⁴𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐃, 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧

004-the death of a cheerleader

CARLA ISN'T SURE WHERE SHE WAKES UP.

Her body jolts up, eyelids fluttering open in alarm. Her body is curled up on a couch, which sits in a dimly lit room. Finally coming to her senses, Carla looks around and is quick to realize this isn't Steve's living room. Or her own.

Another goddamn nightmare.

The Wheeler girl uncurls herself from the couch, standing up. There's an odd eeriness that brings chills to her skin—the light in the other room is flickering, a sound that brings too many memories to the front of her mind, a television in front of her is blaring nothing but static electricity.

Glancing around the room, the Wheeler has no clue where she is. It isn't any home she's been too, or a place in Hawkins she can recall—not like Brimborn Steelworks was. Looking around, for once, she genuinely has to recollection of where she is.

Odd.

"Dad!"

A sudden voice pierces through the room, and there's a thudding of footsteps. Carla tenses up, but her brows furrow as a cheer-jacket clad Chrissy Cunningham sprints into the room. 

Chrissy Cunningham?

The last time Carla's dreams had ever held a person like this were when she woke up in Brimborn Steelworks the summer of '85, watching a flayed Billy Hargrove do whatever the Mind Flayer bid in the basement of the business—most of the time, it was simply her seeing people she knew getting hurt, or creatures from her past. Sometimes even her flayed self.  

Chrissy was someone that Carla knew little of. She saw her in the halls chatting away with her cheerleader friends or with Jason's arm slung over her shoulders. All the Wheeler knew was that she was a beloved cheer leader, her cutely crooked smile and bright blue eye shadow adored by those at Hawkins High.

Not enough for the blonde to be featured in a nightmare.

"Chrissy?" Carla calls for the girl, voice loud enough for her to hear yet still quiet, "Chrissy? Can you hear me?"

The Cunningham girl darts straight past the Wheeler towards the rocking chair in front of the girl and the Wheeler takes that as a no.

Just like when she saw Billy, it seemed that Chrissy couldn't hear her either. She was simply a viewer, forced to watch everything happen without intervening—she'd watched the entire Holloway family get flayed, unable to do shit. 

"Dad!"  Chrissy shrieks, voice cracking as she rushes into the room, ponytail swinging back and forth. Her voice sounds like it's one wrong word away from breaking completely. "Dad—"

Carla's eyes widen in horror as the rocking chair turns around to reveal a man, his eyes and mouth grotesquely sewn shut. Blood pours down his cheeks and the Wheeler girl puts a hand over her mouth.

What the fuck?

Chrissy let's out a blood curdling scream of utter horror, the man—her father based on the name—responding to her with a guttural sound of his own, though it comes out muffled due to the stitches sealing his lips. 

Carla doesn't know what's happening. She feels sick to her stomach at the sight of the man and Chrissy's scream rings in her ears. The light in the other room starts to flicker more spontaneously, and before the Wheeler girl can even begin to feel ever weirder about the whole nightmare, an all too familiar burn starts to spread through her wrists.