𝗨𝗚𝗟𝗬 // 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗼𝗻

036

By the time we get to Reefer Ricks, the sun has fallen to rest and the night sky dawns on us, the only lights in the cold fog being from our torches.

"Eddie?!" Dustin bangs on the houses doors, shouting for his friend. "Eddie it's Dustin! We just wanna help!"

The shouts cause anxiety in my soul so I find myself wandering to the side slightly, noticing Steve keeping an eye out for me. It's only then that I notice the massive garage like house behind.

"Hello?" As we walk into the building our torches shift to a shade of red in the darkness, it doesn't help the spooky atmosphere already waltzing with the creaks in the floor boards.

"Hey," Steve whispers to me as he grabs my hand, "Stay close to me."

Dustin spots a mound of tarp in the middle of the room, pointing silently at the popular boy who awkwardly scratches behind his neck for a moment before furrowing his brows seriously at me, "stay behind me."

He moves to pick at a peddle hung on the wall and begins to poke at the tarp and a relieved sigh escapes my lips when nothing happens.

"What did you do that for?" Dustin questions,

"I thought he'd be in here."

"Then take of the tarp!"

"If you're so brave you take off the tarp!"

I follow Steve as he continues to hit around with the peddle until something in my torch light beckons me and I find myself walking over to a bunch of chip packets and beers, half drunk.

"Hey, guys, look over here."

Robin and Max crowd around me, "he must've heard us, gotten scared and ran," the ginger girl states, shining her own torch on the snacks now.

"Don't worry, Steve will get him with his oar!" Dustin's sarcasm practically echoes through the room as Steve continues hitting, "ha ha I know you think you're being funny Henderson, but considering everybody in this room has nearly died a hundred times I don't find it funny in the sli-"

His mum rant is interrupted by a sudden emerging from the tarp as something tackles Steve in the darkness, fear overcomes me as I scream for my boyfriend. "Steve!"

It's only a moment for us to notice this figure is Eddie, holding a knife to my boyfriends throat.
I knew he found Steve annoying but I never knew it was this bad.

"Woah! woah! woah! Eddie!!" Dustin screams out for his alternative friend, despite me and the girls aggressively beginning to pull him back. I know Eddie isn't dangerous, but this Eddie isn't the same as usual.

His head snaps towards the young teen in silence as Dustin tries to calm him down, "it's me, it's Dustin!"

"And Max, and Robin, and Ruby!" Eddie's glossed eyes had glanced at me, "you know Ruby!" There was a recognition hidden inside of them as he appeared to slowly blink out of his spell. I smile at him, a shy smile as I do a tiny awkward wave.

"And that's Steve! Ruby's boyfriend you know Steve! He's not going to hurt you!" The boy desperately pleads with Eddie as the curly haired man looks frantically between the two.

As Steve drops his ore Eddie's hold on my boyfriend grows tighter and I feel a scared gasp escape my lips, definitely not helping the situation as Eddie seems to twitch.

"What are you doing here?" His gaze never leaves Steve's, as if he's too afraid to look at us.

"We're here to help." His eyebrows furrow in confusion.

"You remember Robin right? From band!" Robin makes a gesture and mimics playing the French horn, an action that would make me laugh in other circumstances, "she's- she's harmless! And max well max is the girl who never wants to play DND!" It appears Dustin is trying to make Eddie more familiar with his surroundings.

"And like I said- you knowwww Ruby Eddie! She's in hellfire with us I mean- she wouldn't hurt a fly."

He repeats his earlier sentences in a hurry, emphasising the word know in a way I don't understand.
At least, for some part, the reassurance seems to work as Dustin proclaims one last time, 'we're on your side,' and Eddie begins to back away from Steve, leaving him with one last shove before crouching in the corner.

"Ouch, Jesus," Steve proclaims as I run up to him frantically, rapping my arms around his torso as I pull him into me. We sit in the corner, his body laying on mine as I hug him so tight he can probably barely breath, a shy laughter escaping his throat as I pat his beautiful hair.

Robin comes over to check on him too, simply whispering, "are you okay doofus?"

Eddie's eyes hold no life, as if he were a ghost amongst the living. Dustin tries, kneeling to the height of where the older boy sits, shaking ever so slightly. This isn't the attitude of a killer.

"We wanna know what happened."

He shakes his head as tears fall from his eyes and wave across his cheeks in the pale blue of the room, almost reminding me of a soft drop of rain.

"You won't believe me," he's not looking at Dustin, or Robin, or Steve, his eyes are locked with mine. I can't begin to understand what he's thinking or feeling, but I know the best thing to do is give him a warm, reassuring smile, "try us."

****

The horror of Eddie's words seeps into my lungs as my breathing begins to tug harder in my throat, as if the small string of air refused to leave.

Dustin seemed to understand more of what Eddie was saying, implying it was Vecna behind this, a notion that would seem like fantasy to me if I didn't know the dark contexts.

My skin goes cold as I imagine every word from Eddie's lips in excessive detail and a part of me catches onto a memory from the very same day.

"It was my fault," I breathe out, only to be heard by Steve as my eyes seem to stare into the emptiness of the room, unable to glance elsewhere as I shakily get up and stagger towards the door.

The cold brisk air causes aggressive shivering in my body, the stinking pain in my pale cold skin from the crisp air feeling like a simple nothingness compared to the pain she must've felt. It almost feels deserved.

The door swings open and I can guess who it is simply from his footsteps.
The man I love tries to reach out to me, but I simply back away, guilt washing over my skin.

".. she asked me about Eddie," I know it was selfish to react this way, that's why I left the room, so Eddie wouldn't know, so the others wouldn't see me as some attention seeker. But the thought tugged at my brain.

I see his head tilt in confusion from the corner of my eye.

"I told her to join hellfire god what if I.. what if I was the one who planted Eddie in her head?"

He takes me by the shoulders and lifts my chin with a soft touch of his finger, "Ruby if this thing is as powerful as Dustin says he would've got her either way, nothing you would've done could stop that."

But the tears still begin rise, threatening to spill from my dark eyes, "but because of me.. Eddie's a criminal to them," the idea of being a part of this sick and twisted butterfly effect, the idea of somehow helping to hurt a friend no matter intentional or not, it causes some kind of trauma response in my heart. Some kind of piercing pain that won't go as every memory I've ever had seems to flash before my eyes and the shaking gets worse.

Steve brings me into his chest as I begin to sob, I'm not even sure what I'm saying now as I mutter out whatever names come to mind, survivors guilt taking over.

He whispers small words into my head as he holds me close, "you couldn't have known.. you couldn't have known..."