Opposite Ends

Y/N October 1985

It had not even surpassed a month since the quote 'Fire of Starcourt Mall devastates Hawkins' had been splayed across static ridden TV sets in almost every household as it broke across our dearest - and allegedly cursed -towns news headlines and quickly spiralled into a national sensation, the deaths of the flayed blamed on it.

I didn't have to imagine what people thought about that "poor dammed Hawkins town' when they saw the news, up until June I was of the same mind as the rest of the towns terrified residents. Housewives had huddle together in the aisles of Hawkins stores; heads close together as the whispers broke out above the white noise.

"Yes, that's right, ever since that Byers boy went missing, nothing has been right and all of these tragic deaths. I'm telling you Helen; it almost devilish what's been happening. Hawkins can't catch a break, we're cursed, cursed I tell you."

And with those venomous words loudly whispered into the eagerly awaiting ears of the notorious town gossip, it had taken only all of an afternoon for that gossip to turn factual and become the opinion held in the highest regard by most residents. Unlike those oblivious to the actual truth, I liked to think I wouldn't have been so naive and gullible to believe the theories circulating the grapevine, some even more farfetched and implausible than what actually occurred last summer.

Well, almost, I amended. Sometimes I wondered if I would have been better off being continually blissfully unaware of what was beneath my feet at this exact moment. But my brother Dustin and his nerdy friends had come to me for help, whirling me into the most thrilling and traumatising week of my life.

Somehow having read some Russian literature and being able to crack some stupid code that Dustin wouldn't explain the importance of, corelated to me being stuck in a secret Soviet Russian base elevator underground the famous Starcourt mall. I had sat with my head between my knees for hours, the cold metal of the grates in the floor pushing into my thighs while Dustin explained the past 3 years of our lives from his point of view.

I couldn't keep up with his voice. Between some band geek from school that I recognised by face only, rubbing my back and kept asking if I was going to hurl, Lucas Sinclair's kid sister humorous running commentary interrupting Dustin's story at points and Steve the freaking hair Harrington pacing with his hands on his hips, inspecting the roof and telling Dustin to hurry up. I cut him off halfway through telling a story of something called a Dart. His goofy grin faded from his face as I stood up quickly, rubbing my hand roughly against my eyes to push away the images his irrational words had painted.

"Let me see if I've got this." I had started ticking off my fingers.

"Byers wasn't lost in the woods but was in fact in some other underground dimension of Hawkins."

"The upside down." Dustin interrupted me.

I continued like I hadn't heard him "There's some girl with superpowers who always saves you guys, and there's something called a demodorgan that eats people?" Dustin opened his mouth to correct me, but Steve beat him to it.

"We don't have time for this dingus, in case you haven't noticed we are stuck in a literal Russian based filled with soldiers that are probably going to shoot us the moment they find us." His voice raised to an unattractive shrill at the end, I examined him closer, dressed in that dorky ice-cream uniform with panic plastered across his face it was hard to imagine that he had once been my biggest crush in middle school. Although I doubted I looked much better.

"One last thing." I grumbled as my hands flailed at my sides "Everyone else, literally everyone else knew about this except for me?" I questioned the room, but my eyes were on my baby brother. Anger was coursing through me, but also shame, it was hard to not believe that what he was saying was true given where I was standing at that very moment, no matter how preposterous all of it sounded, but shame at the fact that he hadn't included me in this earlier. That Steve the hair Harrington had been a better older sibling than I had, I had been too focused on getting the best grades in school and over analysing every interaction I had with Billy while giggling with my friends, to see what clearly had to be happening in front of my eyes.