𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝓉𝑜𝓌𝓃 𝓇𝒾𝓅𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒷𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓈 𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒷𝒶𝒸𝓀  |  v. The Upside Down - Blog Posts

 𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙊𝙉                           (hellmartyr​)

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆, 𝐈 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐘 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃, was what eddie would’ve said if his brain hadn’t flatlined. jaw rusted ajar by shock, his vengeance upended into an anemic stare. questions that were more sensation than language stacked themselves on his teeth, his tongue, leeching the dusty moisture from the back of his throat. his head wasn’t completely empty. there was something resembling a thought for a brief, crudely puerile moment when eddie’s suede eyes widened because chrissy cunningham remembered him. even in his state of oozing wounds, matted hair, and a complexion not unlike an autopsy.

      eddie was still playing catch up when chrissy’s arms interlocked around his torso. an instinctive arm swam around her, shocked by how close to nothing she felt against him. his protection amended itself into a firmer circle as her lament tumbled like tears down the chewed remains of his shirt.

      you’re not dead, his thawing tongue willed itself to say, not yet. as if on cue, an alien wail shattered the unnatural peace. pale surprise overshadowed by a sudden sharpness of narrowed eyes and iron-soaked resolve. the hard line of his lips bent at a grim angle at the shadows in the encroaching mist.

      an encouraging pat warned the girl of his intentions. ❝ come on, let’s get you inside. ❞ shuffling awkwardly, eddie eased chrissy into the station, gingerly rotating their position so that if any spawn of the upside down chose that moment to strike, it’d be forced to go through ed before it ever got a chance to even look at her.

      the door closed behind them with a bloated thunk. there were better odds finding the holy grail stashed in powell’s desk than a surface not covered in disemboweled rot. fearing he’d drop her, eddie settled chrissy in a chair that looked like a cramped piece of shit even without the upside down tinge. as eddie slipped his jacket around the despondent girl, he took the opportunity to take in the horror she’d been through.

      how was it possible for her to be even smaller than he remembered? her skin, a glass menagerie tinted by faded shades of livor mortis. and her eyes, maybe it was a trick of light straining through heavy motes. maybe it was because the last time eddie saw them was the last time anyone did. but eddie swore the twinkle that outshone gymnasium lights was still there. with ghost behind it, barricading the way between him and the girl hiding.

      any furniture not strapped to the ground by vines was dragged and deposited roughly against the door. eddie worked as quickly as his tremoring muscles allowed, always craning his neck to keep an eye on the object of his disbelief, replaying their one way exchange.

      was he real? he didn’t feel real, but he sure as shit felt alive. and — if you squinted — so did chrissy.

      panting from the strain of his task, the young man crouched in front of her, swallowing a dry knot of tension as he stumbled on what to say. because what the fuck do you say to someone murdered from the inside out? ❝ i’m, uh, i’m glad to see you too. ❞ despite the blood on his lower lip and the hellscape in the window, eddie smiled.

      realizing he was holding his breath, eddie flickered from side-to-side for a way to make her a little more comfortable. fastened to his back with medical tape was an outdoor first aid kit eddie scavenged from the drugstore. he was forced to clear out most of its contents, spoiled by the taint that permeated the upside down’s mimicry, leaving him with gauze, several bandages, and a tube of off-brand neosporin that passed the sniff test with skeptical colors. he needed to be careful retrieving its contents. a circular bite wound on his lower back was still runny, exploding with mauve-y pus if he touched it.

      placing the kit on a coaster of debris, eddie skittered to reclaim the treasonous ration from before. he returned, his joints ached as lowered himself again to meekly offer the can of campbell’s schlock to her.

      ❝ it’s safe to eat. i promise. just don’t look at it. ❞

forever ago, sometime during sophomore year, chrissy remembered an experiment she’d done in biology. for two months straight mr. stratner’s class had been drilling the ups and downs and insides and out of the human body and it had been a bumbling, awkward mess no matter what he did. but one wednesday, they’d turned to discussion of the heart. wonder of wonders, mr. stratner had lugged out one of the massive boomboxes from the a/v closet and plopped it on his desk wearing a well earned smirk. what followed was an experiment that turned out to be...fun. 

for almost 45 minutes the entire class experimented with the way music and sound affected the speed of a heartbeat. chrissy and her whole table bent over stopwatches, fingers on pulses and pencils flying. their smiles grew as 4/4 and 6/8 time signatures almost magically bloomed in the tattoo of their heartrates, responding to the music. thoughtful, melancholic strains of chopin eased their pulses to a tranquil putter while tchaikovsky and his cannons sent it sky high. a-ha, the doobie brothers, christopher cross, john waite, starship, spyro gyra, wynton marsalis, all with different rhythms but the same result; parallel rhythms. synchronicity. 

in the spiderweb-fragile moments between embracing what was left of eddie’s mirage, him grasping her back, and the eventual ripping of shrieks from somewhere too close by, there was silence. sweet, strange, then sour. the music of absence. emptiness. and chrissy’s heart paused to match that nothing rhythm. synchronicity in death, where nothing could truly exist. it was everything, everywhere. an ugly, inevitable peace. he’d promised my suffering would end. 

like a vhs struggling over a kink in its tape and then suddenly righting itself to rewind much too fast, time sped itself up again. the un-pause was quick but violent. only a blink and chrissy had been hastily rotated then ushered inside the police station. large hands were still firm over her arms, so she wasn’t going to fall, but she might as well have lost all sense of direction and balance. until a chair was under her. or she was on a chair. had the chair come to her or the other way around?

❝ ah - oh!  ❞  an unexpected face appeared out of nowhere. except it was just eddie, pale white, with muddy gray streaks. like the moon behind clouds. that was fine. five minutes ago she’d have wanted any friendly face at all and if - if only - leaping lizards why wouldn’t her heart rate go down? her breath was coming too fast and shallow, which didn’t calm the sloshing inside her head. all her presence of mind, melted. 

but....breathing. that was something only an alive person could do. eddie was breathing. he was. exhaled air was gusting around her ears as he adjusted something over her. unaware, shaking hands searched it out almost sans chrissy’s awareness or permission. looking down once her fingertips hit canvas, she registered a savaged jacket. 

then he was gone. a volley of thuds and clatters rent the air behind her, but the strawberry blonde didn’t turn to look for causes. instead, she shivered beneath a pile of army surplus as eddie barricaded every possible ingress point in the room, judging by the many slams and grunts in her peripherals. she’d help, but...what help would she really be? 

minutes crawled past. chrissy became one with the chair. behind her, legs of tables turned to splinters and desks became walls in lieu of any real barricade. the sound of metal denting peppered the air now and again, matched by the horrible squeaks of file cabinets digging into the floor with a last gasp of obstinance. 

nothing in hawkins ever did fold easily. 

and there eddie was again, this time at eye level and heaving like he’d forgotten about air during his rushed renovations. this wasn’t a dead man after all, she considered at long last, staring into the last real pair of eyes she’d seen before falling headlong into that...creature’s clutches. friendly then, friendly now. maybe more now because he was smiling. or giving his all in the effort. chrissy tried to offer him the same, although she had very little idea of what her face was doing. honestly, she might have started crying instead. it was hard to tell. maybe both. 

❝ th  —  ❞  her throat rebelled, spiraling her into a brief coughing fit. salt water kept getting in her mouth as she clumsily gulped down air. smiling and crying, then.  ❝ sorry. ❞  but he was skittering raccoonishly out of reach then back again, now proffering a raggedy can of goop. chrissy couldn’t exactly smell through her unattractively running nose, but she could imagine. her gut entire writhed and shrank away from the sight, petrified, but she commanded her shaking hands to reach for it anyway. inside looked like an extension of the vomitous wreath cloaking this nightmare land in every direction. the outside benignly announced “campbell’s”.

❝ thanks. i, um, don’t think i’m hungry, but thanks?  ❞  still, she clung to the aluminum as an anchor. unwanted as its contents might be, the gift she still understood.   ❝ so  —  you’re actually alive. right? you are? if you are, then i am.❞  teeth absently tugged at peeling skin across her lips, where another drop of salt water crept into the soft, red valleys and stung.  ❝ where are we? i don’t understand. what happened or how i got here. how did you get here?  ❞  one long, fierce swallow around a gordian knot inside her throat halted all progress, but not for long. even if she had to whisper to pry the words free. 

❝ is there a way to get out? ❞

𝔼ℂℍ𝕆'𝕊 𝕄𝕀𝕏𝕋𝔸ℙ𝔼  X  𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝒸𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓈𝓎   ( @galaxycrxss​ )

i never thought i'd lose my place, i never thought it'd slip away ( guarded - flor )  /  hear me when i say i’m leaving winter for the spring ( don’t want to go - nigel good )  /  echoes inside - dugo  /  i’ve been through hell and back ( learn to let go - kesha )  /  1984 - the northern lights  

realized i never posted this one here

chrissy deserved better u_u

well, it was a life worth saving.               /              @galaxycrxss​ (echo)

                          ❝ yours is too. ❞  

as if in deathly agreement - or disdain - a demobat screeched from somewhere far off. chrissy felt shivers wrack from her shoulders all the way down her spine like frigid minnows; one demobat close enough to hear was one too close, in her humble opinion. the hollow in which they huddled felt marginally warmer than the shadows outside and for that she was grateful, but warmth could not defend against dread in this dark underworld. 

                         ❝ you’ve done so well to stay alive down here. i don’t think i could have. it’s not life, though. you should be home with your brother. ❞  easier said than done, if still true. it solidified the roiling, everpresent discomfort roiling in chrissy’s gut to watch the bags stretch below echo’s eyes and track the aches of survival made physical across the poor boy’s frame. this form of him looked nothing like the echo she’d so often spotted supporting his exuberant twin on the sidelines just above and behind the cheer squad during games. a not-so-special edition of the real echo who needed to be anywhere else but here and could he please take her with him? him to his sibling and her to matty. 

                         ❝ there’s got to be a way out. right? ❞

𝔻𝔼𝔸ℝ      𝔼𝔻𝔻𝕀𝔼      𝕄𝕌ℕ𝕊𝕆ℕ,                              (hellmartyr​)

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐀𝐓 𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍. no sun, no moon — only venomous strands of electrified lifeblood. hours didn’t shift as they should, and the creatures reflected the restlessness of their cruel dimension. loathsome howls haunted the winds in immeasurable rotations. with no natural period of respite, eddie divided his routine into two cycles: get shit done and an intermittent spate of z’s.

      sleep was a treat that rarely went uninterrupted. shrieks from the sky peeled open his eyes and sounds he didn’t recognize stalked the periphery of his tenuous sanctuaries. blood-curdling shadows were a ruthless reminder that nowhere in hell was safe from the devil. munson didn’t dare breathe as he waited for the strange chittering to pass, holding the warlock so tightly his joints cramped.

      eddie never let go of her, even when he did manage to spirit away some sleep. no matter how long the man was out or in what position he awoke, his guitar’s twisted sister never strayed from his hand.

      a rest fast wasn’t the only flagellation he inflicted upon himself. his eyes opened to a sharp pain in his gut. eddie curled into a ball, the warlock twanged as she was crushed into his abdomen.

      the two things a survivor needed most were just as likely to kill him. he didn’t want to remember the last time he ate, and felt sick just thinking about cracking open another ungodly can of something parading itself as edible. but the tight ache could no longer be ignored.

      keeping parallel to the thoroughfares, it was a steady crawl into hawkins proper. the rhythmic crunch of rotten leaves under his sneakers turned to grit as he picked his way over black, pulsating veins that overlapped the butchered segments of asphalt. from there it was a reluctant beeline to the canned goods. nothing in front or too far back, somewhere in the middle where the least amount of tainted air settled. his stomach objected as eddie slipped his not-so-fresh catch into his vest pocket.

      distant thunder and the soft rustle of his gear bumping against his steps set the rhythm of his march to the police station. vines covered the parking lot like pulsating cracks in the concrete. eddie hopscotched towards the back of the building to the spore-covered dumpster. his arms wobbled as he hoisted himself onto the lid. sneakers scrapped the molded brick as he clambered onto the roof.

      on one end there was an access door that led to the ground level. completely useless of course. vines cavorted in the stairwell, bulging into a grotesque neural network of rot as they smothered each other in vacuous greed. with no super powers to speak of, munson abandoned the route, turning his attention instead to the whirlybird. the damn thing looked more like a mushroom, it’s galvanized steel covered in a crust that glistened in the brackish light.

      eddie cracked his fingers and carefully tipped it aside to reveal a crumbling system beneath. he removed his guitar, lowering her first into the insulation before following her down with a jostle. despite the tight fit, eddie had enough room to army crawl through a decadent perfume of interdimensional asbestos and spores.

      the scattered remains of the demobat he killed during his previous visit were putrefied puddles. a ghastly stench interlocked with the moisture in the back of his throat. jesus christ, he could taste it; a pungent sweetness that tested the strength of his stomach. eddie pressed his mouth into his arm, stifling a cough as he dragged himself away as quickly as he dared.

      for the better part of an hour, eddie searched for a way down. it was a grueling process, one he’d been forced to back out of multiple times. the spoiled air was suffocating, forcing him to breath with his mouth open, which in turn made him vulnerable to swallowing something that turned his insides out. that shit was just the cherry on top too. during one attempt, he almost lost consciousness. which put a fear in the man so bad he stayed away for the equivalent of several days. even the allure of a shotgun failed to shake it.

      suddenly, a ray of gloomy light illuminated a small flotilla of dust motes several feet ahead. it took a moment for his eyes to register what they were seeing. never before had eddie made it this far. a feverish zing spread from his heart to the rest of his body as the young man rustled closer. a rutted cleft in the ceiling, not big enough for him to squeeze through without a little help.

      he maneuvered the teeth of his spearhead and sawed at the disintegrating plaster. as pieces loosened, eddie broke them off by hand and piled them on the side. by the time he was finished, sweat dripped from the strands of hair sticking out from his bandana. his head felt like it was about to tailspin, but an unwitting smile kept the young man steady as he looked down into the police station.

      now there’s a sight a munson never thought he’d be thrilled to see.

      first came the warlock, descending like a fallen angel from a cloud of insulation foam. then her guitarist. he didn’t descend so much as topple when his fingers slipped. sneakers squeaked as eddie landed awkwardly. he teetered on the edge of his balance, but caught himself before he went sideways straight into a cluster of tendrils.

      sour saliva coated the dry rush of his throat. eddie spared himself a moment of relief before he fished the can out of his pocket. with a scoff, he spotted the cursive c poking out from a film of sludge.

      ❝ so, we meet again. ❞ munson remarked dryly as he cleaned the top off on his sleeve. he angled his spear and carefully punctured the can, rotating slowly to preserve the precious contents. anticipation coated his dry mouth in a harsh brine as he precociously caught the serrated edge of the lid with his thumb. eddie hissed, jerking his thumb back as a bead of blood formed on the tip. quickly, he stuck the wound in his mouth. immediate revulsion at the taste of the grime on his skin, but stifling a gag-reflex was preferable to letting bloodscent loose in the air.

      frustration surged up from the depths of all he’d been through. pain that refused to dissipate from the infection spreading on his abdomen, the hopeless determination to keep going without a chance of actually seeing his uncle again. eddie never thought it possible to miss hawkins like this, but seeing his hometown mutilated by the evil of a child-murdering madman …

      eddie crumbled.

      folding towards his knees, eddie’s shoulders quivered in tandem with the tears turning the oil on his cheeks sticky. there was no desire to give up, but the will to keep going was leaking onto his tongue. an end, he just wanted an end. to go back in time to a moment full of copper, adrenaline bleeding out as vision turned a dark red.

      just die. don’t open your eyes. there’s no point. there’s no fucking point.

      a dangerous sob was stopped by the digit still enclosed between his teeth. eddie sank closer to the ground, surrendering to the blue devils that would pin him there till the young man finally wasted away.

                              hello?

      anguish turned deathly still as his attention snapped like a viper towards the door. the burning of a final heartbreak extinguished into something silent, something cold. eddie rose, the ominous glitter in his eyes glowing brighter as the voice of chrissy cunningham begged for the help she never got.

      a shuddering sigh, ❝ that’s sick, man. even for you. ❞

      the young man swallowed the lump in his throat as he set aside the can and placed his warlock on one of the desks. his sights strayed from the door. no, his fixation steeled into a tranquil fury as the redeemer readied his spear. there was no feeling in his legs as he approached the entrance, futile pounding reverberating from the other side.

      seemed like the universe was finally showing a bit of pity. a worthy way out; all he had to do was unlock the door and kill whatever shit-eating beast was making a mockery of a girl who deserved more than her fair share of peace.

      he fished out the homebrew lock kit he’d fashioned from his jeans and picked the door. his eagerness steeled, munson kept his actions deliberate as to not alert whatever the hell was waiting for him. he had one chance to get the drop so that no matter what it did to him, eddie munson wasn’t leaving this hellhole alone.

      click. eddie’s heart rate spiked as the lock gave. in one swift motion, he raised up his spear and threw open the door to see —

                  ❝ CHRIST — Y — CHRISSY ? ❞

                           ❝ please let someone be here, plea  —  ❞  and as if loftily answering a prayer, the door flew open from the inside. 

but who waited beyond the knob wasn’t any kind of anticipated, if unimaginable, underworld monstrosity. nor was it a badge-toting figurehead of hawkins safety and security. it was a ghoul with the face of a terrified and bloody eddie munson, clutching a makeshift spear in one hand and the doorknob in the other. truly, he looked so shocked that for a moment chrissy almost believed he was real. 

the once-cheerleader automatically let out a strangled bleat in fright, but all the air was stolen from the sound halfway through. her shock stumbled down a cliff of surprise rolling all the way down into a pit of.....sadness. this vision of eddie looked so like the world they were in —  grungy, dusty, slathered in rot. so thoroughly mangled that there was no chance he could be alive. he could be nothing other than the manifestation of this place’s manic feeding frenzy on souls and bodies alike. ....which implied he’d entered their now shared purgatory while still alive only to fall and be consumed by the acidic hatred that had conjured this place however long ago. 

oh. 

here stood her confirmation that this barren slice of the universe was not a second chance at whatever passed as living here in this poor excuse for “hawkins", inverted. genuine existence was only mimicked. she was dead. and so was he. like a gunshot, chrissy’s chest was riven by the sensation of missing him. could you miss someone you barely knew? someone who wasn’t there? 

yet — almost-eddie said her name. as if her appearance was the least likely sight in hell he could muster up. she didn’t blame this shade his stupefaction, at least not for too long. this mutated world of darkness trapping them could very well birth all manner of hallucinations, could be dangling false hope in front of her at any moment. manufactured, cruel fictions to match the cruel imitation of life chrissy had lived thus far and a crueler imprint of the town she’d called home.

what was left of her heart sank quickly to the ichor-slicked soles of her sneakers. he sounded so much like eddie, this ghost. or.....she thought. guilt assuaged slumping shoulders as she realized how little she really knew of this young man from whom humble hawkins seemed to expect the worst. and he’d been so kind to her up until the moment her memories stopped. [ did you find it? eddie? ] generous with his time and his humour [ you’re not what i thought you’d be like ], clever with his attempts at making her smile. [ how could i forget?! ] a mere few hours after meeting him (again) was enough time gone to know he’d not lay a harming finger on her if he drove her home. ready to help her despite his confusion. 

oh, living and breathing chrissy, so starved of understanding had she been that the moment eddie munson stared through her like glass, she felt secure for the first time in... no. that was a pointless enumeration. she’d be ashamed of herself if she went any further. 

                          ❝ eddie? ❞  even to her own ears she sounded devastated. wrecked. what misfortune had laced the atoms of his essence together into so ripped and chewed a shadow of sentience? nothing that could comfort her in the presence of his ghost, certainly.  ❝ what happened to you? you’re.... a mess.  ❞

chapped lips closed, then opened, then closed again, rendered suddenly unable to string any kind of sufficient thought into speech. all she could feel was sorry. everything she knew was sorry. sorry to see him in such a place, sorry to be haunting the haunted, sorry to have possibly done anything that could drag him into this tartarus pit, this realm of refuse. he’d paid dearly for every act of heroism, judging by the looks of things. a shining, blood-soaked knight in shredded ribbons, complete with a sword.

either all her tears had evaporated or weariness sapped every reaction in extreme from her system. a limp swallow clenched her throat shut long enough to pause all thought of caution and chrissy stepped forward. her bruised arms lifted, powered by winces of pain, to wrap gingerly around this not-quite-eddie’s torso. no breath to reconsider, just the driving force of mourning a life half lived and a thousand chances missed. in cheer, missing by inches brought injurious disaster. what brought them here was miles.

                         ❝ it’s alright if you’re not real, ❞  chrissy mumbled into ruined fabric, utterly depressed. anything above a whisper scraped murder across her vocal cords. her fingers dug into a bony back until spinal ridging uncomfortably collided with the juts of her knuckles. the skeletal pattern was grounding. so frustrating in its physicality. he still faintly smelled like leather and hawkins humidity. you didn’t deserve this. you didn’t deserve anything you were getting. i’m sorry i thought so badly of you. if i could go back i’d make up my own mind about you and never listen to anyone tell me what to believe again. how tantalizing a thought, to admit as much to the real eddie. but his ghost was no replacement. admission to a phantom was like begging a stone for help. like pounding on the door of an abandoned police station that might never have held any remote promise of safety. absolute miserable insanity. still, there was a small childish comfort in embracing a figure that could only be meant to fade from her gaze the moment she gripped it too fiercely in a bid to regain her balance.  ❝ i'm just glad to see you. ❞

so chrissy let go.  easier, when the battle was already lost. 

                        ❝ this place is.....is twisted. i don’t know why it made you look like this. it’s messing with my head, eddie. but i can’t be losing my mind anymore if i’m dead, can i? ❞

there’s so much wrong with this place. everything, actually. 

as if the void dimension’s very existence wasn’t crime enough, chrissy stumbled down a hill covered in vines that appeared locked in a neverending battle with themselves, writhing and thrashing until too exhausted to continue. the ground crawled, the sky grumbled. unearthly animal voices chittered nearby every time chrissy so much as scuffed her sneakers too loudly. 

if her nerves weren’t completely shot by the time she escaped, they’d be numb enough to fool her into thinking they were useless. 

like the sky itself was ill, it regularly spat out streams of bloodstained lightning to wash the stale air in a rainbow of bruised indigo across sickly green, mocking her own bruised body - or complementing it. every sound echoed only to disappear moments afterward. even the echoes seemed doomed to die mere yards from their origin.

time burnt away meaninglessly the further chrissy walked on....and on.....and on until  —  yes, finally, main street snuck into view. hawkins always seemed so small from behind a set of wheels. just another pint-sized half awake middle american town that only stirred on weekends and holidays, where people still used the word “newfangled” and the church bell still told the time better than anyone’s watch. family businesses rarely closed because the family seldom moved. home was familiar. home was predictable, safe. 

chrissy had never been more sure of anything in her life when she stared down at the rotten facsimile of hawkins and reminded herself it was the farthest thing from safe. 

what she ought to have done was make a beeline for the police station. that would have been the wisest, smartest thing. but at the sight of the mayor’s office a few blocks away, a wall of exhaustion hit chrissy harder than a freight train. all that walking after an impromptu resurrection did nothing for her stamina and the thought of rest was enough to make her want to burst into tears. enough for her to creep up the office steps and gently pry open the door. inside was silent as a graveyard and twice as dark. dust motes floated in in the air, swirling into eddies while she tiptoed down the central hallway. going up the stairwell was tantamount to courting disaster - even keeping her back to it felt risky. then the smallest stroke of luck materialized in a plush (if musty) chaise lounge tucked away in an office. with some difficulty chrissy managed to drag it all the way back to the front doors and scoot it against the wall adjacent. this way, nothing could get in or out without her knowing. the best she could ask for at the moment. all that was left was to lay down, find an angle that didn’t exacerbate the shooting pain in her shoulder, and attempt to sleep. 

pain lingered no matter how she arranged her limbs, but sleep... sleep crept up on her without warning. the world fell into darkness so quickly that when chrissy awoke it was with a twitch of terror. she couldn’t remember toeing the familiar, milky line between consciousness and the void.

everything looked exactly the same as when she’d arrived. 

had hours passed? had days?

without any shift in light and no sound from the church bell or town center clock, chrissy might as well have been in the same place forever. such a thought blasted shivers into her every extremity. time to move along. this place gave her every species of the creeps ever invented. 

the next two blocks to the police station were small potatoes compared to her haunted trek from the creel house. her body still ached with every bend in her stride. rest had done nothing for her pain, only giving her sufficient energy to push through. well, that was something, wasn’t it? 

despite the flickering hope the notion of weapons provided, that light was dashed by the rattle of very secure locks on every door chrissy tried. she slammed her good shoulder into all of them; none did so much as tremble in their frames. the windows were barred even if she could find a rock to smash the glass. in the end, all she had were her frantic fists and shouts of panic that she knew, chrissy knew, were more foolhardy than anything else. any number of the nightmares lurking in shadows that she never spotted could hear her and come rushing out, discovering the easiest prey to ever wander in their vicinity. her yelps were careless and scratched like sandpaper over the tender meat of her throat, but she couldn’t seem to stop. she’d come all this way for nothing otherwise. this couldn’t be for nothing. she couldn’t let it stop here.

                               ❝  hello?? please, is somebody in there? i need help, please. hello?? ❞  if only faithful chief hopper was still alive, he’d have come running. maybe chief powell would, too. anyone, anyone.  ❝  it’s chrissy, chrissy cunningham. please, i don’t know what’s happening anymore. help, HELP!!!  ❞  

                             a note to @hellmartyr​ 

black.

black for miles. a single speck of it for eternity and no more than the size of an atom.

white - but just a flash. 

as soon as it disappeared, she found herself remembering it, holding the memory steady in her mind’s eye like a precious gem. white in a stitch. the gleaming curve of a coffee mug. pristine starched polyester blend. ceiling.

the inside of her eyes.

red.

it’s everywhere, it’s coming to choke her and she’s screaming, she’s screaming, she’s  ————

breathing.

the air was unnaturally thick and the moment it touched her throat she felt the pull of her abdomen, the revolt of her lungs. what she vomited out was all but discernible and only fractionally thicker than the very air that choked her.  

ropey growths were receding from splayed out limbs, almost hissing in their eagerness to withdraw and disappear. quicker than a startled snake, the vines were there and gone. but by then there was no time to notice that nothing remained to keep her upright. before she knew it, the charcoal ground was racing toward her at breakneck speed. 

the thud of her knees and meat of her palms colliding against the solid surface below rang agonizingly through dead air, knocking any hopeful gasps clean from her lungs. on all sides, the wash of blood-tinged rage surrounded chrissy in a bubble of fear. something like a gunshot tore through claggy air to rattle her eardrums to the point of pain. whatever she had fallen upon shook to the rhythm of each shot.

all chrissy could do was count one pang after another that rippled through her muscles. she could unmistakably sense herself gagging between every breath, but nothing came out. 

more shots. 

heat. strong, aggressive heat, like someone had thrown a lit match into spilt gasoline.

a roar, brimming with not just shock and pain, but fury. chrissy’s whole body shook fearfully, though it didn’t get much time to do much of it. after what seemed like only a few seconds of half-consciousness, the world once again emptied to void.

forever passed, all in a sliver of a second. 

then she split her lids to a deep shade of navy. 

opening her eyes fully right away seemed a feat too ambitious. chrissy cunningham (that was her name, wasn’t it?) trembled on what she could only hope was brittle grass. fingers hungry for something recognizable wove unsteadily through strands dryer than even the hawkins football field in summer. one mississippi, two mississippi, you can do this. four mississippi, five mississippi, you can do this, come on. you’re supposed to be tougher than a few bumps. 

the tail end of the thought sounded suspiciously like her mother and that shouldn’t have been the voice that propelled her to all fours, but it did. height did not agree with her stomach at first, nor did her fluttering muscles react with enthusiasm to being strained. every movement shot lightning through through her limbs, forcing chrissy to grit her teeth against the discomfort.

part of the storm above her had gotten itself stuck inside her body. the dead girl swore she could hear identical thunder hiding in her head behind clouds of confusion.

confusion that did not abate when she at last managed to stand to her full height. 

everywhere, in every direction, wasteland. a half-hearted impression of hawkins. derelict rocket playground in view across the street and with woods to every side, chrissy gulped almost without realizing. that could only put her at one place in hawkins.

the murder house.

turn around, chrissy. you were dead a minute ago. just turn around. 

after another eternity of of shaky stalling, chrissy completed a heel rotation. and screamed. shock knocked her back a few stumbling feet until she’d collapsed on her back again, all of her hard work to get upright undone.

it wasn’t only the murder house. 

interrupting her view of what used to be a glamorous home were four trees that absolutely were not present in the real hawkins. two on each side of the creel’s front door, now smashed almost entirely off its hinges. at the bottom of the stairs spread a charred circle of earth burnt bald. smoke still faintly drifted from the spot as if chrissy was only just barely too late to arrive for all the action. adding insult to injury, the sight of the house was far from the worst part.

the tree closest to her boasted a hollow eerily in the shape of a small human body. a knowledge chrissy had no place for rustled in her chest, sinking to the base of her spine: if she stood again and spread her arms across the trunk, she would fit inside that hollow with an accuracy that belied a supernatural force almost too horrendous to consider for a moment longer. wood yawned in a frozen howl, sending her eyes frantically skipping to the next tree. and the next. where the bodies of fred benson and patrick mckinney hung as warped trophies to sadism and the kind of eternal grudge encountered only in fiction. 

this tableau was the farthest thing from fiction if the pounding in her head was any proof. here were preserved testaments that fear remained the ultimate weapon.

a girl’s helpless sobs rent the air. because that was all chrissy was: a helpless, weak, lost girl. nothing was making sense. chrissy collapsed against the pedestal that would have held her broken body akimbo had something  —  someone?  —  not broken apart his hold on the last of her very soul. a miracle, maybe. was that possible? even as she wearily succumbed to a tsunami of tears, a rebellious flare of hope ignited at the sight of the fourth, empty tree. patrick and fred hadn’t managed to run free, but someone else had. like her.

with that thought, she gasped for a square breath, determined to pull together enough to leave this horrible place. one proper step at a time.

much easier said than done. 

every step seemed to shoot fire directly through her bones to inflame her joints, the cause utterly mysterious until she looked down. the sight sent shaking hands flying to her cardigan to whip it off and investigate more thoroughly. elbows. shoulders. wrists. knees. ankles. hips. all of them bruised so deeply that her body seemed to halfway disappear into the sickly mauve landscape. the skin under her eyes, too, felt tender and puffed. when her hand withdrew from prodding them the tips were covered in rusty flakes. she flicked them away and they listlessly drifted away like ash. blood, long since dried.

a wet sigh slipped from lips edging closer to dried, mangled flesh than anything that could be mistaken for something alive. she really had been dead, hadn’t she? or something too close to death. chrissy certainly felt weary enough to have startled from a slumber she’d never been meant to wake from. and here she was, painfully awake and alive in a place fit for nothing but dead, quiet things. a living nightmare. 

somewhere she would rather die than remain in for much longer. again. 

well... freedom was no closer the longer she huddled here in terror. 

weak breaths came in quick succession as chrissy cunningham put her back to the ghost of the hawkins murder house, limped down the steps, scurried past the playground, and let the main road wind ahead of her and lead her anyplace else. 

hopefully home.