PRETTY WASTE ! - stranger things

002. girls

"WORRYING ABOUT MY
BROTHER FINDING OUT.
WHERE'S THE FUN IN DOING
WHAT YOU'RE TOLD?"

- girls, the 1975

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AURORA HARRINGTON WAS
seconds away from having an aneurysm.

Her father and his wife were out of town for the third time this month, and Steve had decided that was the divine sign he had been awaiting for.  That he just needed to throw a party.

(God. She wasn't even kidding about the aneurysm part.)

Aurora understood the need to a certain level, the house was too quiet. Too perfect. It always had been, but whenever Mr. and Mrs. Harrington left, it was somehow even worse. Aurora hated this haunted house, cursed to never be a home.

She might have been grateful to have a distraction, the noise might even scare the ghosts away.

Except it wasn't a party.

It was only Carol and Tommy. And she was not invited. Mind you, this was her house. It would never be her home but it still was her house. She was outraged, truly.

Aurora sighed, rolling in her pink bedsheets, trying to focus on the algebra in front of her.

Vivienne was right as usual, Steve was so a dick. At this point, he had to be overcompensating. He was a brainless, pompous, dickhead. And if he had offered her a place by his side during his not-party, she would've said no, if only out of spite.

(She still wishes she had been invited)

Especially after the dream she had last night. Her night was filled with a blurry vision of a lonely bicycle in the middle of the road, Aurora had felt a need to run. To hide.

And as it happened in dreams, she didn't really know the origin of those feelings. Compelled by some invisible force, she had walked into the forest, barefoot. The grass was wet under her toes. Suddenly the sky turned red, the branches of the trees surrounding her became black, rotten. It looked as if the foundations of the ground in itself was corrupted.

Corruption plagued her mind.

She awoke with a sharp gasp, covered in a thick layer of cold sweat. It wasn't uncommon for her to get nightmares. Her nights were plagued with foggy visions of hospital gowns and weeping children. When Aurora closed her lids, the mind that layed underneath, the one she saw during her dreams, terrified her.

Unknown fact about Aurora Harrington: She was probably mad. Like, clinically.

Or she would be. Give it a couple years and the only memory that would remain of her, would be a somewhat strange teenager who ended up devoured by her insanity. By her twisted brain and the visions it would conjure.

Poor little almost-Harrington. From such a good family too!

Once upon a time, Steve would have been the one to comfort her after a bad dream when he was still a soft-feautered child with a heart of gold. Her brother had gotten rid of his Spiderman t-shirts and replaced them with a superiorness suit. He wore his patronizing smiles like a crown, and he was applauded for it. Aurora suspected that his head had gotten so big from the lame compliments that he had to cover it all up with hair.