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dadsbongos · 2 years

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starcourt massacre - 1986

Stranger Things x Horror Movie Collection

American Psycho / Halloween / Scream / Friday the 13th / Fear Street / Jennifer’s Body

warnings - descriptions of wounds/violence (blood n gore n such (EXTREME, i'm not kidding)), not very billy friendly, fear street au

summary - Hawkins, Indiana, is cursed. With people being slaughtered in the streets and their own homes, the Starcourt mall becomes a quick hunting ground for this curse that you and your friends now have to try and survive.

Six months is a long time to be dating when you’re a teenager, and while Steve is more than happy to celebrate that, you and Robin are further prone to encouraging the honeymoon behavior. Though, that’s more often because the both of you like teasing Steve, not actual compassion for Max Mayfield and Lucas Sinclair’s blossoming romance.

Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that Scoops Ahoy! was the designated date spot for the two to celebrate their six-month anniversary. Closing time is in a short two minutes and you’re itching to get out of the stupid sailor uniform your boss has you stuff on every morning.

“I don’t get why you two are even allowing this,” Steve is boredy swinging the store’s key around his finger.

Robin punches in the register code and it pops open with a cartoonish ching, she shrugs while you remove your sailor hat and toss it onto the counter, “Why not?”

“We could get fired,” he glares at the two of you.

“What? Is Mr. Ahoy himself going to find out we let two teenagers try new flavors before they came out, Harrington?” you shoot Steve a pointed look, then turn your gaze back to the food court - where Max and Lucas can be seen approaching your humble ice cream parlor.

You wave at them, and subsequently their driver, Max’s step-brother, Billy.

Lucas returns your gesture much more excitedly than his girlfriend, but that’s nothing exactly new.

Max is sweet on you, Robin, and Eleven compared to her teasing of the guys in the group, but she’s more casual. A simple nod of acknowledgment means you’ve made the big leagues in her book.

Billy stops outside the store, hands deep in the pockets of his denim jeans that really hug, and sunglasses low on the bridge of his nose even though it’s already nighttime.

“Thanks for delivering the kiddies safely,” Steve grins, tossing you the key so he can proceed with one of his infamous dick-measuring contests with Billy, “Corey Hart.”

“You really think you’re funny, don’t you, Harrington?” Billy is just a couple inches taller than Steve, but that has never once stopped him from holding it over the man’s head.

“Oh my God,” Robin groans, setting down the money she was counting, “You made me lose focus, you asses.”

“Stop fighting during custody trades,” you kick at the back of Steve’s calf, “It’s bad for the children to see their parents fighting.”

“I- “ Steve cuts himself off, “Fine. I don’t even care.”

He snatches the key he threw to you and begins towards the back door of Scoops, Max and Lucas trailing after like little sheep.

You turn to Billy while Robin restarts her counting, “Try not to crash, Hargrove. It’d be a shame to lose our only lifeguard that thinks he’s a dictator.”

“Very funny, sweetheart,” your face sours at the nickname and he chuckles, patting your cheek before pulling out a cigarette - seemingly from his ass - and placing it between his lips, “See ya soon.”

“Let’s hope not,” you mutter bitterly.

Billy gives a mock salute as he turns, lighting his cigarette as he goes.

Max and Lucas’ combined glaring through your skull calls, though, and you don’t have the heart to make them sit for one of your rants about Billy Hargrove’s ego when they could be eating exclusive ice cream flavors.

So you hurry to the freezer and encourage Steve to pry it open for the lovebirds.

Across the mall, a fly swirls around Billy Hargrove’s head. It buzzes and lands on his cheek, he flinches at the proximity and swats a hand through the air. Another fly joins its brother and Billy walks faster toward the Starcourt mall doors. Billy puts out his cigarette on a nearby wall and sticks it behind his ear, genuinely considering running when he hears it.

The hiss of his name.

Layered, but still high-pitched. A whisper.

“Billy!”

He snaps around, eyes flitting this way and that.

“Billy.”

There’s no apparent source.

His hands clench as yet another fly drones around his head.

“Billy! Billy! Billy!"

The calls come from all around and he’s sick of it. Something squeezes at his heart.

A fourth fly comes - it lands on his brow and Billy’s hand moves faster than he’d ever thought possible. The fly is squashed dead against his forehead as what sounds like your voice mixed with Max and Neil’s calls from above.

“Billy!”

“Alright, alright,” Steve holds out two small-size cups to Max and Lucas, “Just - just try it before you knock it, okay?”

“It’s just ice cream, captain,” Max rolls her eyes but takes the cup anyway.

“It’s my specialty,” Steve insists, “Rocky Road, Cherry Chunk, and strawberry syrup - it’s good.”

“It sounds disgustingly sweet,” Max turns her gaze onto you. A brow quirked as if to ask if Steve is serious. But Lucas is not so hesitant, already beginning to dig into his serving of the Harrington special.

“You are in Scoops Ahoy!, Maxine,” she gags at her own name and you laugh.

Just through the candy apple red door is Robin, still stuck counting the register. She’s going as fast as her tired, frazzled brain will allow when she hears heavy footfalls approaching the counter. Losing count, Robin sighs and goes to tell off a lost shopper when she sees who has returned.

“Hey, Hargrove, you’re not needed for another…” she judges the clock, “twenty minutes? At least.”

But Billy steps past the counter, slipping over the lackluster fall board that separates you three from the customers and standing before Robin Buckley.

“I’m gonna need you to get back,” Robin’s always been intimidated by Billy, as much as she hates to admit it.

But come on, she’s been the band geek since freshmen year and he was just… generally terrifying, unless he was trying to fuck you.

“Seriously, Steve is right back there- “ her point is seized, Billy snatching her by the bangs and pulling until her mouth parts to scream.

His hand scrambles for a long-abandoned ice cream scoop that glints under the yellow fluorescents. It’s crusted with the mint chocolate chip that’d been served to a couple of middle schoolers only an hour ago. Billy takes up the scoop and jams it through Robin’s lips, forcing it down her throat until the edge of the black, rubber handle is just peeking through her teeth.

She chokes and claws at her throat, earning no sympathy from Billy when he uses his hold on her bangs to shove her head through the sliding glass panel that separates the ice cream tubs. Robin’s held down in a nearly empty container of cotton candy as Billy slams the panel shut around her neck - hard enough for the glass to shake.

Max’s head snaps around at the sound of a slam, but neither you nor Steve follows. Lucas is busy trying to keep dripping, melted ice cream from both his fingers and the floor.

“Did nobody else hear that?” Max furrows her brows at the three of you.

“Robin likes stealing ice cream after closing,” you reach into the freezer and pull out a tub of birthday cake, “Here. New and improved flavor, straight from corporate themselves.”

Lucas takes a spoon to the treat but Max shakes her head, stepping back as she says, “I’m just gonna check on her.”

“Alright,” Steve steals back the tub from your hands when Lucas goes in for seconds, “but don’t get huffy when it’s just Robin eating caramel pecan butter.”

The three of you pause now, you lean against Steve’s side as Max approaches that fiery red door. Her hand wraps around the doorknob and she looks right at you, sticking out her tongue as her arm moves to lug the door open.

You all jump back when the door slams right back into the side of Max’s face. She yelps, Billy storming through the doorway and grabbing his step-sister by the neck - lifting her up in the air. Her feet kick out uselessly, hands beating at his arms.

Before Lucas can stupidly run forward, you snag him by the collar of his letterman jacket and hold him away from the man. Max chokes out a desperate scream and her face grows bright red. Steve, though, is free to stupidly runs forward, his body coming back alive when Billy’s hand visibly squeezes tighter around Max’s throat.

It’s fruitless, however, as Billy’s other hand moves automatically - inhuman and mechanical - towards Steve. You scream, back hitting the cold shelves of the open ice cream freezer when Steve is grabbed like a doll by Billy Hargrove. Lucas fights against your terrified grasp, but your petrified arms refuse to release the boy as Steve is lifted just like Max.

You shove Lucas behind you when Max’s face tilts into something purple, racing forward to tug Steve back by the loose, deep blue cloth of his uniform shirt. Both hands come into the effort and Steve’s hat is rocked off of his head, you rip at the flesh of Billy’s fingers around Steve’s neck.

Billy drops Steve with a thud and you drag him away, but there’s a loss immediately at the surface as Billy returns his attention to Max.

The very air in your lungs is stolen when both hands come to Max’s neck. There’s a strangled gasp, Lucas’ guttural shriek, and a snap. A snap you’ve never heard before - like a broken bone, but different. Worse.

So irrevocably worse.

Max’s face drops - all muscle releasing, and you realize that that supposed relaxation leaves her looking horrified. Mouth agape and head hanging like there was never bone there at all.

You’re up first, having to drag Lucas through the door that connects Scoops Ahoy to the neighboring food stall. Steve follows the both of you into the Imperial Panda kitchen.

Max’s body cracks against the floor like sacked potatoes and Billy steps over her like the dirt on his shoe.

Billy’s boots thunder against tiled floor as he follows your trio - the shing of a blade being drawn out from the cutting board echoing ominously in your ears. Lucas heads your group and it feels like your legs can’t burn fast enough.

Like you’re too slow. Like you’re going to die.

His hands on your neck, his bloodlust in your lungs.

You knew Billy Hargrove was an asshole, but you never could have guessed that he would go so far as murder. It’s unlike him, even for - well - him.

Your legs begin to ache, begging to seize, but it still isn’t enough.

Your ears scorch at the sound of Steve’s scream.

The collar of Steve’s uniform shirt cuts to his throat when Billy grabs the back to tug him to his doom. Steve is never presented with the opportunity to defend himself when a clever is hacked between his shoulder blades. He throws a hand forward, caught between pleading with you and Lucas to turn back for him and crying for you both to run faster.

Billy pulls out the clever and kicks Steve to the ground, raising his foot and pressing each corner of his newfound strength and force and hatred into its downfall. Steve’s skull eggshells on the reflective tile of the food court - blood and brain spilling between onto neon reflections.

You can imagine it vividly - Billy right behind you. Hauling ass after the both of you, but the doors are in sight and he’s still with Steve and once you’re out he won’t be able to get you and-

Billy releases the clever in an angled, timed throw - one eye clenched shut to get the best judge of sight.

Your head rocks forward on impact, body freezing and smacking to the ground once the clever buries its mark in the back of your skull. You thud. Dead weight.

Lucas hears it - the sound of your skin like raw meat on a kitchen counter, the ringing silence when your footsteps are no longer behind his.

He wants to run back. Wake you up, wake you up, as if you’re sleeping - because you have to be, your death doesn’t feel real. Max and Steve and Robin - none of it has registered but the looming threat of Billy Hargrove most certainly does.

Those footsteps fill in where yours left off and Lucas feels trapped.

But the doors are coming up. Overwhelmingly close and yet miles away.

His hand shoots out, shoes squeaking against tile, lungs in hell, and his fingertips graze the cold metal push-frame of Starcourt’s front doors.

The doors gasp as he pushes and they release, squealing open.

Then Billy gets a lethal grasp over the collar of his basketball team letterman jacket.

Lucas screams, knowing exactly well how futile ripping apart his vocal cords is. He catches a glimpse of you and Steve over Billy’s shoulders.

Blood pools below what remains of your heads, bodies sprawled and lifeless inside the Scoops Ahoy! uniforms you were both making fun of not ten minutes ago.

Lucas peels at Billy’s face as he’s flipped and held straight. He cries and whimpers like a young babe at the growing pressure that comes from Billy’s hands on either side of his face. It grows and grows and grows and just as he comes to question this unnatural display of strength and cruelty - even from Billy - it pops.

His bones crunch and the teeth are the first to fall out. Blood drools from between his lips and Billy drops Lucas’ body to the floor which continues to shine in what neon signs remain of the stores’ stalls.

Sweat sheens his body as Billy steps over the teenager, his hand pushing open the Starcourt doors so he can carry the devil inside him’s will to the streets.

Eleven traces a finger over the polaroid of you that’s been stuck onto your locker. You’re standing in the middle of a sunflower field - a road trip to the midwest that Eddie forced you to join him on, you once told her. Notes and folded letters of well wishes in the afterlife have been pasted onto your locker with picked flowers from the side of the road in memoriam. Beside your locker is Robin’s, also littered with notes, letters, and flowers by your fellow students. At the top of each locker is RIP etched into the metal, which she’d seen done by Louise Graham only minutes ago.

Mike tenderly takes his girlfriend’s hand and brings her to his side, though his eyes remain on yours and Robin’s lockers.

The group is peculiarly silent, but nobody is exactly rushing to undo the crickets.

Will fiddles with his fingers as a couple of students from down the hall are sticking daisies through the slats in Steve’s locker as tribute. Dustin stares at his shoes to hide the wetness that gathers in his waterline - hat hiding his reddening, sorrowed face.

Eddie, however, is in full contempt as he watches with crossed arms while a man races down the corridor in a copy of the outfit Billy Hargrove was wearing during his Starcourt massacre. A wife beater, gold-rimmed sunglasses, and denim jeans.

“Hawkins is fucking cursed,” Eddie murmurs, glaring at the boy all the way until he’s no longer in sight, “I’m tired of these bullshit freak incidents.”

“What can we do?” Will shakes his head, looking up at Eddie.

Mike squeezes Eleven to his side, as if it’ll successfully hide her from the evils of Hawkins, Indiana, “Hope we make something of ourselves like our parents never did so we can get the fuck out of here.”

“If we can make something of ourselves in Hawkins,” Dustin sniffles one final time and watches a group of cheerleaders run by, preparing for the homecoming game later tonight.

One cheerleader, captain Chrissy Cunningham, slows to a stop by your and Robin’s locker - pulling out two folded letters to jam between the slots of your doors.

“Why wouldn’t we be able to?” Eleven frowns, and Chrissy pauses at the sound of her voice.

Eddie pushes himself off the locker and spreads his arms wide, grinning as he mouths a distasteful, “Hawkins is fucking cursed.”

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fic #stranger things x reader #stranger things x you #robin buckley x reader #lucas sinclair x reader #max mayfield x reader #lucas sinclair x max mayfield #billy hargrove x reader #steve harrington #robin buckley #billy hargrove #lucas sinclair #max mayfield #fear street au

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nothoughts-onlywomen · 6 months

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steadfast, sightless - chapter fourteen

An emergency party meeting is called, and El makes a tough but necessary decision. Robin helps teach Max some Braille. Lucas and Mike have a serious conversation. Steve comes to visit. Max and Lucas spend some time together. Eleven and Max travel through some more memories. Max makes a desperate request of Lucas.

Lucas couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so tired.

Eleven had called for an emergency meeting after the events of that morning, just as the sun was coming up. It hadn’t taken long for Lucas and Will to rally all of them together: Nancy, Jonathan, Robin, Steve, Dustin, Mike, and Erica.

The grimy fluorescent light fixture hanging from the roof of Max’s trailer shed a yellowish hue over their party as they gathered in the living room. If you could call it that anymore. No one had lived in it now for some time. Max never really lived in this space, Lucas conceded to himself. She just existed in it.

Lucas noticed that some of his friends seemed very comfortable in Max’s trailer and was vaguely reminded that several of them had been here more than once. Since Max’s mother had gone to rehab, the party – sometimes in small groups, sometimes individually – had been stopping by periodically. At first, it was for upkeep: throwing out any rotten food, giving the floor a sweep, straightening up. After a while, though, certain party members started proposing ideas to better Max’s living quarters. Lucas had a feeling that Robin was the mastermind behind this, especially after she’d been insistent that the party would do better to support him and Max. Steve, who often relayed the goings-on of the visits, seemed to agree.

Jonathan, who had been largely nondescript up until this point, had taken it upon himself to travel to Max’s trailer and start making it more blind-friendly. Nancy and Robin had been more than happy to contribute to his efforts, and Joyce helped wherever she could. Steve, who seemed to have developed a tight-lipped tolerance for Jonathan’s presence, came over to help as well, but only if Robin was present. Together, they and Joyce had scrounged up about twenty dollars’ worth of lamps and positioned them all over the trailer, in places where Max would likely go often. Her bedroom, the hallway, the bathroom, the living area. Steve had also told Lucas out of earshot of Max that they did a sweep of the many beer cans that had littered the trailer. It wasn’t as if Max was oblivious to her mother’s affliction, but Lucas felt that he and Steve shared a mutual understanding on the matter. No point in reminding Max about her family stress. She had enough going on as it was.

Nancy had done some additional digging into reading materials for Max and discovered that the Library of Congress provided “talking books,” in which a blind person could listen to a book being read. In addition, Robin had discovered a very old, but still functional enough, Kurzweil reading machine in the now-abandoned Hawkins Library. It would scan a page of the book, Robin explained, her eyes alight – and then read the page aloud.

“We can definitely help Max try it, if the Hawkins library makes it out in one piece!” She lamented cheerfully, a nervous giggle escaping her. To a pessimist, it might be irrelevant to consider the future of Braille in Max’s life. Especially if they were all on the verge of death anyway. But Lucas knew, in some small way, it was giving them something to look ahead to. Something to hope for.

Lucas blinked, shaking his head. He didn’t know how he was still functioning. The gray light of dawn seemed to have signaled his brain to catch what must be his third or fourth wind by now. The rest of his body, however, was starting to feel the effects of how long he’d been awake. His muscles felt heavier; his vision seemed to vibrate. The lights were too bright, the sounds around him were almost muffled, as if wrapped in gauze. He glanced over at Will, who seemed to be in a similar daze. Twice now he’d started to lean slightly against his brother, eyelids drooping, and Jonathan had shaken him slightly to rouse him.

Eleven, who had been waiting for all of them to show, addressed the room at large.

“Last night, I went into the void. And I saw Max.”

A wave of mixed reactions went around the room – gasps, exchanged looks, muttered exclamations. Lucas supposed he ought to feel guilty that the rest of the party hadn’t been let in on this plan. But times were dire. Sometimes risks must be taken.

“You saw Max?” Nancy’s brows knit hopefully.

“Yes.”

“What did she say?” urged Robin. Dustin and Mike nodded eagerly as El continued.

“She is there, and she is okay. For now.”

Lucas felt some of the tension in his stomach ease. Max had told El she was okay. Though several of them also let out relieved sighs, Erica seemed skeptical.

“How can she tell you that in there, and not out here?” She inquired, one eyebrow raised.

“It does not make sense,” El admitted. “But Max says that part of her is here – her body in Hawkins – and part of her is there. In the void.”

Will nodded. “So it is like me.”

Eleven acknowledged him.

“Yes. Except she goes to the void when she sleeps. She doesn’t dream.”

“So…she’s stuck. Sort of,” concluded Dustin, shrugging.

“It looks like that,” El replied.

Lucas noticed that some of the party members seemed less eager to talk. Mike stood there, tight-lipped with worry, his face tense as he stared at the floor.

“Did she say anything else?” Robin asked, in a now hushed voice.

Eleven nodded, and Lucas saw her swallow anxiously.

“Max remembers when she died. She woke up in the void and thought she was in hell. But then she saw us. Here, on the other side.”

“When she…died.” Lucas still couldn’t really say it. “Vecna didn’t kill her all the way. Not like his other victims. So we think maybe that’s why she’s sort of…in between. She’s here, but she’s also there.”

“Did she say anything about Vecna?” Nancy inquired, and Lucas could hear the slight quaver in her voice at the mention of his name.

“No. She has not seen or felt him.”

A brief silence fell at the mention of their nemesis, as if they were nervous to summon him by saying his name. The silence was only broken by Steve, whose arms were firmly folded.

“And why didn’t you tell us you were doing any of this?” He questioned, in the same tone of voice Lucas’ mother used when he was about to be grounded for something.

“I didn’t know it would work,” El admitted.

“That doesn’t matter,” Robin waved her hand in his direction.

“It does matter, Robin. It was a dangerous idea,” insisted Steve.

Robin shook her head impatiently. “She made a decision, and yes, it was a stupid decision, but now we know Max is okay somewhere in that big, dark…place that Will was in before.”

Jonathan rounded on Will, nudging him awake.

“Were you there too?”

“Lucas and I…” Will yawned widely, rubbing his eyes. “We stayed there overnight. Just to make sure everything went okay.”

“No wonder you look like the walking dead,” Jonathan mused.

“Anyway,” Nancy asserted, gesturing back to El. “There must be more. You didn’t call us all here just to tell us that.”

Eleven glanced at Lucas, and he gave her a reassuring nod. El addressed the group again, pressing on.

“Remember when she escaped Vecna? It was in her happy memory.”

Lucas felt warmth permeate through him as he was reminded of what Max’s happiest memory was, this warmth immediately replaced by an indelible sorrow. He remembered the way she looked at him that night; her blue eyes so cautiously warm, so genuinely soft and content and thankful, almost. As if she was silently letting him know her gratitude. For accepting her with an open heart. For loving her. For seeing her. And now, she’d never look at him that way again. Or at all.

Erica spoke, her tone suggesting she wasn’t altogether convinced. “What does her memory have to do with it?”

“We were trying to find a connection,” Eleven explained. “Between the Max in there, and the Max out here. So she and I walked through some other memories. Ones that are important to her.”

“Like what?” Nancy encouraged.

El’s face grew both sad and slightly nervous. “The day we went to Starcourt Mall. We tried on clothes and took pictures and got ice cream.”

Lucas cringed inwardly as he realized that this had been the memory that had caused Max so much distress during the plunge into the void. El’s gaze flickered in his direction, silently asking for guidance. Lucas supposed they shouldn’t keep secrets from the rest of the party. But he didn’t feel completely comfortable exposing Max’s inner turmoil on her behalf. So he stayed quiet, and after a moment, El pressed on.

“We also saw the day she fell off her skateboard in the gym with Mike.”

Mike frowned at her, speaking for the first time. “How did you know about that?”

El gave him an apologetic look.

“I was there, Mike. I saw you and Max argue. And I…made her fall off her skateboard.”

Lucas supposed he should be shocked, but based on his past experience with Eleven, a girl who could cause bodies to fold like paper dolls when those she loved were in danger, this seemed on par. Based on most of the others’ expressions, they also seemed less than surprised.

“That explains a lot, actually,” said Dustin.

“I thought Mike had found someone else to love,” Eleven explained, her cheeks flushing at the reaction. “I was jealous. But Max told me that wasn’t true.”

“It wasn’t,” insisted Mike from next to her, looking slightly upset that she’d thought this. “I promise. It wasn’t true.”

El leaned toward him, planting a soft kiss on his cheek. “I know, Mike. It’s okay.”

The rest of the group seemed unsure about how to react. Mike seemed to be having his own realization related to this as he stared wide-eyed at the floor. Eleven seemed to decide that changing the subject was best.

“We also saw…Halloween night? She scared you and Lucas and Dustin and Will. Then came with you to get candy.”

Lucas watched Dustin and Will’s faces soften to reminiscent grins at the memory. He smiled too. How interesting that Max had preserved that memory in her mind. But it made sense. It was the first time he’d ever seen her smile.

“Were there any other memories?” Jonathan asked.

“No,” said Eleven. “Because…she started to feel bad. And then she woke up here and she was sick. Her nose was bleeding, and she threw up. The nurses told us to leave. But she is okay now. I think.”

“I knew something was going on with her,” Robin said quietly. “She wasn’t right today. She looked really tired. Almost sick. Like before.”

Eleven bit her lip. Lucas felt a deepening sense of foreboding as she looked around the room.

“I do not want to hurt her more, but…I have to go back for her. Vecna is close. Closer all the time.”

Will nodded vigorously, and Lucas saw his hand snake up the back of his neck. “I’ve felt it too. That sinking feeling has been coming back.”

“I have to go back,” El stated resolutely. “Tonight.”

Lucas heard his fist slam into the end table, barely feeling the impact. The entire group turned to look at him, shock and surprise on most of their faces. He shook his head.

“You guys don’t understand. She’s fragile right now. When they were in there, her blood pressure started rising, and they thought she was going to have a seizure. It took twenty minutes to get her back to normal. We have to give her some time.”

Mike pushed back. “How much time can we possibly have, Lucas? Vecna’s closer now, Will and El can both feel him. We can’t afford to wait. If he finds her in there again, we might not get her back at all.”

“And if we push her too far, she’ll be in even worse shape than she is now, and even more susceptible to Vecna and whatever he’s planning,” Lucas countered.

“I think Mike and Will have a point,” Nancy interrupted quietly. They all turned to look at her. Her glance to Lucas was apologetic. “I hear where you’re coming from, Lucas, I do. But Vecna…he’s not going to wait. And if El and Will can sense him…we have no time to lose.”

Lucas sucked in a breath and released it exasperatedly. As much as he hated it, they were right. While Vecna hadn’t made himself known yet, he knew it would only be a matter of time. If they were going to help free Max from the void, they would have to do so as soon as they could.

He leaned forward, his head in his hands. His exhaustion was starting to set in once more, and he could feel it pulling him deeper and deeper.

Lucas felt a hand on his shoulder, and Will’s tired, cracked voice.

“Jonathan’s coming to get me so I can go home and sleep. We can drop you off at home too.”

Lucas jerked his head once, to show his assent.

The car ride passed in a blur. Lucas only knew he’d fallen asleep because Will was shaking him, murmuring “we’re at your house.” Lucas undid his seatbelt and stumbled out of the car, stepping across the pavement. Everything felt as if someone else was doing it. He was barely there.

Lucas was barely conscious enough to enter the door to his house, make a beeline for his bedroom, and collapse into bed.

He’d only hit the pillow mere seconds before sleep enveloped him completely.

Max would never get used to it.

Waking up in darkness was perhaps one of the strangest things about her new existence. She was so used to seeing light from behind her eyelids, carefully cracking them open, squinting into the sunlight. Her body’s signal that a new day was unfolding across the sky. Opening her eyes to no sunlight, no light at all, never failed to confuse her.

The only reason Max knew it was morning was because there were birds chirping outside. She could hear them singing their cheerful, inquisitive dawn songs, uncaring about the constant low rumbling outside that Max always heard now.

Lucas had told her it was the Upside Down. After the gates had broken open, the Upside Down was now half-inside of Hawkins, and Hawkins was half-inside of it. Max couldn’t surmise how anything like a hospital could be functioning while that was going on. Then again, she supposed a hospital would be one of the only things open at a time like this. It figured that she was trapped inside it.

Max wished she could lift her head toward the sound, to better identify it. It was muffled from far away. But as her body had slowly awoken, she quickly realized she felt horrible. She opened and closed her mouth slightly, tasting sourness. Tasting vomit. She didn’t remember throwing up. Max tentatively dragged her hand across the sheets, toward her pillow. Her hand didn’t touch any wetness or slime. So she hadn’t puked in her sleep.

Max’s head throbbed. The vein pulsed in her temple, a screw in her brain that only grew tighter with each squeeze of pain. A little bolt of lightning shot through her skull with each blink of her eyelids. She was shaking, weak, feeling dizzy. She wanted to reach for the nurse button, but her arm was too heavy.

“Cindy,” she managed, her voice cracking.

She didn’t know where Cynthia was, and she couldn’t get up to find her. Her hand grasped limply at the bar on the side of her bed, and she tried in vain to pull herself up. Her arm muscles quivered with the effort, but to no avail. Angered at her own weakness, she grabbed the bar with her other arm and pulled, as hard as she could. A thin whine of frustration vibrated in the back of her throat as she tried again to sit up, both arms braced against the bar, her stomach muscles clenching, her back tensing.

After a few moments, whatever little strength in her arms was finally depleted, and she let herself fall back onto the bed. Max had to take a moment to catch her breath, her arms now shakier due to the exertion. Her hand flopped out toward the bed bar and she tried once again to pull herself up. Nothing. She was weak. Just like she’d always thought.

The door creaked open, and Max gave a little sob of relief.

“Cindy,” she called hoarsely. “Help me.”

A completely different voice cut through the air.

“Max?”

It wasn’t Cynthia, but Robin. Max could hear Robin’s footsteps quickly approach her bedside.

“Max, what happened? Are you okay?”

“Help,” Max reached out into the air.

The warmth of Robin’s arms surrounded her.

“I’m just gonna help you get comfortable, okay?”

Max felt herself lift slightly off the bed, felt her chest press into Robin’s. Robin was wearing a collared shirt, with buttons. Max concentrated on the polyester fabric, the hard plastic buttons jutting into her sternum as Robin moved her up onto her pillows.

Robin’s slightly nervous voice sounded next to her ear. “We’re going back down, okay? Nice and easy.”

Max felt her head press into her familiar pillows, felt the cushions against her back. Her flowered green blanket slipped under her arms, and Max let herself sink into the mattress. As much as she hated being trapped in this bed, day after day, the effort had exhausted her.

She felt Robin take her hand.

“Better?” She asked.

“Yes,” Max all but whispered, giving Robin’s hand a light squeeze.

She couldn’t see Robin’s facial expression, but when she spoke again, Max could hear the concern in her voice.

“I can call the nurse, if you want.”

“Yes,” Max told her.

She heard the click of the nurse button above her bed, and Cynthia was there in minutes. The nurse noted that Max was pale – as if Max had been able to tell – and that she didn’t look well.

“My head,” Max told her. “It hurts.”

“A headache? Okay, I’ll make a note of that. Anything else?”

Max tried in vain to communicate how awful she felt.

“Dizzy. Feel sick. And…weak.”

She heard the scratching of a pen on paper. After a moment, Cynthia spoke again.

“Okay. Max, I’ll be right back. I’m going to adjust your bed so you can sit up, and then I’m going to get you some medicines.”

Max heard the turn of the crank on the bed, felt the head of the bed rise so that she was in a sitting position. She leaned back into the bed, her head still swimming as she heard Robin take the chair next to her bed.

“Um, Max?” She said hesitantly. “If you’re feeling up to it, I thought maybe I could show you some Braille.”

Max blinked in her direction. Braille? Had they discussed that before?

Then the memory floated hazily across her brain. Yes, Nancy and Robin had both suggested Braille for her, so she could still read books. The loss of her sight was a constant grieving process, she noticed. One thing here she could no longer do. One thing there that required sight.

“Braille,” she murmured, almost questioning. “For…read.”

“Yeah.” Robin sounded hopeful. “Yeah, so you can read again. Obviously we don’t have to master it today, that’s impossible, but I thought we could at least learn some of the letters. Then that’ll make it easier for you to learn full words, and then I can try to find some actual books for you. If the Hawkins library survives, of course, there is that to consider. And then we can – ”

Max waved her hand a little, an unwilling smile lifting the corners of her mouth. Robin never seemed to know when a thought was finished.

“Yes,” she relented.

“Okay. Yes. I brought a Braille book for you.”

Max heard frantic rummaging through what sounded like a bag or a purse, and the thunk of an evidently sizable book right in front of her. She felt Robin draw up close to her other side, heard the pages separating as Robin opened the book.

“Ah, here we go. Right here.”

Robin’s hand covered Max’s, almost hesitantly.

“Are you ready, Max? I’ll tell you which dots are which letters.”

Max nodded, still in a slight daze. She wasn’t sure if she would even retain anything right now. But she knew, could hear it in Robin’s voice, how desperately Robin wanted to help her somehow. It was kinder just to let her.

Robin guided her hand, and Max felt her index finger rest on a single raised dot.

“That’s the letter A,” Robin murmured.

“A,” Max sounded it out.

“Good. Let me know when you’re ready for B.”

“Ready,” Max told her without hesitation.

As Robin gently told her which collection of dots was which letter, Max began to feel a bit less overwhelmed. The beginning letters seemed simple enough; A, one dot. B, another dot below the first. C, the A dot with another dot beside it. D, an additional dot below the added one for C. Saying the letters was simpler now too. She allowed herself to feel a bit of pride at how her speech therapy had been paying off. Dr. Cobb had told her the other week that she was doing great. This was the first time she’d sort of believed it.

Eventually, Max heard the door open, and Nancy’s gentle voice sounded from nearby.

“Max? It’s Nancy.”

“Nance, we’ve been learning the Braille letters,” Robin informed her, and Max could hear her excitement. “We’ll have to bring her a book at some point.”

“One step at a time,” Nancy chided her, though Max could hear a smile in her voice. Her light steps drew closer to the bed.

“Max, I can do your hair today if you want.”

“Yes,” said Max. She felt Robin move back, and smelled a whiff of Nancy’s perfume, felt her sit down on the bed.

“I’m going to brush your hair now, okay?”

Max nodded. As she felt the brush bristles weave through her tangled hair, she let her mind wander elsewhere.

She was still trying to make sense of last night. As the physical symptoms started to ease a little – the shaking, the migraine, the nausea - fragments of the night had started to surface in her mind; most notably, the fabric of El’s shirt. Max didn’t know why that stuck out in her mind so much. Other things floated across her mind that didn’t make sense. Tile floor, trodden-on and yellowing. The gym at Hawkins Middle. Will’s face, only much younger, his eyes rolled back. That particular part of her memory came with a real sense of fear that Max couldn’t shake.

“Nance,” she said abruptly, and she felt the brush pause in her hair.

“Yeah?”

Max wished desperately that she could ask Nancy any one of the questions swimming inside her head. Where’s Lucas? Do you know what happened last night? Why do I only remember bits of it?

“Brush more,” she requested instead.

“You want me to keep brushing? I can do that.”

The bristles combed through her hair slowly, and Max closed her eyes a little, enjoying the feeling. She heard Robin move to her other side, felt Robin’s hesitant finger touch her hand, silently asking to hold it. Max reached for Robin’s hand and squeezed it.

“Thanks,” she said. “For reading.”

Only a moment or two passed before she felt Robin’s hand squeeze back.

“Of course, Max.”

Somehow, Lucas was more exhausted than before.

His mid-morning sleep had somehow calibrated him to the wrong frequency. He felt dazed. His head was pounding as he sat up from the bed, rubbing his eyes.

The first thing he noticed was that it was raining. The rumbling from the Upside Down and the regular thunder that accompanied a storm were almost indistinguishable from each other, and so there was a constant rumble in the air, one that occasionally crescendoed into crashes that rattled the window. Only his glance at the clock alerted him that it was early afternoon, around one. He usually went to see Max earlier than this, but he wondered if she had slept in too. They’d all had a long night.

Lucas pulled on clothing and socks as if on autopilot; before he knew it, he was dressed and grabbing his backpack, making his way into the hall. Erica’s door was closed, light peeking out from underneath her door. He knew his mother would be out on the back porch. She usually sat out there when it rained.

Lucas picked up the phone and dialed Steve’s number. On the third ring, he heard a click.

“What, Sinclair?”

“There’s no way you just knew it was me.”

He could almost hear Steve roll his eyes.

“Well, I know you’re not Robin, because I just dropped her off at home. And besides her, you’re the only one who calls me. So yeah, it didn’t take me long to narrow down.”

Lucas smirked. “Oh, so Dustin never calls you?”

“I couldn’t feel the bullshittery through the phone when I picked it up, so I knew you weren’t him either. Listen, do you want a ride or not?”

“Yes, please.”

“All right. Be there in a few.”

Lucas figured he should probably learn to drive at some point.

Steve seemed more tense than usual as Lucas sat quietly in his passenger seat, listening to the rain tap against the windows, watching the wipers swish back and forth across the windshield. The silent radio channel occasionally crackled as they drove through areas of varying signal. Steve turned the dial, seeking music, and came to find more silence, more static-filled stations. He smacked the dashboard with his hand in frustration, a scowl on his face.

“Stupid thing. Can’t even find any music stations anymore.”

“Is everything okay?” Lucas inquired uncertainly.

“Fine,” Steve said shortly. “Everything’s fine. I just…feel like shit.”

“Who doesn’t?” Lucas shrugged. “I mean, considering.”

Steve shook his head. “It’s not all that. It’s Max. Everyone’s doing so much for her – Nancy’s doing her hair, Robin’s helping her with Braille, Will’s bringing her music, and you…you’re practically living there, for god’s sake. And I’m not doing shit.”

“That’s not true,” Lucas countered, astonished to hear Steve talk like this. “You’re driving us everywhere.”

“Yeah, but Max can’t see that. I mean – ” He blanched, hurriedly rephrasing. “What I meant is, I’m not helping like everyone else.”

“I mean…you could always bring her something she likes,” Lucas reasoned. “Or something from her trailer that’s hers. I’m sure whatever you did, she’d appreciate.”

Steve shrugged. “Yeah. I guess.”

In spite of himself, Lucas felt a grin sneak onto his face.

“Max does like you, you know. She just also thinks you’re an annoying shit. But that’s to be expected.”

He was pleased to see a slight smile on Steve’s face too.

The hospital hallways seemed emptier than usual.

Lucas trudged along. He was so bone tired that he could barely see straight, but he would be loath to stay away from Max. Especially right now. He knew what they were about to put her through, and he had to help her brace for the impact, the best he could. So perhaps, one day, she’d forgive him for it.

He’d barely made it to her partially-open door when –

“Max, that’s so insane.”

“It’s not,” he heard Max reply stubbornly.

Lucas cracked open the door the rest of the way to see Mike sitting on the bed, his back to the door.

“Okay, but crusts aren’t meant to be eaten,” He was insisting emphatically. “They’re crusts. You’re supposed to tear them off. The only good part is the bread and what’s in the sandwich.”

“Crusts,” Max insisted, her arms folded and jaw set.

As Lucas circled around, he saw that Mike had brought Max a sandwich in a plastic bag, and it currently rested on the tray table that he’d wheeled in front of her, along with some cutlery wrapped in plastic. Her stack of tapes had been moved, resting in three stacks on the bedside table.

“Okay, Max, you can eat the crusts like a weirdo,” said Mike, though Lucas was relieved to see a slight grin on his face. “Do you need me to cut this up?”

“Yes,” said Max, and Lucas saw a little grin quirk around her mouth too.

“Oh, hey, Lucas,” Mike acknowledged him, removing the sandwich from the bag and unwrapping the plastic knife from the silverware pack. Max’s head tilted in Lucas’ direction.

“Lunch,” she informed him.

“I see that,” Lucas replied, amused.

Mike started cutting into the sandwich. Too late Lucas realized –

“Mike, you can’t cut it diagonally. It has to be bite-sized or she can’t swallow it. Remember?”

Lucas saw a flash of horror cross Mike’s face, replaced quickly with an embarrassed indignance.

“It’s fine, I can just cut it into smaller pieces.”

“Cut squares,” said Max.

“What do you mean, squares? Sandwiches are cut diagonally. Everybody knows that.”

“Mike, it’s fine. I’ll just do it,” said Lucas, elbowing him away and taking the plastic knife from him.

Mike grabbed it back at once. “I can cut sandwiches by myself, mom.”

He set to work tearing the sandwiches into bite-sized pieces, his face reddening. Lucas opened his mouth to retort and then he saw Mike’s facial expression. Mortified. Determined. Maybe even a little guilty. It occurred to Lucas why Mike was so territorial over a stupid sandwich - he was trying to do something nice for Max, all on his own. Maybe even to make reparations for the friction between them. Even though they’d been much nicer to each other lately, Lucas wondered if Mike felt culpable. Maybe he felt he’d contributed to Max’s depression somehow by being unpleasant to her. And this was his way of making up for it.

Lucas took a step back, relenting.

“Just make sure the pieces are small enough for her to swallow,” he reminded Mike.

“I got it,” said Mike stubbornly. “There you go, Max.”

Max reached down toward the tray table, palm open, until her hand bumped one of the sandwich pieces. She picked it up with her thin fingers and brought it up to her mouth, chewing slowly. Mike busied himself with taking a few new comics out of his bag.

“I have some new comics for you,” he told Max, who turned her head toward him, her mouth still full of sandwich. “I can’t read them by myself, so we’ll read them to you next time Steve and Dustin are here. Okay?”

Max nodded at him. Lucas gazed at her, a sense of foreboding creeping in. She was different today. The head of her bed was tilted upward, and she was propped against her pillows, lying back against them. She’d been able to sit up now for some time; but right now, she looked like she had months prior, too weak to hold up her own weight. She looked slightly paler, too: her milky eyes almost blended in with her pallid face. Her red hair was tangled and slightly damp with perspiration near her neck. She wasn’t eating quite as hungrily as Lucas would have hoped, either.

Mike reached back into his bag.

“I also brought you…well…”

He unearthed a rock from his bag, a shard of obsidian that gleamed darkly under the fluorescent lights.

“It’s an obsidian rock,” he said. “Obsidian forms from volcanoes. I got it at a museum or some shit, and I guess I had it in a drawer somewhere. It’s a cool one to hold. It feels weird, like glass or hard plastic.”

Max held out her palm questioningly, and Mike placed it in her hand. Immediately, Lucas saw her brow furrow as she closed her fingers around it, trying to picture it in her mind’s eye. It was taking so much concentration that Max placed the rock on the tray table, letting both her palms rest over it, fingers tracing the edges and planes.

After a few seconds, she angled her head toward Mike.

“Color is…gray?” She inquired.

“Black,” he corrected her. “And it’s shiny.”

Max nodded, her brow furrowing again.

“Black. And shiny,” she murmured, her fingers examining it once more.

She didn’t have much to say after that. Max continued to roll the rock over in her hand, seemingly determined to memorize every corner.

“Lucas, can I talk to you for a sec?”

Mike’s question surprised him, but he nodded.

“Sure,” Lucas shrugged. He turned toward Max.

“I’ll be right back,” he reassured her.

She nodded, still preoccupied by the obsidian. Lucas followed Mike out of the room, feeling his lungs expand as they entered the hallway. That room seemed to grow smaller and stuffier every time he entered it. It was nice to exist in a part of the world that wasn’t Max’s little prison.

“She can’t keep staying here.”

Mike’s tone was almost exasperated. Lucas frowned at him in astonishment as Mike tapped his foot, his arms folded, his lips pursed.

“She’s still fragile, Mike. We can’t move her.”

“You’re not bothered by how she looks? Max has been here for months, and she doesn’t look better, she looks worse. Today she can’t even sit up.”

“Brain damage takes a long time to heal,” Lucas explained, still a little thrown by the suddenness of Mike’s confrontation. “They’ve always told me she’ll get worse before she gets better.”

“This place is what’s killing her. I mean, think about it. Shouldn’t Max be close to getting out of here? It’s been months, Lucas. Why isn’t she better by now?”

Lucas hadn’t really thought of it like that, but now that Mike mentioned it, Max had been here for quite a long time, and with almost no talk of when she could go home. Perhaps the doctors felt she didn’t have a safe home to go to since her mother was – as far as they knew – still in rehab. Lucas was certain that her presence in the void was a big part of it too. But Will and El also had bits of themselves in the void, and were able to function normally. So why was it taking Max so much longer?

“She’s made a lot of progress,” he said finally, but it sounded lame even coming out of his own mouth.

Mike shook his head. “But not enough that she’s up walking around again. I know things won’t ever be the same, after…well, after that night. But I just think it’s strange that it’s taking so long.”

Mike ran a hand through his black mop of hair, which had grown shaggier and steadily more unkempt over these last few months.

“And Vecna. Will and El said they’ve been able to feel him more. He has to know she’s here by now, right? What if she’s just a sitting duck, there in that room?”

Lucas hadn’t considered this either. Hospitals were supposed to be the pinnacle of safety and security, though Lucas felt a little silly thinking this in their current climate. Horror filled him as he realized that perhaps Max was more vulnerable than he’d allowed himself to consider. Maybe Mike was right. Vecna wasn’t fully back to health yet, but he must know where Max was. And he could be plotting his attack at this very moment.

“I just don’t know if moving her is safe,” Lucas finally said to Mike, trying to keep his voice from quavering. “She looks bad now, I know, but without all the hospital shit she might get even worse.”

“I know, I know. There are no good answers,” Mike acknowledged, looking just as troubled. “But I just think she’s been here too long. And they aren’t helping her enough.”

He ran his hand through his hair again before giving a deep sigh, offering Lucas a curt nod.

“Just think about it.”

Lucas gave a jerk of his head in Mike’s direction, and he watched as his friend trudged away, his hands in his pockets.

Anyone who still had doubts that Mike cared about Max should be swiftly silenced, Lucas thought. He hadn’t given any thought to the idea of how Max’s current condition was impacting any of his other friends. But the more he thought on it, the more small moments resurfaced in his mind. Dustin sitting outside her room, his head in his hands. The puffy, freckly shadows that had formed under Robin’s eyes. And the persistent melancholy that El seemed to hold in every corner of her frame. Perhaps Mike was just voicing what the rest of his friends couldn’t: Max being here wasn’t just hurting her. It was hurting her friends too.

As Lucas walked back into the room, he surveyed Max, who was staring rather wistfully in the direction of the window. Lucas noticed the rain had stopped, but the sky stayed gray and rumbling. The sun was fighting to illuminate whatever parts of the sky were uninhabited by the Upside Down.

Lucas felt a certain disquiet as he watched her. Maybe Mike was right. When was the last time she inhaled real air through her lungs?

“Hey,” he spoke, and she jumped a little, her head snapping toward him.

“Sorry, it’s me. I, um…it’s not raining anymore, and the hospital here has a courtyard. Would you want to walk a little outside?”

Max seemed to ponder this for a moment, her cloudy eyes blinking slowly.

“Walk?” She inquired, almost distantly.

“Yeah. You’ve been getting better and better. In fact, Cynthia thinks you might not need the walker at all soon.”

He had totally fabricated this, but it was worth it to see her weary face light up a little.

“Yes,” she told him.

“Okay, hang on. Let me ask the nurse.”

Lucas managed to track down Cynthia after several minutes searching for her. She seemed delighted at the idea of them going outside, and told him she needed to go find something. Cynthia rejoined him in Max’s room a short while later, holding a pair of dark glasses.

“I’m so glad you’re going outside today, Max!” she chirped, and Max blinked in her direction. “Whenever you do, I need you to wear these.”

She pressed the dark glasses into Max’s hands.

“Even though you can’t see, your eyes may still respond to some light, and that might make things harder to navigate. These glasses will help so the light won’t bother you.”

Max’s fingers curled around them for a brief moment, then she let them fall from her hands onto her lap.

“Not these,” she said. “My red ones.”

“Red ones?” asked Cynthia, but Lucas knew immediately what she was talking about.

“Max, are your red ones here with you somewhere?”

“At home,” she said sadly.

Lucas looked at her nurse.

“Can she wear regular ones?”

Cynthia shrugged. “They’re about the same, so, sure.”

They all jumped when suddenly the door creaked open.

It was Steve, by himself. Lucas almost wanted to laugh at how out of place he looked: Steve Harrington, the king of Hawkins High, dressed in an old shirt and jeans full of holes. His hair even looked less voluminous as he shuffled on the spot.

“Hey,” he said, addressing all of their startled faces. “Sorry, I was just – ”

He gestured at a pint of ice cream and a spoon in his hand.

“I can come back if it’s a bad time – ”

“Max, it looks like this is another one of your friends,” Cynthia said in her direction, then she addressed Steve. “I think they were about to go outside –”

Lucas jumped to his feet.

“Actually, you have perfect timing. Stay here, okay?”

“Wha – Sinclair – ”

Lucas dipped out into the hallway, and took off down the hall. If Max wanted her red sunglasses, he was going to get her those red sunglasses if it was the last thing he did.

Max could hear the slight bewilderment in Steve’s voice as his footsteps slowly drew closer.

“Where did he go?”

“Glasses,” she told him.

“Oh. O-okay.” Max wanted to giggle at little at Steve’s confusion.

Cynthia spoke from nearby.

“I’m going to check on my other patients, Max. I’ll be back in a little while.”

Her footsteps trailed away, and soon Max knew Steve was the only other person in the room with her.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey. Um, I brought you something. Be careful though, it’s cold.”

Max reached out her hand and felt something long and cold. She gripped it. It felt like the handle of a piece of silverware. Max traced it with her thumb, felt the curvature of the metal. A spoon.

“Here,” Steve murmured, and he guided the spoon to something soft. Max moved the spoon around within the mystery substance, trying to figure out what it was.

She turned her head slightly toward Steve.

“Food?” She asked.

“It’s ice cream. Strawberry. Robin said it was your favorite.”

It was so much better than Max had dared to dream. Immediately she dug the spoon in, trying to get a sense of where it was within the small tub. It was harder to operate a spoon since she couldn’t see it, and she’d had one too many situations where she ended up flinging most of its contents all over whomever had brought her the food.

Max lifted the spoon carefully to her mouth and immediately savored the sweet, cold cream, with that slight tang from the strawberries. A smile grew on her face before she could stop it.

“Thanks,” she said in Steve’s direction.

“Hold that,” Steve said, and he guided her other hand to the rim of the cup, and Max clasped it between her thumb and forefinger as she buried the spoon in and scooped more up. She had to keep herself from shoving in mouthful after mouthful of the ice cream because it tasted just as familiar as it ever did, and it sang of summer, and it was so damn good to eat something normal for once.

After she reached the point where she was starting to feel a little sick, she placed the spoon on the tray.

“Done,” she informed Steve.

“Yeah? Okay.” Max felt the spoon and ice cream tub lift from the tray. The slight disappointment at being done with the ice cream was overpowered by the elation it had inspired in her. She was pleased enough to get up and walk a lap. In fact, she wanted to.

“Walk,” She requested.

Steve sounded unsure.

“You want to walk? Okay, um…what do we need to do for that?”

“Walker,” she informed him. “Then walk. You and me. In the hall.”

“Okay. And you can walk all that way?”

“Yes.”

Max heard him get up, heard the clunk of the walker’s wheels against the floor as he pushed it closer to the bed.

“Bar,” Max tapped it with her hand.

Steve had to fiddle with the bar a moment, but she finally felt it lower. She slowly let her feet dangle over the side of the bed.

“Do I need to help you?”

“No,” Max told him, reaching out her hands. “Walker.”

Max heard the walker’s wheels roll toward her, felt the handles hit her palms. She wrapped her hands around them and hoisted herself up.

“IV,” she said. “It rolls.”

“Oh, okay. I roll that behind you?”

“Yes.”

“And…do you know where you’re going?”

“No,” Max smirked a little cheekily. “Can’t see.”

“Yes I know that, thank you. So…what? Do I tell you where you’re going?”

“Yes.”

Max started moving, the walker moving steadily forward. She heard Steve start to roll the rickety IV pole from behind her. Max didn’t mind placing her bare feet against the cold floor. It almost felt good after being in that uncomfortably warm bed for so long. Her legs were cooperating today too, she noticed with some encouragement. Maybe Lucas was right. Maybe she’d be able to ditch the walker soon. The thought energized her, and she nearly missed Steve saying suddenly “whoa, watch the wall. Here.”

Max permitted Steve to steer her out of the doorway, but once they reached the hall, she insisted “I can walk,” and set off down the hallway.

Steve’s solitary presence wasn’t as sure and steady as Lucas’ or Cynthia’s, and Max found she felt a little less secure without them behind her. But it was the same hallway, she told herself. She’d walked it before. As Max steered her walker down the hall, she could hear overlapping voices of the staff and other patients. She tried to gauge it by ear, turning the walker according to how close voices sounded. She could hear the nervousness in Steve’s voice as he attempted to direct her.

“Not there…whoa, Max. You’re going to hit that door.”

Max jumped as she felt Steve grab the walker.

“Max, stop. Let’s go this way.”

She allowed him to help her again, annoyed as she was by his methods. Lucas would have been much gentler. Steve just seemed anxious, and it was putting her on edge. Steve turned her walker completely around and said “we can walk out in the lobby. There’s more room over there.”

Max hadn’t ventured down that part of the hallway yet. But she refused to look helpless in front of Steve.

“Okay,” she said, and started to walk. She shuffled down the familiar hallway until she felt the air change, until she felt the linoleum turn into tile. Max stopped short, allowing herself to drink in the new noises, smell the new scents. Intermittent footsteps sounded around them. There weren’t many people here, she noted. That made it seem a little less daunting. The new sensations were nerve-wracking, though. She took a cautious few steps forward, and her head turned sharply toward a whoosh from nearby.

Sliding doors. She wasn’t standing on the mat – the soles of her feet were still pressed against the tile – but she must be close to it. Either that, or someone must have walked through it. Max took a few more steps forward, and stopped, waiting to hear the sound again. Sure enough, after a few minutes, Max heard the door slide open once more.

This time, however, Max felt a cool breeze wash over her face. She opened her mouth, trying to taste the air before it faded away. Tears filled her eyes. She’d almost forgotten what outdoor air felt like. She was so thirsty for it, and she almost wanted to reach out and grab it, hold the feeling close to her.

“Max?”

Max jumped. She’d forgotten Steve was behind her. Without turning her head toward him, she pointed.

“Let’s go.”

“Go?” Steve sounded confused. He didn’t understand. “Go where?”

“Out,” Max demanded. “Go home.”

“You mean…leave the hospital?”

Idiot. “Yes,” she confirmed.

Max swore she could hear Steve put his hands on his hips. “We’re not doing that.”

“Why?” she demanded.

“Because you’re still healing, Max. And it’s not safe, either. You think Hawkins has just been all fine and dandy out there? It’s getting worse.”

“Friends,” Max asserted.

“Yes, we’re here,” said Steve. “But that’s not enough. Your mom’s still in Indianapolis. Are you gonna hunker down in your trailer by yourself?”

Max trudged stubbornly forward, but a seed of doubt was starting to grow roots within her. Truthfully, she hadn’t thought about what being home would mean for her now. Max had known where things were when she could see them. But now…how would she be able to find anything? Her friends had been so wonderful, but she couldn’t ask any of them to stay with her – practically live with her – to help her figure things out. Suddenly the thought of being home was much more daunting than it had been a few seconds ago.

Max shook her head.

“Home,” she insisted again, despite the now growing sense of uncertainty curling within the pit of her stomach. “I want…to go home.”

“I know, Max. I’m sorry.”

Irritated by his refusal, Max stopped short in the hallway.

“My room,” she requested.

She heard Steve sigh, but he dutifully guided her back to her room without saying much more.

Max heard Cynthia’s chipper voice the moment they walked through her doorway.

“Ah, Max! Just came by to check on you. Will Lucas be back soon, to take you outside?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then let’s get you dressed.”

Steve’s voice sounded from near the door. “Do you…I mean, can I help with anything?”

“No,” Max said a little shortly, still irked by their earlier conversation. “You can go.”

She was sure his facial expression was a little put off, and as she heard Steve’s footsteps trail away, a mixture of regret and irritation crossed paths inside her. He didn’t understand what it was like, being here day after day. She just wanted to leave.

Max reached out her hand.

“Cindy?” she inquired. “Chair. Help me.”

Cynthia’s warm hand met hers, and Max started to move her walker forward.

“Okay, stop there,” Cynthia’s voice sounded after a moment. “I’m just going to untie your gown.”

As the gown strings slithered away, Max felt the chilly air of her room hit her bare back, almost down to her ribs as the gown slid off her. She shivered. Cynthia pressed a bra into her hand, and she slipped it on, her mind elsewhere. This place had become her unwilling home, whatever it looked like. She wasn’t entirely sure it looked the way she pictured it in her head. But she knew its corners, knew its smells and the feel of the air. Her comfortable little prison, with all the tubes and wires and medicines and bullshit.

A certain bitterness simmered in the pit of her stomach at the thought. All of this was bullshit. Max knew it was all to buy time before the Upside Down swallowed Hawkins whole. That was what Steve didn’t get. Why did he feel the need to keep up the pomp and circumstance? Couldn’t he see how close they all were to death, even more than she could?

Cynthia’s arms slipped underneath her own.

“Okay, Max, I got you. Let’s sit in the chair.”

With Cynthia fully supporting her, Max sank slowly into the chair. It felt good to sit in a chair, Max thought. She gripped the handles in her hands, felt her feet against the cool floor. She almost felt normal again. Almost.

Max felt her eyes grow slightly misty again as Cynthia pulled a shirt over her head. She just wanted to be home in her shitty, musty trailer. To get one last feel of the grainy carpet, to inhale one last breath of the smelly old walls, stained with tar and cigarette ash. If they were all going to die, then she’d like one last chance to remember her home in Hawkins with her mother before leaving this world in Lucas’ arms. Surrounded by her friends. That was how she wanted to go, whenever the time came. Exactly how she went the first time.

Cynthia had her stand again, to put on some pants. Max allowed Cynthia to dress her, as much as she hated feeling dependent. It occurred to Max that this might be all Cynthia had left. She knew Cindy was smart; she had to sense that the apocalypse was near. Perhaps Max would be her last patient before the world imploded.

Once Max felt that her pants were on, Cynthia murmured “there we go. Once Lucas returns with your sunglasses, we can get you outside!”

Max allowed herself to lean back a little, letting her head drop to the back of the chair. Thank God. She couldn’t wait to breathe fresh, clean air.

Max was waiting for Lucas as he entered.

Cynthia had dressed her, he surmised, as he saw she was wearing a gray shirt and black pants. Her hair was down, flowing over her thin shoulders as she stood in the center of the room, her hands gripping her walker. Cynthia stood slightly behind her, a hand pressed against her back to steady her.

“Lucas is here,” the nurse told Max, and Lucas smiled as Max perked up. “Remember, Max, I’m going to follow behind with a wheelchair, just in case you get tired. Okay?”

“I can walk,” Max told her, not unkindly.

“Of course you can. You get better at it every day. But you had a rough night last night, so I just want to be safe. Okay?”

Max nodded curtly, then turned her head in Lucas’ direction.

“I’m ready,” she told him confidently.

“Then let’s go,” he responded, pressing her red sunglasses into her hands. Lucas remembered when she’d walked out of Starcourt Mall wearing them, clutching a strawberry ice cream cone in her hand. He remembered thinking they clashed with her red hair as they’d been perched atop her head. Even now, they still clashed. Max hadn’t cared then, and, ironically, she had even less reason to care now. In any case, she seemed pleased to have them back, and slipped them onto her face without a hitch.

They walked arm in arm out the sliding doors, and Lucas started to guide her toward the hospital grounds. Max seemed to be walking fine, even a little eagerly as she turned her head side to side, as if trying to drink in all the sounds. He wondered if the sunglasses were helping her walk better. Without the light disturbing her, she seemed to get a better sense of her surroundings. Lucas was impressed to see Max handle her walker like a seasoned pro, almost as if she still had her sight. Perhaps she’d be able to stop using it sooner than even he thought. Once Max no longer needed the walker, the doctors would give her one of those special canes to help her get around. But for now, he still needed to guide her in the right direction.

The hospital grounds at Hawkins Memorial were calm, quiet, and well-kept. Dogwood blossoms lined the borders of the courtyard near the iron fences. Wildflowers were nestled in colorful patches around the walking paths, tiny bugs buzzing in the clear air around them. Such an idyllic scene for a town half-inside the Upside Down.

Certainly it wasn’t the same experience now as it would have been before. But Lucas was determined to help Max find enjoyment in it. One of the new challenges, he found, was figuring out how to describe things to her. He wasn’t creative like Will, didn’t have a way with words like Robin. As they walked along the path through the garden, Lucas accumulated a small collection of different things - a flower, a stone, or anything else he was able to find. As they lumbered along, Lucas wracked his brain to think of descriptive words that would help her paint a picture in her mind’s eye. To give her another way to see.

Lucas looked over at Max as they paused to let her find her footing in this new space. Max inhaled deeply, and exhaled in a slow breath. Lucas was sure the air in her room became stuffy after a while, and the fresh air must be cleansing for her lungs. The sun’s glow made her pallid skin look even more pale, her veins dark underneath. Her flowing red hair and crimson sunglasses were the only things that seemed to color her cheeks a little, even though Lucas surmised it was a trick of the light. And she was so thin. Lucas had an uneasy feeling that if she was wearing a tighter-fitting shirt, he would be able to see her ribs protruding out.

Lucas cursed Vecna in his mind. He cursed the void, the Upside Down…all of this bullshit that was holding Max hostage. Even though she was walking, smiling, talking more…in this light, she looked sick. Frail and ill, like she’d been so many months ago. A deep sense of foreboding made his blood run cold. He knew she was pushing herself to walk as much as she possibly could, to stand on her own two feet. Lucas couldn’t blame her. He was sure it felt good for Max to move her legs. But she was slowing down more quickly than before. Even now, as he looked at her, he knew her walking time would be limited today.

Sure enough, Max started to slow down after about ten minutes, and Cynthia came up behind them with the wheelchair.

“Max, let’s take a break. Then let’s do the rest of it in the wheelchair. Okay? I know you don’t want to, but do your poor nurse a favor.”

Max looked too tired to resist. She allowed them to lower her onto the grass and lean her against a cherry tree. Lucas sat down next to her, and Cynthia gave them a wide berth, standing ready with the wheelchair nearby.

“Hey,” he said, and she turned her head toward him. “I found something while we were walking.”

Max blinked questioningly, then held her hand out.

“It’s a flower,” he explained, placing it delicately into her palm. “A violet. Deep purple, with yellow and black in the middle.”

Max clasped a velvety petal in between her thumb and forefinger, her brow furrowed in concentration. It was Lucas’ new favorite facial expression of hers. As if she was committing the texture and color to her mind’s eye. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a violet before. This was just the closest she could get to seeing it now.

After she seemed satisfied, she pocketed the violet, and reached her hand out again.

“Find more?” she inquired.

“You know I did. Here.”

He pressed his second discovery - a round stone - into her hands.

“It’s a stone. The color’s gray, like…” He searched for something to compare it to.

Max frowned. “Gray…like clouds?”

“Yes. Yeah. Like clouds.”

She nodded, closing her hand around it.

“Smooth,” she said, then quirked her head at him. “Shiny?”

“A little,” said Lucas.

He produced more things he’d found – a twig, a few acorns, and a dandelion. He even pressed a few sassafras leaves into her palm. Max’s fingers traced the veins of each leaf, rubbed her finger against its rougher texture.

“Max,” he said. “Crush the leaves in your hands.”

She turned toward him, her expression bemused.

“Crush?”

“Trust me. Do it.”

After only another second of hesitation, Max closed her hands around the leaves, smiling a little as they crunched between her palms.

“Now smell them,” he told her.

Max frowned in amusement, but followed suit. Her expression quickly became surprised.

“The smell,” she told him. “I think…oranges.”

“I know, right? Sassafras leaves smell like oranges. It’s so weird.”

“It’s cool,” she grinned.

“So cool,” he amended quickly. “The coolest.”

Max reached out toward him until her hand met his face. She poked his cheek.

“Dork,” she said.

They both laughed. It felt so good to laugh. Lucas was encouraged that her sense of humor was still intact.

They spent the rest of their outdoor outing sitting under the tree, Max’s head resting on Lucas’ shoulder, while his arm rested securely around her.

They didn’t talk much. They didn’t have to. The world was only theirs today, if just for a moment.

Max knew she’d be sore tomorrow.

As Cynthia and Lucas helped her out of the wheelchair, she could feel the exhaustion sinking heavy into her bones. She sank into the hospital mattress, into her pillow, and could already feel it beckoning toward sleep. Something in her mind told her it would be distressing to sleep, that something would happen, but she couldn’t remember what.

Max could hear Lucas above her, murmuring quietly, but she couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. She was fading fast.

“Lucas?” she mumbled back.

Max felt his gentle hand brush back her hair, and suddenly she felt his lips brush against her ear.

“I’ll call El. So she can be there when you sleep.”

Why did El need to be there? Nothing made much sense to Max anymore as she felt herself losing her grip on consciousness. And moments later, she sank into the abyss that was sleep.

It was better and more terrible today.

Sensations were what enveloped Max today as she sat in the endless darkness – smells, sounds, the feeling of hands on her. As tempting as sin. It felt like a sick joke – a tease from the world she was still separated from.

Whether or not Max wanted to rejoin that world, she still wasn’t sure. Sometimes she still wanted to let herself be enshrouded in the darkness that was now so familiar to her. But the real world always beckoned. Things from her physical body were connecting vaguely to her existence here. A feeling, a scent, a word…these things would seep in as she watched her physical body lay helpless in the hospital bed.

The sharp pain in her skull…that was new, and it made her anxious. It happened when a particularly strong feeling or sensation overtook her. The other thing that startled her was the smell of blood accompanying these events. It was barely a whiff, gone as quickly as it had come, but there was no mistaking it. And these episodes were happening more frequently now. She didn’t know what they meant, but they couldn’t symbolize anything good.

“Max. I am here now.”

Max whirled around as El’s voice sounded from nearby. She’d forgotten the luxury of now having El in here with her. El’s presence was a balm for Max’s weary soul. As El walked steadily toward her, arms outstretched, Max wrapped her arms tightly around her friend. She didn’t want to let her go again. The void was such a horribly lonely place, a place that she didn’t wish on anyone, ever. And El was the only person who could sit in here with her.

She clung tightly to her friend.

“I wish you didn’t have to go again,” she whispered into El’s shoulder.

El squeezed her a little tighter.

“I know,” she said, her voice breaking a little. “I am here right now.”

El pulled back from their hug, placing her hands on Max’s shoulders.

“I am here right now,” she said again. “And I am going to bring you home.”

Max could see in El’s eyes that she truly believed this, and it made her own soul perk up a little.

She took El’s hand.

“Ready?”

El nodded resolutely, and both girls closed their eyes, concentrating.

A wind gust rushed by them, and a seagull cried from far away. As soon as Max took a breath, she knew they’d come to the right place. That sandy, gritty smell of her California bedroom. Max opened her eyes to see the orange-beige wallpaper she had so hated as a child, wallpaper that was strangely welcoming now. A few posters hung unceremoniously on the walls: Blondie, Foreigner, the Endless Summer. Her poster of a teen boy halfway through a half-pipe – the black skateboard blurred in the picture – hung over her small, quilted bed. Every object had a new wave of memories attached, and Max found herself unable to speak momentarily as it all filled her vision. Her patchwork quilt, a hand-me-down from Granny. Her tiny end table, with a few photo frames sitting on it – an infant Max and her mother. Young Max on her father’s shoulders. A group photo of the three of them, smiling, sitting on a sofa.

Max was so ensconced in the bittersweetness of it all that she started a little at El’s question.

“Where are we?”

“My room in California,” Max murmured. “See the palm trees?”

The palms were brushing against the window, patchy green against the darkening sky. The wind was picking up, the clouds moving faster. Immediately, Max felt a rush of excitement before she could stop herself. It was about to storm.

She turned toward El, tugging on her sleeve.

“Here, move away from the door.”

Eleven did so, and mere seconds later, a short redhead came through the doorway. Without preamble, the young girl approached her windows, clicking the locks open and pushing the panes open. Then, the girl climbed up on the sill and sat, her legs dangling over the outdoor side of the window.

El touched Max’s arm.

“She is you,” she said quietly.

Max nodded. She had finally figured out why she remembered this day. She’d just come in from skateboarding because a thunderstorm had been imminent. And her favorite part of a thunderstorm – besides the rain – was the crescendoing rush of wind right before lightning cracked the sky open. Sure enough, Max watched her younger self sit up eagerly as the rumble of thunder started to roll in. The palms near the window rustled louder and louder as the gray shelf of clouds descended upon them. The remaining light of the sun grew dim, the shadows of the palms dancing over younger Max’s face. Max was immediately tempted to close her own eyes as younger Max did so, inhaling the rush of rainy air into her lungs, her red hair fluttering around her face.

“You like rain,” said El.

“Yeah,” Max replied, her eyes still glued to her younger self as dark spots started appearing on her clothing from the rain. Younger Max got down from the sill and closed the windows before going and sitting on her bed, her eyes glued to the rain as it slashed against the glass.

Max heaved a deep sigh.

“Two weeks after this, Neil and my mom would sit me and Billy down and tell us that we were leaving California.”

El’s eyes swiveled onto her, and she continued.

“I had a friend. Nate. We hung out together a lot in California. But one day, Billy and his shithead friends were doing something they shouldn’t, as usual. And Nate stood up to them. So Billy broke his arm. And we had to move before his parents filed charges.”

Max felt a pang as Nate’s face resurfaced in her mind.

“I remember hearing Billy through the wall…cursing, yelling, breaking shit. Telling me it was my fault we were moving. Because Nate poked his nose in where it didn’t belong. So we had to move to Hawkins. Away from Nate. Away from my dad.”

Thinking of her dad brought an unexpected wave of sorrow. Truthfully, Max had not thought of him in a while. It wasn’t like he kept in touch. She wondered where he was now, and if he even had a family. A wife who wasn’t her mother. Children who weren’t her.

Max had momentarily forgotten El was standing next to her until she felt El take her hand.

“Do you miss your dad?”

Max’s shrug didn’t make the ice pick in her heart hurt less, but she didn’t want to worry El.

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “But he’s got his own life now. So, it doesn’t matter. Every day, I miss him a little less.”

Max listened to El grapple silently with this information. She seemed to be mulling this over for herself.

“I miss Papa sometimes, too,” she said.

You actually miss him? That psychotic asshole? Max wanted to say.

But she bit her tongue. She understood all too well.

Max immediately started thinking of a less painful memory.

As she and El returned to the void, Max felt a little dizzy, a little sick. But she knew they had to keep going, to make the connection to her body stronger. So before El could comment on how Max didn’t look like herself, Max dragged them into her next memory.

It was nighttime in this one. Dark blue sky hung like a blanket over the Hawkins junkyard, with clouds of fog wrapping the night in gauze. She and El sat on the roof of a defunct bus. It was strange to be sitting on the bus roof without feeling the chill of the metal, or the shivery fall breeze.

El was taking everything in, her widened eyes swiveling around the junkyard.

“Why…are we here?” she questioned.

“We were baiting a Demogorgon,” Max replied.

She would have laughed at El’s shocked expression under any other circumstance. But, like everything else, this situation seemed much more dire in hindsight.

“Why would you do that?” Eleven almost sounded angry.

Max shrugged. “Dustin found a baby Demogorgon in his house. It was eating his cats. He kept it like a pet. And then when Dart got older – ”

“Dart?”

“The name he gave it. The full name is even stupider. D’artagnan. Whatever that even means. But Dustin seemed to think he could train it to like chocolate rather than cats. That’s when Dart ran away. So we were here trying to find him.”

Max couldn’t blame El for looking alarmed. Max had considered it to be fool’s errand at the time, and this notion was only solidified at her current age as she watched shadows bend and shift in the junkyard, watched the outlines of Dustin, Steve, and herself move around within the old bus. In the distance, a dark creature slunk through the fog, and another crept around nearby. Demogorgons. Max had to remind herself that they couldn’t hurt her and El in here. But this younger version of their group was undoubtedly vulnerable. Even against Dart, for whom there was not a shred of evidence that domestication could be achieved in any capacity. An errand for a fool indeed. Fools, all.

The metal of the roof door screeched open. Max and El both turned to watch the younger version of Lucas hoist himself up through the hatch, his binoculars clutched in one hand as he used the other to pull himself up onto the roof. Max couldn’t help but smile a little watching him – curious, eager, intelligent Lucas, his youthful face growing serious as he scanned the junkyard through his binoculars. So keen to drink in what was around him. So unaware of what awaited him in this life.

This year felt like an eternity ago, Max thought with some sadness. They’d been so young then. And so naive. The stakes had felt so much lower, their odds of surviving so much more promising. Their madcap foolishness seemed just that – foolish. They had been stupid, impressionable children. Thinking that the world wouldn’t rip them apart at a moment’s notice.

As she watched younger Lucas survey his surroundings, let her eyes rest on that stupid adorable headband she was sure he’d tied himself, Max wanted to pull this Lucas close to her, protect him from everything she knew was coming their way. She didn’t want that sweet, hopeful face to break, to grow weary like she knew it would. She knew some of that was her fault. If Max could go back and change it, she would. But for now, she focused on holding the memory close in her mind. Trying as hard as she could to imprint it into her subconscious.

The hatch creaked open once more, and Max saw a flash of her own red hair as the younger version of herself climbed uncertainly through the roof door. Yes, she remembered this too. The Upside Down and Demogorgons and Eleven herself had all been myths to her back then. She’d thought they were crazy, the whole group of them. Max had thought she’d moved from California into the Twilight Zone. She could almost hear Rod Serling narrating in the background: “These youngsters don’t know it yet, but what they are about to witness is a creature from another dimension. The Demogorgon. A fearsome fellow with a mouth the size of an umbrella, and enough teeth to frighten a dinosaur -”

This was the first day where Max had questioned her own logic. After seeing Dart, an unidentifiable pollywog creature days earlier, and then going on the hunt for a startingly larger version of him – as they were doing at this point in the memory – she remembered that Lucas’ story had started to hold a note of truth in it, as much as she’d refused to admit it.

Max’s thoughts were broken into by her own voice.

“It’s kind of awesome.”

“Huh?”

“The fog, I mean. Looks like the ocean.”

Nice, Max, she thought to herself, cringing. Lucas didn’t seem put off, though. It was much easier to watch Lucas, Max realized. Watching herself was too strange.

As Lucas asked younger Max if she missed California, Max watched her own eyes go far away as she told him about leaving, specifically about leaving her father. Even now she felt it squeeze at her heart. But younger Lucas remained engaged, and Max felt warmth in her belly as she watched younger Lucas sit up, focus his attention on her, start to listen.

Max felt her gut clench as she heard herself mention Billy. She could hear the pain in her own voice. The fear. The sadness. Things that looked so different now than before. The fear wasn’t concentrated on Billy so much anymore, he was gone, but had expanded out to everything else around her. The sadness – that was still there. And it would always be there.

“I guess…I’m angry too,” younger Max said, her voice now very quiet. “I’m sorry.”

Lucas’ eyes had grown soft and deep. He wasn’t prying, wasn’t trying to get his hooks in her like everyone else. He looked as if he were trying to see.

Max knew what was coming next. He was about to tell her she was cool, and different, and super smart. Lucas’ eyes were about to soften, a crooked grin about to bloom onto his face as he reassured her.

A high-pitched ringing seared through the peaceful night atmosphere. She gasped a little as the colors became oddly intensified, the sounds became crackly and muffled. Lucas’ youthful face had suddenly turned dark, a far contrast from the soft, gentle look that she remembered. Instead, he opened his mouth, and said in a low, unforgiving voice: “You’ll end up just like him.”

Max felt herself stumble backwards a little as the memory faded away and they became enveloped in darkness once more. Her eyes started filling with tears. Her chest felt like it had been punched out. Watching Lucas say it somehow hurt much worse than she’d thought. She could feel El’s concerned eyes on her, felt El’s hand on her shoulder.

“I’m…don’t worry,” Max muttered half in her direction, waving her hand.

“Lucas really said that?” El questioned. She seemed more confused than anything. Max couldn’t answer her. She felt nauseous. Everything felt off, as if every hair in her pores was bent back the wrong way…

No, something was off. Max willed herself to take a few deep breaths, shaking her head.

“El, that’s not what happened.”

Eleven quirked her head at Max, and Max barreled on.

“This isn’t how I remember it. He didn’t say that.”

“But…we are in your memory,” El reasoned. “If it’s your memory, it is what happened. Right?”

Max couldn’t make sense of this. Something was very, very wrong. But it was her memory. Could she have a different version of it programmed in her mind than what actually occurred? She’d heard Mrs. Kelley mention this before. Sometimes when there’s trauma, we tell ourselves a different story than what actually happened. To help ourselves cope.

Mrs. Kelley only talked to people whose brains were sick. And Max knew her real-world brain wasn’t in great shape. Had she been sick for much longer than she’d realized? Or had Lucas finally seen her for what she truly was – a monster-in-waiting? An eventual perpetrator of pain – exactly as Vecna had always whispered to her during those lonely, sleepless nights back home. The nights she’d wanted to die.

Max’s knees buckled from underneath her, and she felt herself sinking to the ground. She felt terrible all of a sudden. Weak, unsteady. Her hands were trembling, her breathing shallow and uneven.

“El, I don’t feel good.”

“We are leaving now. Going back,” El said at once, seizing Max’s arm and tugging. Max felt herself sway in that direction, falling into El’s arms as they resurfaced.

An earth-shattering gasp startled Lucas out of his stupor.

Max’s cloudy eyes had flown open, her chest heaving for breath. Dark blood was flowing freely from both her nostrils. Her pale arms shot out in front of her, grasping wildly at thin air. Seeking someone. Anyone.

And immediately Lucas was there, grabbing her and sitting her up. She clutched his arms in a death grip, still gasping for breath, her eyes wide. El appeared on her other side, wiping her own nose as she put her hands on Max’s shoulder. Will seemed rooted to the spot as he put his hands on his head, his expression helpless. Mike and Dustin sat nearby, frozen, looking terrified.

Max’s skin was clammy, her face white. She vomited over Lucas’ arm onto the bed, the blood from her nose mixing with the tendrils of gray slime that now hung from her mouth.

“You’re okay,” Lucas said at once, brushing her hair away from her face. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

The door slammed open, and Cynthia, along with two other nurses, entered the room.

“Max,” Cynthia said in a raised voice, drawing up in front of her. “Lay back, I need to get a cuff on you.”

Max buried her face in Lucas’ shirt, shaking her head.

“No,” she gulped out.

“Max – ”

“No!”

“Heart rate’s 160,” one of the nurses said shortly, shooing El away so she could get on Max’s other side.

“Max, please – ” Lucas started, but as he watched two more nurses enter the room he knew he would soon be ushered away. Sure enough, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and out of the corner of his eye he saw his friends being shunted from the room. It took all three nurses to pull Max away from Lucas as he was all but shoved toward the door.

“What’s happening to her?” Dustin demanded of the nurse guiding him.

“Her blood pressure’s skyrocketing. Out, all of you. Now.”

Lucas turned back to look, and over the nurse’s shoulder he saw Max struggling weakly against Cynthia and the other nurses as they held down her arms and legs. The needle was in her before he could blink, and the last thing he heard before the door shut was Max cry out “No!” once more, in a long, drawn-out wail.

The metal door clanged behind them as they all poured out into the hallway. Lucas barely heard Mike say “Come on, let’s get some air.”

There were hands pushing him forward down the hallway, out of the sliding doors and into the balmy air. Lucas leaned over, his hands on his knees, feeling like he was going to vomit. Jesus. Watching Max’s emotional distress had been its own torture. But watching her go into physical distress seemed so much more immediate, so much more terrifying. He willed himself not to be sick, taking deep gulps of air as he tried to steady himself.

“Easy.” Dustin and Will came up next to him, supporting him on either side. He could feel Will’s hands shaking, could feel how tense Dustin’s usually easy presence was. Mike seemed to be in a daze.

Lucas had half-expected Eleven to have wrapped her arms around Mike for comfort, but she merely stood rooted to the spot. When she finally spoke, she sounded alarmed. “Max has never been like that before.”

Lucas felt okay enough to straighten up, and he addressed her.

“Being in the void hurts her. It has to.”

“Maybe…she cannot be in there for long periods of time,” El responded, looking troubled. “Last time, we walked through three memories. This time, only two.”

“El, you’ve got powers,” reasoned Will. “You can withstand being in there because of that. But maybe for her, since she doesn’t…it hurts her more.”

“But half of her has been in there for months,” argued Dustin, who seemed to still be recovering from what had just occurred. “If it really hurts her, wouldn’t she have gotten worse instead of better?”

“Maybe they’re cancelling each other out,” Mike finally spoke, his voice slightly uneven. “When she’s here, she heals. When she’s there, it hurts her. But now that she’s aware of the connection…maybe that’s starting to hurt her too.”

Lucas gritted his teeth. There seemed to be no way for Max to get out of this without suffering more than she already had. Everything was hurting her.

“How can we get her out of there faster?” he questioned urgently, feeling the knots in his stomach start to tighten. “What can we do?”

They all looked at Eleven, who was frowning.

“Memories,” she said. “Remember? We have been using her memories to bridge the gap.”

“Vecna would use her bad memories against her,” added Lucas. “So maybe for this, she has to face those bad memories and…survive.”

An additional layer of urgency had now settled over their situation. It wasn’t just that they needed to help Max integrate her real-world body and her void self. Now they were on a time limit. And the longer Max was in the void, the more she would suffer. Either leave her in her current state, where she would get worse, or plunge her deeper into her traumatic memories, where she might also get worse. There was no good option in this scenario. His friends all seemed to silently agree, their faces solemn.

Dustin finally spoke. “Lucas…that’s hell. How could anyone get through it?”

“She’ll have us with her,” he said, though it even sounded half-hearted coming out of his own mouth. Another madcap mission that they had no guarantee would work.

But as Lucas looked at his friends, he knew they had no choice.

“She’ll have us,” he repeated.

It wasn’t enough. But it was what they had.

Nighttime felt like another planet.

Lucas edged around the corner, looking for any nurses before he slipped quietly into Max’s room. He couldn’t seem to stay away, no matter how nauseatingly exhausted he was. Upon entering, he saw Max’s slightly tangled red hair on her pillow, her pale face turned toward the window.

“Max,” he said quietly.

Max swiveled her head very slowly in his direction as Lucas drew up next to her bedside. She lay there, slightly propped up, her milky eyes staring vacantly in the direction of the wall behind him. She seemed dazed, and Lucas thought that perhaps the sedative from earlier hadn’t quite worn off yet. She blinked slowly, her eyelids pulling lazily apart.

“Lucas,” she mumbled, reaching out for him. He sat down on her bed, smoothing her hair back from her face.

“You’re a troublemaker, you know,” Lucas smiled quietly.

Max gave a weak laugh without smiling, covering his hand with hers. His thumb moved over her cheek, up and down, caressing her skin.

After a few moments, she turned her cloudy gaze upward toward him.

“Home,” she said. “I want…go home.”

“I know you do,” Lucas said sadly. “I know. You’re getting better every day.”

“No,” Max mumbled, lifting her hand limply and pointing her finger into his chest. “You. Help me. Go home.”

Lucas frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“You help me,” she murmured hazily. “Home.”

Lucas did know, but he had been trying to come off as if he didn’t. She was asking him to break her out of the hospital. And there were so many reasons why that was not a good idea.

“Max. I can’t.”

Max just looked at him.

“Home,” she said again.

“It’s not safe, and I think you know that. What if something happens?”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You’re still on an IV and you can’t walk without your walker yet.” Lucas wouldn’t throw her blindness in her face, though that was the major factor in most of his concerns. “And after today…if we take you out of here, it could make things worse.”

Max’s expression didn’t change. Lucas could tell she’d been ruminating on this all day.

“I’m…b-better,” she managed.

“Yes, you are. But not all the way.”

Lucas smoothed her hair back again, caressing her face.

“I don’t want anything else to happen to you. I can’t lose you again.”

Max’s eyes started to swim with tears, her bottom lip beginning to tremble, and Lucas’ insides crumbled to nothing.

“No, please. Please don’t cry. Max.”

She tugged on his shirt with her weakened grip. Lucas leaned down toward her and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He pulled her up so that she was sitting upright, him holding her steady in his arms. Lucas rocked her slowly, his hand behind her head. More than ever he wished he could just keep her in his arms forever, protect her from all the world’s ills. He knew this would never be possible. Trouble seemed to follow them wherever they went.

Max sobbed a little, pressing her forehead to his temple.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please. Help me.”

Lucas closed his eyes as Max nuzzled into him a little, sniffling. Hearing her cry melted clean away any resolve he’d possessed. Mike’s previous comment echoed in his mind. This place is what’s killing her.

Yes, Mike might have just been emotional. But maybe he had a point. Maybe this place was harming Max more than it was helping her. And maybe she just needed to be home.

Lucas could feel every part of his body telling him not to do it, not to agree to another cockamamie plan. But it was for Max. His girl. And right now, she was begging him to help her.

Lucas placed a small kiss right next to her ear, leaning toward it.

“Okay,” he whispered.

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