𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐀𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐀𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 - 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟒

[Wednesday, March 27th, 1986.

MIDNIGHT.]

Life's not a game of D&D.

That's what Wayne Munson used to tell Eddie. He'd said it when the cops had escorted a distraught sixteen-years-old Eddie back home because they'd caught him drinking a beer. He'd said it again when he'd picked up Eddie at the police station two years later because Andy Warren had snitched on Eddie's drug dealing, and he'd said it when, a few weeks later, a letter from school had informed him that Eddie wouldn't graduate. And the year after that, when a similar letter had found its way to the Munson trailer.

Wayne had never been one to get angry at Eddie, though.

He'd shouted at him once, when Eddie had still been a kid and he'd accidentally smashed the pane of the kitchen window with a baseball bat – but the way Eddie had flinched and shied away in response had stuck with Wayne Munson, and he'd never again raised his voice at his nephew.

It was the disappointment which stung, probably more than the words warning him not to veer off the right path even though Wayne knew, with all his heart, that Eddie would never wind up like the older Munson brother had.

It were those words, though, that came to Eddie's mind now.

They were true.

While, as in life, D&D was an intricate pattern of choices following each other, tipping into each other like domino stones, the throw of the dice guided by the hands of luck determining the outcome as much as the player's choice...some choices were a gamble.

You rolled the dice and hoped for the best, hoped luck would make you stronger than the monsters.

Sometimes you were lucky and landed a Crit Hit, a natural twenty defeating evil.

Sometimes, you weren't, and the dice sealed your fate.

But Wayne had been right when it came to one crucial point.

When you died at the gaming table, there would be other games, other campaigns.

In life, there was only one campaign.

And no way to get back in once the dice had kicked you out.

[FIFTY MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT.]

Don't try to be cute, okay? Don't try to be heroes.

Steve's words still rang in your mind as you watched the three figures walking away from the Forest Hills trailer park, past the Welcome sign at the side of the road that didn't look welcoming at all covered by tar-black creepers, your friends' backpacks stacked with makeshift-weapons.

Nancy's curly head, Steve's broad shoulders, and Robin, fiddling nervously with the straps of her backpack.

The plan was a simple one.

You'd split into three teams.

Team Creel House in the Rightside Up with Max as Vecna's bait, accompanied by Erica and Lucas.

Team Demobats with Eddie, Dustin and you, waiting for the signal to lure the swarm of bats away from Vecna's lair in the Upside Down version of Creel House and towards Eddie's trailer to clear the path for team number three – Team Crit Hit, with Nancy, Robin and Steve, armed to the teeth and ready to land the killing blow as soon as the bats were gone and Vecna was defenseless in the trance of his making.

A perfect row of dominos, waiting for the first one to be tipped.

Something felt...weird. Off.

As if you all should have been greeted by an army of monsters upon entering the Upside Down again.