✓ | flow ( eddie munson )

twenty. somethings gotta give

veda henderson

"It was here," Max insists, shining her light on the now empty wall, nothing covering the surface except paint. "Right here. A grandfather clock,"

"And you saw this too, Vey?" Robin asks, not peeling her eyes away from the ordinary wall. 

"Yes, I saw it. It was halfway buried in the wall," I describe, biting at the skin of my fingers. 

"It was so real," Max breaths as if she didn't quite believe herself. "And then, when I got closer, suddenly I just... I woke up,"

I think back to ten minutes ago when I blinked and suddenly I was back in Mrs Kelly's room, standing over Max with my hand on her shoulder. 

"It was like they were in a trance or something. Exactly what Eddie and V said happened to Chrissy. Except, you, Veda," Dustin says, catching my attention. I turn to him, slowly lowering my fingers from my mouth and instead biting on the skin of my lip as I look at him with furrowed eyebrows. "Your eyes were like hers but, you moved. You looked at us like you could see and hear us, then you just grabbed her shoulder and..." 

"It was super creepy," Steve nodded in agreement. 

"I could hear and see you guys, though?" I state, looking at them with confusion. "He didn't call for me, he called for her. Did you guys not hear that?"

"No, Vey. Only you and Max did," Dustin admits sadly, looking at me as though he wanted to drop down and cry like a child. 

I instinctively turn to Max, seeing her already looking in my direction. "I didn't know you were there either,"

"So where the fuck was I?" I ask out loud, feeling fear almost paralyse me. "I wasn't with you guys and I wasn't with her so-"

"You were in the middle," Nancy voices, only making me feel even worse. Without warning, I spin around and race around a corner where I find a bin stashed against the wall of the corridor, leaning into it and vomiting up nothing but spit and stomach acid due to my lack of stomach contents. 

I felt like a Zombie, walking on auto-pilot back to the group where we huddled up in Mrs Kelly's office. I sat on the desk chair, knees up to my chest in comfort as I pulled my hoodie tighter around myself. Max explained the symptoms to them all, getting to the last stage of hallucinations about their past.

At the mention of this, Dustin turned to me, looking like a lost little kid with tears in his eyes. "You've been having hallucinations for a while, haven't you?"

I can't bring myself to say yes and watch his little heart crumble. He knew, we both knew I was already seeing things that weren't there. He blinked long and hard as if he could just wake up and everything would be normal. 

"Veda's different," Max chimed in, holding eye contact with me as she did. It's like we were reaching out to each other every time our eyes met, a level of understanding unknown to the others. "You'd be dead by now if you followed the timeline. He called my name but he still pulled you into it,"

I stand up out of my sheet, ignoring how the seat scraped against the floor as I hurdled over to Mrs Kelly's things. 

"What are you doing?" Steve asked softly, coming over to me and placing a gentle hand on my shoulder. I shrug him off, throwing papers and files around until I find the thing I'm looking for.