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chapter one: get sheet-faced
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THE DEMOGORGON STUCK with Serenity Alexander longer than she'd like to admit.
It had been months, literal months, coming up on a year, actually, since she found out that monsters were real. She shouldn't have let her affect her that much, but come on, it was an actual monster. From a parallel dimension that Will Byers, one of her boys, had been trapped in for days.
The first couple of days after were rough. She had been spending so much time making sure Will, Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, and Dustin Henderson were okay — because, like she said, her boys — that she barely had time to stop and process everything herself. Serenity pushed everything that she had seen to the back of her head and was there for all four of them, watching over them like she normally did.
But at night, that's when everything would come crashing down. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the tall figure of the Demogorgon, towering over her, its claws ready, slime dripping off its body, its flower-shaped mouth opening to reveal rows and rows of sharp teeth that wouldn't hesitate, even for a second, to rip her to shreds.
Serenity, if she did manage to ever fall asleep, would wake up from nightmares of the Demogorgon actually getting her, or worse, one of her friends. She would be screaming as tears rolled down her cheeks, glancing around her room frantically to check that it wasn't real. But the thing was that it was real. That monster could come back at any moment. And her older brother, Spencer, would run into her room and take her into his arms, trying to comfort her over something he knew nothing about.
It was evident that Serenity was struggling. She had gotten quieter and the bright smile on her face dulled to nothing. Dark circles started to permanently stick out on her skin from her lack of sleep and she would jump at any sudden movements near her.
The only ones who understood her struggles were Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers, and of course, Steve Harrington. Well, Steve knew her better than she knew herself, so Serenity didn't really know what she expected.
Steve honestly had a shock once he saw how truly affected his best friend was from this whole thing. Sure, he had a couple nightmares here and there, but this thing . . . it was ruining Serenity's life.
On the outside, Serenity was a ray of sunshine. It sort of made sense since her name literally meant peace. She was Hawkins' resident sweetheart, always helping out with whatever she could and basically being an older-sister figure to the younger ones. And Steve had to watch as one of the people he cared about the most (or maybe the most) got more and more worn down.
