CHAPTER ONE: THE DAY BEFORE IT BEGAN

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Chapter One: The Day Before It Began

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Chapter One: The Day Before It Began

(The Vanishing of Will Byers)

***

Ring! Ring! Ring!

The obnoxious blaring of the alarm clock was abruptly silenced when a hand shot out and, in fumbling for the button to shut it off, a spark of white-blue snapped forward and into the machine and shorting it out, quieting it but alarming the teenager, her fingers still gripping it.

"Shit," she muttered. She hadn't meant to do that—that was the exact opposite of how she wanted to shut the damn thing up.

But now it was eerily quiet and slightly smoking from her frying it. She winced; that didn't look good.

Her aunt was gonna kill her.

Speaking of which...

"ROWAN!" came the familiar voice of her aunt, echoing down the corridor from the front of the mobile home. "You better haul your ass out of bed and into this chair before I drag you out! And don't think of pretending to be asleep and not hearing me; I heard your alarm go off! Now get up!"

The teenage girl, Rowan, groaned and reluctantly crawled out of her warm, comfy bed. Giving the fried clock another cursory glance, Rowan shambled out of her room like a caffeine-addicted zombie who was on her third day of withdrawal and into the main area where the living space and her aunt's work area was, the two spaces separated by a thick burgundy curtain. The smell of bacon and frying eggs was in the air, making Rowan's stomach growl hungrily. The croon of Elvis Presley drifted from the record player perched precariously on the rickety chest of drawers next to the small stove as Rowan's aunt, Aconite Graveswood, or Aco as she preferred to be called, hummed along as she tended to breakfast. At the scratched fold-out table was her little brother Alistair, his curly hair mussed from sleep and still in his pyjamas as he inhaled his Fruit Loops cereal and reading something that Rowan assumed was his and his friends' latest Dungeons and Dragons campaign for today and his character's reference sheet as preparation for it. When he noticed her presence, he looked up and grinned, but despite his sunny smile, Rowan could see the dark circles under her brother's eyes, circles she assumed were under her own eyes.

"Morning, Ro!" Alistair greeted.

"Morning," Rowan returned, sliding into her seat. She eyed the papers and asked, "Is this for the campaign this weekend?"

Alistair, whose eyes had wandered back to the papers, snapped his attention back to her and nodded. "Yep! Mike has planned a really good campaign; I wanna make sure I'm prepared! You can never tell what he's gonna do when he's the Dungeon Master..."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you'll be ready," Rowan said. She then smirked and ruffled her brother's messy curls. "Just don't forget to shower; last time, Aunt Aco had to fumigate the trailer because you stank so bad."

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