𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐘 𝐍𝐔𝐌𝐁 | 𝐄𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐌𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

☆ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 1

THE RETURN TO HAWKINS was less scary than Sam had thought it would be. The streets were busy with people, cars and bikes while the shops had their doors widely open, ready for costumers in the early spring morning. The town looked as if nothing had happened, as if the events of the Mall and the lab were erased and Sam guesses that's what had always pulled her connection to this town. The way people could still pretend like nothing had happened and live on with their lives.

Sam had already met up with Nancy and Mike whom she would be staying with for the break. Well, not with Mike because he was going to California to see Eleven and Will. Sam got to talk to Mike only for two days and since tomorrow morning (basically today) he was going to California but with Nancy? Lord, they chatted all night the day Sam arrived. They were catching up on everything even though they had been sending letters to each other the whole year.

Nancy told her about her job at the Hawkins High newspaper, she told Sam about Mike and the rest of the kids and how they have been even though, again, they had already told each other everything already by letters. In a way, it was different talking about it in real life because for one, they could add more facts and plots to the story and for two, it's easier to talk it out rather than write it with hands. Sam, on the other hand, told Nancy about her life in California and how different it was from Indiana and Yew York. She told Nancy about her college, the people there and a little bit of how it changed her.

Although, she tried to avoid talking about her father, the grief and pain she was still feeling.

You see, last year when her father, Jim Hopper, died while trying to close the gate that the commies opened, Sam moved in with the Byers and Eleven. They all moved to California, away from all the trauma and shit. Now, there, Eleven was Jane, Jane Hopper. She had been Jane Hopper since before the Mall chaos when Sam's dad decided to adopt Eleven with the help of doctor Owens. Sam already had Jonathan and Will as her brothers, she had always thought of them as such, way before everything went downhill. Eleven became her sister the year when she was kept away from the bad people by her father in the small cabin where they were hiding.

All in all, Sam finally got the courage to come back to Hawkins.

At first, she didn't talk, didn't eat, didn't speak. She would just blankly stare out of the window of her new bedroom and space out. She became a ghost in a world full of people, a ghost her father had once ignored. God, how she wished she could turn back time even if she had to go through that period again.

To be honest, she doesn't remember much of how her summer, winter or even autumn had went. Jonathan had tried to be there for her and she was thankful for that but even then, even when she finally let herself cry in his arms, none of it seemed to help. The burning pain she was feeling in her heart was slowly eating her alive and she desperately tried to breathe, to keep staying on her feet.

"Zoning out again, Sam?" Robin asked.

Sam flinched and glanced at the girl.

Robin was stuffing movies around shelves. She and Steve started working in Family Video, three months after the Mall chaos.

"Sorry," mumbled Sam.

"It's fine, maybe go take a walk?" Asked Robin, glancing out of the door.

Sam had came to visit Steve and Robin after her arrival and since yesterday she could only quickly say hi to the kids and some of the students from Hawkins High, she didn't have time to properly talk to Robin and Steve. They definitely haven't been talking for three hours this morning though, no, not at all.

"Yeah go walk around." Added Steve from two rows away, holding movies in his hands.

"Wow, I come back and y'all tell me to leave upon my first days here." Joked Sam, picking up her backpack and walking towards the door.