I was in the void again, looking for Max. I wanted to talk to her again. I tried to remember where I had found her last time and walked in that direction. After a few minutes of wandering, I saw her standing in the water, her back turned to me. I could sense that something was wrong, but I ignored it. As I approached her, she began to speak.
"El, what did you do?" Max sounded upset. I walked closer and saw something horrible. Max was staring at a forest of pillars like the ones in Henry's lair. Each pillar had a mangled body tied to it with vines. The first ones I saw were the bodies of four teenagers. A red haired girl who's corpse was waterlogged and rotted, her glasses shattered and a vine growing out of her mouth. A blonde with a Hawkins Cheer Team uniform on, her shirt torn and bloody. A boy with glasses and a sweater vest, his fingers bent unnaturally around his notepad. And the bloody body of Billy Hargrove, black liquid dripping from his mouth.
There were many more behind them. Soldiers, scientists, the children from the lab. All of them were there, their eyes, or at least the sockets of them, boring into my soul. I turned to Max for comfort, but was met with even more fear. Max's eyes were white, blood dripping from them like tears.
"Why are you scared? You did this to me," Max said calmly. "You killed me, just like you killed them." She gestured towards the pillars. I looked around again, realizing she was right. I let Henry loose, I opened the gate to the Upside Down, I destroyed so much without caring who got hurt.
"I didn't know," I made out between sobs. "Henry and Papa tricked me."
"That doesn't mean it isn't your fault! You killed me! You killed all of us!" Max was angry now, her voice rising with every word. That broke me. I fell to the floor and started screaming.
"It was an accident! I didn't want to do it, I didn't mean to!" I kept repeating it over and over. I didn't mean to. It was an accident. I was a child, I didn't know. I don't know how long I had been lying there before Max spoke again.
"We don't forgive you. We never will," Max had regained her composure. "You should have died instead."
Author's Note- So, just a quick announcement! I have had some issues with alcohol recently, so it will no longer be mentioned in the story. I am still writing in other drugs for the addict characters, but if you end up being confused that they aren't alcoholics anymore, just wanted to be clear!
