"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter Two: The Day It Began
(The Vanishing of Will Byers, Pt. 2)
***
*trigger warning: racist and ableist language and terms*
Rowan gasped, feeling her lungs contract, like she was running low on oxygen or panicking. Wheezing and spluttering, she made herself sit upright, feeling water splash underneath her hands. She looked around, and saw that it was dark; was she awake? No, that didn't make sense, not when she felt water.
And then she saw that the darkness was not the hazy grey-black of night; it was complete and utter darkness. A void of blackness, stretching on around her endlessly.
It reminded her of her mom's shadows, but devoid of her light, her love. Rowan shivered; she wanted to look away, but she couldn't. She couldn't even close her eyes.
Standing up, Rowan noticed that below her was more darkness, making her feel like she was suspended in shadow. She ignored the sick feeling inside her and walked forward, trying to see where she was, where a way out could be. She didn't know how long she walked, searching fruitlessly, for hours or days or years.
When she was about to give up, that's when she heard it.
More splashing.
Turning her head, Rowan felt her heart stop when she saw a small, familiar form.
The shaved-head girl with the number on her wrist.
This time, she was wearing some sort of weird bathing suit instead of the hospital gown. And she looked... scared.
Concern and her older sister instincts kicking in, Rowan followed the girl, keeping a far distance; whenever she saw the girl, it was like a spectator watching in. Not this time. This time, she felt her body, felt the light weight of her pyjamas hanging on her, the fabric against her skin, the feel of water underneath her bare feet. She felt like she was actually here.
And she didn't want the girl to realise that there was another person here with her.
But perhaps Rowan didn't need to worry about that, because she heard another noise—a crunching, squelching noise, and a weird chirp-whimper. Dread squirmed inside her, but Rowan pushed forward, knowing that if she heard it, then the girl heard it too and Rowan would be damned if the source of the noise, which may or may not be dangerous, hurt her.
Soon, the source was revealed.
A pale, hulking, long-limbed thing was kneeling on the ground, eating something that looked like some sort of large, alien egg. It's body looked humanoid, but Rowan couldn't see its face. Her dread increased and her instincts were screaming at her to run, to jump, to teleport as far as she could from the thing in front of her before it realised she was here, and before she could do anything the girl reached out, pressing her fingers against its knobbly back.
