The monsters, the Upside Down, the eerie atmosphere that it gave off every time it was involved.

Well, shit. 

A/N- SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE <3 THANK YOU FOR BEING PATIENT LOVE YOU ALL <333