Would you love a creature? - Eddie Munson x Y/N

Chapter 21- Final Chapter

Y/N

You, Eddie and Wayne waited until it was dark before you drove down to the old Hawkins Lab site. You felt fear rise in your stomach as you stared up at the looming building through the van window. Every memory from your life there came flooding back, every abusive word, every painful experiment, every forced test. They all swirled around in your head and you started to regret your request.
You feel Eddies hand clamp around yours and your resolve returns. As long as you had Eddie here you knew you'd be safe. You had to see this place abandoned and no longer a threat.

Wayne parks around the back, out of sight of anyone passing by and you and Eddie get out.
"I'm gonna stay here, you kids be careful, I'll be right here when you're done" Wayne says.
Eddie holds your hand as you find a boarded up broken window. Eddie pulls the board away with ease and you both crawl through into the all too familiar green hallway, the shine of the tiles against the light of your torch making bile rise in your throat.
"This is the way I ran" you whisper, recognising the same hallway you'd thrown the orderly down, feeling a pang of shame at the violent act.

From memory you lead Eddie through the upper hallway and down the flights of stairs until you reach the floor you were all kept on. You walk past the murals on the wall, flowers and animals and rainbows, depicting an illusion of happiness and childhood, a far cry from the abuse and horrors you all experienced.
Eddie keeps his sights on you at all times, watching how you're handling this. He watches your eyes as they wander over the almost derelict building around you and how your life must have been here. Even this run down everything looked so clinical and cold, it wasn't the place for a child, and you'd endured this until you were 18, how you'd come out of it as kind, soft and gentle as you were is something that will always amaze him.

"This was the playroom" you say as you enter a large white room with colourful stripes around the walls, discarded bookshelves and filthy cushions littered the floor. "This was where it happened, this was where the fight broke out" you whisper, touching the space on the wall where 009 was held against the wall, the look of fear on her face was still burned into your memory.

Eddie keeps a tight grip on your hand as you pull him back through the hallways towards a series of rooms, large windows facing into empty rooms with tables bolted down in the middle.
"These were the rooms we were forced to perform in, no matter how hard we found it. They'd make us use our powers until we cried, even then they sometimes made us carry on" you say, your voice quiet, part of you still scared Papa will come round the corner at any second and re-capture you.
You carry on up the hall towards your bedrooms.
"This was my room" you say as you enter the room you'd spent so many years in. Your gaze is pulled towards a colourful picture on the wall, a picture you remembered drawing when you were 8 or 9. It was filthy and faded but it was still hanging on the wall, a painful reminder that you'd been here, proof you'd existed between these walls and endured all the horrors you remembered so vividly.

Eddies arms wrap around your waist and his head buries into your hair, kissing your head softly.
"I will never let anything like this happen to you again, sweetheart" he whispers.
You rest your hands on his, the duality of this moment flicked a switch in your brain.

As painful as your past was, you had a future. Eddie was your first taste of the outside world, your first experience of warmth and compassion, your first safety net and your first real home.
You stood in your past, now crumbling and empty. It was nothing, it would never hurt anyone again, it was an empty building full of ghosts and fleeting moments that existed only in memory. It would always be with you, nothing could ever wash away that trauma, but leaving the picture in this dystopian setting was leaving that part of you, that child you had been, behind.

You take Eddies hand and lead him back through the hallways. Climbing back up the stairs and out of the broken window, your lungs filling with clean air as you step outside again.

You turn once more, taking in the sad building, Eddies hand gripping yours tightly as he gazes at you.
You look up at him, his warm eyes and comforting smile filling your body with so much happiness is pushes away any residual sadness you ever felt in this god forsaken place.

You turn, leading Eddie back to the van.

Turning your back on your past and finally walking away with your future in your hand.

The end