|Rule The World| Steve Harrington

Chapter four

Melissa ran upstairs to her bedroom. She locked the door to her room, then the window. She found a hunting knife in her wardrobe and gripped it tightly as she sat on her bed.

"It's not real. It's just a bad dream." The girl tried to reassure herself as she pinched her arm in hopes of waking up from this nightmare. But when that didn't help, Melissa understood that it was all real.

Melissa thought back to Hopper's words. Something's not right here.

Did Hopper know? Did that thing take Will? With shaking hands, Melissa took her phone from her bedside table and dialed Hopper's house number. But nobody answered.

Shit.

Melissa didn't want to call Chrissy or Steve, knowing that her friends would probably think that she was finally going crazy, and the girl didn't know what else to do. It wasn't easy to just go to sleep after this incident. So she didn't.

She stayed up all night, prepared to protect herself and her mother from that monster. Her mother, who was sleeping soundlessly in the other room, did not know what happened.

Melissa thought about her father and the stories he used to tell her when she was little. The stories were usually about a faceless monster with razor-sharp teeth. The girl always thought that her father had a vivid imagination, but now she wasn't so sure.

How could her father possibly know about the same monster that was now wandering around in Hawkins forest? Maybe it was just a coincidence. Melissa's father was just a mechanic. He fixed cars for a living, so how did the monsters from his stories become real? It didn't make sense to her.

When the morning came, Melissa hesitantly got ready for school. She didn't really want to leave her mom alone, but she also didn't want to worry her by staying at home.

The Reyes girl pulled up to the school's parking lot, got out, and sat on the hood of her car. She had half an hour until her first lesson, so the girl pulled out a cigarette, wanting to relieve her stress a little. But because of her shaking hands, Melissa struggled to light it up.

"Jeez. Lis, I thought you only smoked at parties." Steve got her attention as he sat next to her.

The girl didn't reply to him. She gave him a lighter without saying a word, indicating that she needed his help lighting her cigarette. The boy flickered the lighter next to the tip of the cigarette, which was in Melissa's mouth. "So what? It's going to be an everyday thing now?"

"Steve, leave me alone. I really can't deal with you scolding me like a mother right now." The Harrington boy furrowed his eyebrows at her words, not understanding what could have happened that the girl looked so distressed, but decided not to push his friend.

In class, Melissa wasn't paying attention to what the teacher was saying. She was looking at one spot on the ground as the image of the monster from last night flashed through her mind on repeat.

"The hell is wrong with her?" Carol turned in her seat to ask Steve.

"I'm not sure." Concern was written on the boy's face as he looked at the Reyes girl.

Melissa's thoughts were interrupted by the school's principal entering the classroom. "Melissa Reyes? Come with me, please."

The girl was led to an empty canteen. The only people sitting there were her mother and two police officers. "As you probably know, Barbara Holland has been missing. We want you to tell us everything that happened on November 8th at Steve Harrington's house."

Melissa started telling the policemen everything about the party. She just didn't mention alcohol or Jonathan in the woods. "Um, well, I got there before Barbara and Nancy. But when they got there we just... we were just joking around and... and Barbara didn't look like she was having fun. Then later, I heard Barbara and Nancy argue, so I went to comfort her, and then I left. Barbara was still there when I left."