𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐀𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐀𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 - 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔

[Tuesday, July 2nd, 1985. BEFORE STARCOURT.]

At first, there was only darkness.

An ocean of it.

You were adrift, the waves of darkness carrying you, making you float –

But no. This was no wave.

Your eyes fluttered open when you were placed on something hard and cold, and beneath the blur in your vision, your eyes met a pair of blue ones, hard and cold as steel.

"Stay very still," a hollow voice whispered. And you remembered. Billy, calling you to the supply room of the community pool at the end of your shift to help him carry some cleaning supplies. The hit to the back of your head, the darkness closing in on you as a pair of arms caught your fall.

The second voice, a female one. Hurry. We don't want to let him wait.

"It'll be over soon," Billy Hargrove whispered, his breath stirring your hair.

The world was spinning like a carousel, round and round and round as you tried to move, tried to fight against whatever it was he'd tied around your wrists, your ankles, writhing on the cold concrete beneath you like a fish caught in a net.

A second pair of eyes came into focus, hazel ones.

Heather.

Her gaze was as hollow and flat as Billy's as she ripped the tape from your lips.

And too late, far too late, you realized where you'd seen this hollowness, this burning abyss of Evil in their gazes, before.

One year ago, in the hazel eyes of a little boy fighting against the demon who'd nestled in his mind, fingers tapping away instructions in morse code to close the gate and end it.

Something stirred in the shadows.

Something wicked.

Something...huge.

And the scream stuck at the back of your throat never ripped into the stale summer-night air before something pressed over your mouth, freezing darkness forcing its way down your throat, into your body, your mind, talons of black smoke hacking away at your mind, deeper and deeper and deeper as you tried to keep it out, to fight it, your mind scrambling and writhing like a field mouse in the claws of a bird of prey –

And the world faded to black once more as a voice made of a chorus of whispers echoed through your mind.

You belong to us now.

[Sunday, March 24th, 1986. NOW.]

With the message of Jason and his friends having started hunting for Eddie, you'd refused to leave Eddie alone in the boathouse, but after everything that had happened with poor Max yesterday afternoon, he'd insisted on you joining your friends. And thus, you'd spent the night on the ratty old couch in the Wheeler's basement, the RT unit cradled to your side in case Eddie needed to call for help.

The few hours of sleep you'd managed to get had been filled with nightmares. Of Jason and his friends finding Eddie. Blood pooling over the rotten floorboards of the boathouse. Fire consuming the tiny old building, the woods, everything, Hawkins and everything you loved devoured by flames.

You'd made Eddie swear not to tell any of the others about what you'd realized, the knowledge that you'd been Vecna's first victim. Right now, Max needed all of you – and however you'd unconsciously evaded Vecna's curse, whether it had been Eddie's mixtape which you still listened to every night or something else – the only thing that counted was that Eddie had found the key to break, or at least pause, the curse.