Yours Truly | B. Hargrove

29

It had been almost a full 24 hours since the encounter with Billy that lead to her meeting the strange girl, Eleven. After Eden dropped the two girls off at Jim Hoppers cabin, who apparently adopted the girl in secret, she headed home. Since she arrived she hasn't come out of her room, let alone out of her bed. Eden was the exact definition of heartbroken. There was nothing Billy could do or say that would help his case at the moment.

The only thing that dragged the girl out of bed was the phone that continuously rang that evening. She ignored it the first two times, but after realizing this person wasn't going to stop she decided that maybe she should see what was going on. As she picked up the phone from its rightful place on the wall, immediate yelling was coming through.

"Eden! Eden, is this Eden? Hello?" A small boys voice shouted through the phone, causing the older girl to pull it away from her ear.

"Uh- who is this?" She asked, confused at the frantic yelling.

"Oh thank god. I'm Dustin, we haven't met but uh you're dating Max's brother. We need you to get to the pool, ASAP!" He quickly explained.

"Why? How did you even get my number?" She sighed out.

"That's really not important right now. We need you at the pool, now!" And with that the strange boy hung up.
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As Eden pulled up she quickly saw a group of kids waving their hands to get her attention. She couldn't help but pull her attention to the boy who sat on the lifeguard tower. He was in a long sleeve shirt, had a cap on and a towel was draped over his legs. The teen furrowed her eyebrows, confused on how he wasn't sweating to death in the 93°(F) weather.

She quickly exited her vehicle and raced to the kids. They all had frantic looks on her face and she was praying Eleven wasn't feeding them the idea that Billy might be.. cursed? Possessed? By this made up monster. Sometimes kids had way too much of an imagination. Max quickly grabbed ahold of her hand and the group now held base inside of a utility closet.

"What the fuck." Eden verbally showed how annoyed she was.

"Does Billy look normal to you?" A boy she'd never seen before but knew as Lucas Sinclair asked.

"How many times are we going to go over this?" She sighed, glancing over to Max and Eleven.

"How many times have you seen him with a shirt on?" Max questioned, a worried look was plastered on her face.

"I-I mean.. it is a little weird." The oldest girl mumbled.

"More than a little!" Nancy's little brother butted in, "he was in a tub with ice. The Mind Flayer likes it cold."

"But he's lounging at a pool, which is like the least Mind Flayer thing ever." Max looked over at Mike.

"Not necessarily. The Mind Flayer likes to hide, he only used me when he needed me. It's like, like you're dormant. Then, when he needs you, you're activated." The smaller Byers boy explained.

"Okay, so we just.. wait until he's activated." Max stated, however it came out more of a question.

"What if he hurts someone? Or kills someone, we can't take that chance." El suddenly spoke up.

"We need to find out if he's the host." Mike have a pointed look toward Max.

The next 10 minutes the children formulated a plan and Eden wondered where she came in in all of this. All the kids could give for an answer was, they might need her help. She still couldn't believe anything they all truly believed. It was ridiculous, made up even. This is the kind of stuff that happens in movies. However, apparently she was about to be proven wrong.
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The pool closed around 10 minutes ago and once all lingering pedestrians had left, the plan was now set in action. The sun was in the process of setting, which left the locker room eerily dark. There was suddenly a clanging of metal at the entrance, right as Billy was about to take his after shift shower.