Empty Voids (STRANGER THINGS//STEVE HARRINGTON)

The Monster

"Hey, Cassie. Have you seen Nancy anywhere?" Jonathan asks, his tone full of concern.

Cassie is confused. Last time she checked, she thought that she was with Jonathan. "I thought she was with you."

While Jonathan and Cassie are calling out for Nancy, she is calling out for them as well. Unlike her though, the two of them cannot hear her.

"Come on, Wheeler. Where are you?" Cassie rasps out. She was about to traverse further into the woods before being stopped by Jonathan.

"Follow my voice, Nancy, I'm right here!" Jonathan calls out to her.

They run to a tree, and it looks like there is some plasma-looking stuff all over it. "What the fuck is that?" Cassie asks, touching the foreign substance. Her hand goes further in, and it goes deeper.

"Nancy?" Jonathan calls out, trepidatiously.

A hand reaches out and grabs Cassie's hand. "Jonathan! Cassie!" the voice of one Nancy Wheeler calls out.

"Byers, help a girl out!" Cassie grunts out as Jonathan helps her pull Nancy back from inside the tree.

While Jonathan is hugging Nancy, Cassie squints over at the tree. What the hell did Nancy see there?

After that whole ordeal, the three travel back to Nancy's house. All Cassie could think about is that whatever Nancy saw, it definitely scared her and she did not want to be alone.

Cassie races back into Nancy's bedroom, First Aid kit in hand. "It doesn't look like you're bleeding, but I brought this just in case." Cassie tells her.

"I'm fine. I just need to wash up." Nancy tells her as she leaves her room and goes into the shower.

While she does that, Jonathan and Cassie prepare pillows and sleeping bags on the floor, having a feeling that they are sleeping on the floor. While they do that, Nancy comes back into the room, finishing up her shower.

"Better?" Jonathan asks.

"Yeah." Nancy nods, getting a little confused on what Jonathan and Cassie are doing.

"We found this in the closet. We also figured whatever you saw really freaked you out. If you want, one of us can go home." Cassie explains to her.

"Yeah, no. I...I don't wanna be alone." Nancy responds to her.

Cassie situates herself in the sleeping bag and drifts off to sleep.

The following morning, Cassie wakes up to see Nancy sitting up in bed. Not long after, Jonathan wakes up as well. "Couldn't sleep?" she asks Nancy. In all honesty, she doesn't blame her.

"Every time I close my eyes, I just...keep seeing that...thing." Nancy recalls. "Wherever I was, that place, I think that it lives there. It was feeding there. Feeding on that deer. That means that if Will and Barbara..." Nancy continues, and then trails off.

"Hey. My mom said she talked to Will. If he's alive, there's a chance Barbara is, too." Jonathan tries to reassure Nancy.

"That means that she's trapped in that place." Nancy stresses out. "We have to find it again."

"You sure you want to go back out there?" Cassie asks, getting concerned for the smaller brunette. All she knows is that she doesn't want Nancy to go through what she went through last night.

"Maybe we don't have to. When I saw it, it was feeding on that deer. Meaning it's...it's a predator, right?" Nancy asks, to which Jonathan agrees to and Cassie nods her head yes to.

"And it seems to hunt at night, like a...a lion or a coyote." Nancy further explains, taking out a book and flipping through the pages. "But it doesn't travel in packs like them. It's always alone, like...like a bear."