Shadows of the Night •a Stranger Things story•

Go Away, Sara

• Chapter Four: The Sauna Test •

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"Love and pain become one and the same..."

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July 2nd, 1985
Hawkins, Indiana

All night long, an icy shiver coursed through Chris as she lay alone in her bunk bed, the darkness wrapping around her like a suffocating shroud. Her father was nowhere to be found, and Eleven was spending another night with Max. At first, a strange kind of peace settled over her—an hour, maybe two, where she felt like she had claimed a fleeting moment of solitude in a world that rarely granted her peace. But that fragile serenity was fleeting. As the minutes dragged on, exhaustion seeped into her bones, and the relentless, oppressive weight of the unthinkable fears she harbors pressed down on her, threatening to crush her spirit.

It has been nearly two years, and in those two years, Christine Hopper has transformed into someone entirely unrecognizable—altered in ways she never thought possible, pushed beyond what she believes her limits to be. She's always been a vivid dreamer, that much is true. Her mother once told her that as a child, she would speak in her sleep, lash out in night terrors, and recount her dreams with such clarity that it felt as if she had lived them. Over time, those night terrors faded away, and once she no longer shared a room, no one was there to witness her sleep-talking or see the shadows that danced behind her eyelids.

But everything changed the day Will vanished. It was as if a switch flipped inside her—a startling awakening. Suddenly, she understood that her abilities didn't simply vanish with her consciousness—they were connected to something far greater. While her body remains rooted in Hawkins, her mind expands into realms she never dared imagine. A hidden power is awakening within her, swirling with mystery and danger, and she continues to discover it every day.

She never in her wildest dreams thought her life would take such a turn. As a child, she'd have said she wanted to make movies. Dreams of Hollywood, of shining lights and stories told on screens. But now, her world narrows to the shadowed depths of the Upside Down and the haunted corridors of her own mind. When did she lose herself amidst all this darkness? Can she ever reclaim who she truly is? Will she forever be tethered to this shadowed existence, a wandering spirit caught between worlds?

"Try not to move."

Nightmares claw their way through her consciousness, tormenting her with visions of snarling, shadowy monsters, natural disasters, horrifying murders, people's biggest fears lurking just beyond her perception, waiting, always waiting. Every time she believes she is gaining control, the dreams twist anew, morphing into new terrors. The people of Hawkins swirl in her mind—everything her town's people feared the most comes to terrifying life inside her head. Horrors she knows intimately, stories of helplessness, of suffering. She feels a terrible, unmistakable presence behind it all. A shadow of someone she knows, someone who has been part of her life. Who could do this to her? How is any of this possible? It all seems so random, so cruelly chaotic. Some faces are familiar, others alien—yet beneath it all, Chris knows these are all people from Hawkins; their nightmares, their fears bleeding through her consciousness. She can feel it, the shared pain, the collective suffering, and a surge of helplessness threatens to drown her. Everywhere she looks, there is suffering, and she is caught in the middle of it all, desperate to understand, desperate to save them.

"You can't save everyone, Christine," Sara's voice echoes hauntingly through her mind, flashes of the apartment roof swirling wildly in Chris's thoughts. Bright, vivid images of towering New York City skyscrapers and shimmering lights ignite in rapid succession, leaving behind searing memories before gradually fading into darkness, shadowed by Sara's presence. Chris strains to hold onto her memories of her sister, but everything blurs into a restless projection, slides of film running chaotically together in an unending loop.