ARTEMIS | Max Mayfield

- Chapter 1 -

- A R T E M I S -

- Caught Up Thoughts-

- 3RD Person P.O.V -

     Artemis Whitelock woke up that morning with a good air around her. Through the glass window of her room, sunlight seeped through the sliver left uncovered by her curtain. The liquid gold bathed her blanket wrapped body with a warm glow. Though her windows were closed and locked, the chilly autumn air seem to find other ways to slither within her room.

The girl still laying on her bed didn't mind.

It was the chilly kind of cold that made you want to wrap a blanket around you to cozy up and sleep in for the day.

Artemis was tempted to do just that, though, she knew it would end up ruining her plans for the day in favor of sleep. So she propped herself on her bed's head board, a calm look on her features as she faced her bedside table, searching to find the time on her alarm clock.

The raven haired girl woke up with no help needed from the clock, and she woke up content with the sleep she had gotten from the night before. A shock enough as it was.

She hadn't had many nightmares like she did the months prior. The curious dreams occurring to her just after she was discharged from the hospital, the same day as her best friend, Will Byers was. That was almost eleven months from now.

To anyone, they would have thought of it as ages ago, but when the odd nightmare or two visits Artemis, it just made all the scars she had feel like fresh wounds. And every time she had one, she always woke up in the middle of the night, gasping with tears streaming down her face.

Yet she never felt sadness for tears to well up in her eyes. All her nightmares never made her feel sad or scared, just uneasy and suffocated. It always left the lasting feeling of being paralyzed and helpless within her.

The difference today and last night, a welcomed difference, was that she didn't have a nightmare to awaken from, and she was just thankful she hadn't.

The Whitelock girl was now sitting on her living room's couch. On her lap, she held a bowl of left-overs from the night before, just heated from the microwave. A lazy feeling had kept her from making new breakfast that morning, but she didn't mind the food, it was fine and most of all, convenient.

Just yesterday, Friday, she had spent a fun time at the Byers' household.

A longtime friend of her and her mother's, had once again invited her for dinner at their home and Artemis was always thankful towards the thoughtful and kind Joyce Byers.

Artemis knew she was a busy woman. Joyce often worked all the shifts she gets at work to provide for her family as a single mother. Artemis was also happy she had found someone to help her and be there with her now, unlike her past partner, Bob Newby was a suitable boyfriend for Joyce, a kind, funny, and sort of nerdy one. The man, Artemis would describe, had a kind heart and often liked to give comfort to anyone who needs it. And honestly, Artemis was just happy Joyce wasn't paired up with another asshole to ruin her life, she thought Joyce deserved a good rest and company. That was why she felt extra special to even be thought of by the Byers matriarch.

Artemis peered at the television in front of her, it spouted of the morning news, though Artemis felt uninterested on the public everyday events in the town of Hawkins. Most of them were common and petty things anyway. She also didn't care for the mind-rotting game shows with over sexualized lady entertainers used to attract male gazes. But she did feel sorry for them.

Artemis' mind wanders to the homework she had finished the day before, thinking about if she had forgotten anything else. She felt weird, how she had to worry about these things now. To her, she felt it different from how her home-schooling was.