The Long Game, Lucas Sinclair

once penned, an ending cannot be restored

◦☆＊★ ━━━━━━ ★＊☆◦

warning:

buckle in

There were a lot of things that Maxine Grace Mayfield didn't know in this world.

One of them, of course, was still how Sam even knew Max's middle name to begin with. Sam did know a lot in this world, and Max was very aware of that. From the first time she met Sam, Max knew she was different when she started spewing out about time zones and video games.

Max didn't know a lot, but she knew about Sam.

Sam Hughes was funny, and she was kind, and she was smart. She somehow had the capability to make everyone around her feel warm inside, and Max was sure it wasn't even attributed to her empathetic abilities. When Max came to Hawkins, she was lost in the dark, but all she had to do was befriend Sam to find the light.

She had currently found the light now, in the comfort of Sam's bedroom.

Max couldn't help Sam's room from being Max's favorite memory — all of the best parts of Max's life had occurred here. Their first sleepover had gone down in a different room — considering Sam had moved after the fact — but being here still meant Sam and light. All Max had to do was imagine Sam's sunshine-patterned curtains; her pastel pink, yellow, and blue patterned comforter; her glow in the dark stars stuck to her ceiling — then, suddenly, Max was there. She listened to "Rhiannon" coming from Sam's cassette player, as it was the same song playing when all of Max, Sam, and El had their sleepover together.

Or, it was playing "Rhiannon." That was, until, "Dream A Little Dream of Me" started playing.

Suddenly all the happiness from Sam's room disappeared. The warmth turned cold. Everything good turned bad. Blood was oozing down the sides of her walls, covering the colorful wallpaper into nothing but red crimson. It stained Sam's sheets, her carpet, Max's shoes.

Since then, Max had tried to dull her panic to a low medium. Her head whipped towards Sam's closed bedroom door, and she formed a plan so quick that Sam would be proud. Max locked the door first, just in case Vecna's purview of powers didn't cover the capability of breaking open a door.

Then, she started barricading Sam's room with literally everything in the room she possibly could. Dressers, vanities, mirrors, desks, chairs, her mattress, everything. The floor of Sam's room was essentially cleared of all that was inside, except for the stool Sam used to reach the top of her closet with.

Max turned to pick it up from the bloodied floor. She turned back around to add it to the pile of things barricading Sam's door—

It was all gone.

Sam's door was replaced with an old, pristine door that harbored a stained-glass rose in the middle.

The door of the Creel house.

Max's breath caught in her throat, and all she could do was stare at the stained glass, terrified. The stool accidentally dropped from Max's hands when her grip went slack. Terror overtook her entire being, paralyzing Max in the spot. Suddenly, the door to the Creel house began creaking; Max could see the doorknob was jiggling.

Suddenly, a clock chimed. Outside Sam's window, a dark storm with red lightning flashed. The door cracked open with a low whine.

"You can't hide from me, Max..." the low, grovely voice of Vecna prowled from somewhere in the unknown.