Set those ablaze (Nancy x M!reader)

21: Phoenix

Starcourt Mall was reduced to just an area closed off to the public. Fences and yellow tape surrounded the government owned property.

After they had found remnants of the Russians using it as a cover, the military put it strictly off limits.

Some still visited from time to time. Mainly Nancy wheeler. She hung outside the fence, staring at where the doors used to be. The charred and broken building was the only thing left of where she had last seen Y/n.

Nancy herself was no longer the same she was when Y/n was around. She had been plenty sarcastic before. But now she was downright rude, snotty, and quick to anger. Most strayed clear of her path when at school. She was relatively liked before, but that reputation had been dragged to the floor after she exploded at some people laughing about the starcourt accident.

"I wish we properly got to bury you. I'm so close, yet kept out of reach." She sat on her knees, the bare concrete scratching her long skirt.

She fiddled with the ring on her finger. Last summer went downhill for the most part. Y/n had broken up with her but got together again, only for him to end up dying, sacrificing himself to take down the Mind flayer

The byers, along with El, had left for California. Spring break was soon to start, and Mike would visit them. Jonathan offered to come visit her, but she shot him down almost immediately.

"I better get going. Or else I'll be late again." She hummed, wiping a stray tear and standing up. Her heels clicked against the cracked concrete as she made her way towards her car, starting it up, taking a deep breath, and driving away.

~~~

Eddie Munson. Local freak, held back a few years, nobody super special that anybody besides other weirdos payed attention to.

He was currently going through a crisis. A cheer leader. Popular and pretty, dating a basketball player. The sweet and loving Chrissy had come over asking for drugs.

And was now rolling her eyes into the back of her head as the lights flickered inside the trailer. He begged her to wake up, shaking her violently, slapping her face, but nothing worked as she floated up into the air as the lights got even more crazy.

Meanwhile, street lights flickered over starcourt Mall. Lights flashed as dust swirled around the area where the remains of the fleshy Mind Flayer, now just a pile of ash resided. The ash pile moved. It shifted and turned, like something was crawling around in it.

Chrissy's eyes started bleeding, and her bones snapped in direction directions. Black marks spread across the ceiling she was stuck to as Eddie took it upon himself to scream like a girl and book it out of there.

Chrissy's body fell to the ground, completely disfigured. Her jaw broken and her eyes no longer. Her pretty and beautiful body reduced to a mangled corpse.

The creature in the ash pile was no longer contained by the dark dust. A snout popped itself out first, followed by a head covered in ash. The creature crawled out of the ash, its body resembling a snow fox. Its fluffy white fur was stained by the dust, but it simply shook it off and looked around.

Its tail opened up like a flower blooming. It blossomed into nine other tails as the lights stopped flickering. The moonlight was the only thing that showed down on what seemed to be a creature reborn from the ash, much like the mythological Phoenix.

It seemed bigger than the normal article fox, however, taking the size of a great dane breed. It looked around and sneezed out the remaining ash before taking off. It hopped over the fence with ease. Its paws pounding against the ground as it darted into the nearby forest.