A NEW AND IMPROVED VERSION
Ryan Fordman has lived next door to Steve Harrington her entire life. Her entire life, he'd always been a window away, occasionally shouting across the space between their houses. They were inseparable... at least, they we...
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Ryan stared out the window, watching the giant machine tearing a hole through a solid wall, trying— no, almost succeeding in opening another gate to the Upside Down. The same Upside Down that had nearly killed them all multiple times in the past two years alone. Her little sister had almost died trying to end it twice, and here the Russians were, opening it back up again.
She felt a hand slip into hers, fingers lacing between hers in a strong hold. When she finally tore her eyes away from the window, she saw Steve staring out the window with the same worried and slightly fearful expression that she had. It was starting all over again.
Dustin glanced up at them, speaking in a hushed whisper, "The gate."
On Steve's other side, Axel slightly shook his head. Even though he hadn't been through the trauma of the year before, he had dealt with his fair share of Upside Down monsters and their evil scientist counterparts. He hated the idea of having to deal with it all over again just the same as they did.
Out of the six of them, only three of them knew of the existence of the Upside Down and only Ryan had ever seen a gate to that hellish dimension. Only Ryan had ever been in the Upside Down out of their group. A part of her could feel that gate closing around her, a clawed hand of a demogorgan wrapped tightly around her ankle trying to drag her back into the dark while four hands tried to pull her back to the light.
"What are they doing?" Robin asked, tilting her head in confusion, eyes never leaving the bright lights of the machine. "What is that?" She glanced over at the others, stopping when she saw their expressions. "What is going on? Why do you look like you know exactly what's happening?"
Axel didn't even look away from the machine beyond the window as he responded, "Because we do."
"I'm sorry," Robin blinked. "What was that?"
Steve and Dustin backed away from the door, Ryan dropping Steve's hand to rub her temples. What the hell were they supposed to do? While she had been waiting for the other shoe to drop since last November, they were still extremely unprepared to handle this. Hell, she didn't even have her gun. Steve's bat was in the trunk of the car which was above their heads in the mall parking lot. And she wanted El far, far away from this mess, though she knew that was a fool's dream.
"We need to get out of here right now and find Hopper and get the group together." She said finally. At least she'd get to see Nancy and Jonathan again.
"Yeah," Steve nodded, Dustin mirroring his motions. "Come on."
"What does your pseudo-father have to do with this?" Robin started as they rushed away from the door, the questions coming out faster than anyone had a chance to answer, if they even had the ability to answer. "What group? What the hell is going on?" When no one answered as they ran down the stairs, Robin tried again in a different way. "I don't understand. You've seen this before?"
