Shutter [Jonathan Byers] Stranger Things I

XXXV: Trepidation

trep·i·da·tion

noun

a feeling of fear or agitation about something that may happen.

And she ran.

Something about the tone of voice at which she heard Will's echoing voice speak to her -warn her- made Emilia run back through the tree in which she entered this mystery world. All she could think of -as selfish as it was- was getting back out alive. She stood in the tree, just inside of it, and pushed through the mucus-gunk that hung down all around her. It began to close up like a wound on fast forward, and she was some infection inside, fighting through the healing process. Slicing with her arm, she managed to get it through to the other side. The air felt different over there, clean. It was enough to make her push harder, reaching and clawing for the other side. She wished she had a hand to hold, to pull her through, as the gap continued to close up. It grabbed at her legs, as if it didn't want her to leave so soon.

Her top half managed to get through, and her camera slammed against the ground -she didn't care about it right then. Grabbing a gnarled root, she held onto it and pulled the rest of her body through. When she was free, she first looked all around her in a panic to find the monster. It was nowhere to be seen. Then she looked at the hole of which she'd just entered some other dimension, and it was also gone. Nothing was there, as if she'd hallucinated the entire thing and everything had been normal the entire time. She turned then, and she ran away. Away from the forest, away from the terror, away from the monster, away from the insanity.

When she finally saw the road, she gasped in a desperate way, as if it was air that she had been denied of the entire time she was in that forest. Running out onto the pavement as fast as she could, she saw the headlights coming up over the crest of a hill. Jumping up and waving her arms up and down, she tried to flag down the driver so that she could get out of this place, and be somewhere warm and normal. The truck made its way over the hill, and barrelled down as if the driver had somewhere very important to go. Emilia didn't step out of the way, and just began shouting at the truck.

When the driver saw her, the brakes were engaged and the tires squealed. Burned rubber filled her senses and made her head dizzy; she realized that she was starving right then, but food was the least of her concerns. The driver opened his car door and leaned out, "Kid, what the hell!?"

"Please!" She shouted, then she realized that it was Officer Hopper. Relief flooded her, but she couldn't go telling him about the monsters. "Hopper, please..."

"Emilia?" He squinted; she was illuminated by the headlights, glowing too bright for him to see properly. "What are you doing out here?"

Looking for monsters, of course.

"Are you alright?" He asked, then added, "Get in the truck."

"Okay," Emilia didn't argue with that, and moved quickly to the passenger side to the truck. With great trepidation she glanced out the window at the forests and realized that she'd left Will. Only now that she was safe did it sink in that she had heard him in there, in whatever that other world was, and she'd left him. The boy had warned her, told her to run, but he had also been asking for her help and she had done nothing. Nothing but run.

Coward.

"What are you doing out here?" Hopper asked again as he put the truck in gear and continued back down the hill, the direction he'd been going before he nearly plowed Emilia down like roadkill.