'tis the damn season

Forty-Two: Mine

"You learn my secrets and you figure out why I'm guarded. You say we'll never make my parents mistakes" 

I sat on Max's couch feeling a little intimidated as everyone's eyes were focused on me. I'd just finished explaining to them how Vecna was actually Henry Creel, and also One. He obviously knew El, so it was possible they knew each other from the lab.

Everyone was quiet. They were processing, trying to make sense of it all. I'll admit, I'd seen everything with my own eyes, and was still have a hard time grasping it.

"So what did he say to you?" Nancy asks, standing across from me.

I take a deep breath, remembering back to the vision I was stuck in only hours ago. "After I saw all that stuff with Henry, I was strapped to this chair, and Vecna, he came up to me and told me to tell El, everything he was about to show me," I explain, with a slightly shaky voice. "It was like... bits and pieces of scenes. It was Hawkins, except it was completely destroyed. People were dead, houses were on fire, and those bats, and those dog things you guys have talked about, they were everywhere. All over the streets, in our homes. And then he showed me my family, and all of you guys—all dead. He was taking over."

Steve shifts in his seat next to me. "He was probably just trying to scare you," he says gently, pushing my hair back over my shoulder.

I shake my head at him, knowing what I saw. "No, no, he was showing me what he's going to do. Those gates he's been making, had spread. There were four them, that broke apart and tore through Hawkins. Our Hawkins, not the upside down. He's trying to bleed the upside down and our world together and make them one."

"Four chimes," Max says, suddenly, looking at me. "His clock always chimes four times."

"Four gates, four kills... end of the world," Lucas clarifies.

I lean back into the couch, squeezing my eyes shut, as Max heads over to the phone on the wall. Steve pulled me against him, letting me rest my head on his shoulder, sinking into him.

I noticed Dustin kept glancing at Steve and I, I assume because he wasn't used to seeing us together. Everyone's eyes here flicked over to us once or twice as we sat there, looking quite a bit more 'friendly' than we usually did.

"Who are you calling?" Nancy asks Max.

"Eleven," she says, as she holds up the phone to her ear.

"They haven't answered me for days," I say, not moving from my spot against Steve. I swear I could have just fallen asleep here.

Max hangs up the phone after dialling their number twice. Still no answer from them.

"We'll just have to kill Vecna without them," Nancy says, confidently.

Eddie scoffs at her, standing up from his spot on the coffee table. "It's not a fair fight, he's got an army of monsters on his side and has super powers, and we have nothing. We barely made it out of there in one piece."

I sit up from the couch, moving to stand with Nancy. We had to stop him. "But this time we'll be prepared," I say. "We'll get weapons, and protection, we'll go through the gate, we'll find his lair, and we'll kill him."

"Or he'll kill us," Steve says, looking at me seriously. "The only reason you survived is because he let you. He's not scared of us."

"And for good reason," Robin says, standing up. "We were wrong about Vecna... Henry, One; sorry, what are we calling him now?"

"Vecna."

"One."

"Henry," Dustin, Lucas, and Nancy all say at the same time.