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The disappearance of Will Byers was a tragic affair. It reminded Hawkins how fragile and fleeting life was. It reminded them that life was chilly and tinged with darkness that not not even his miraculous return could fix. The colors that used danced, with their kaleidoscope of glittering embers, were dull. Still there, yet not quite shinning as brightly. Some used to claim that the colors were never there to begin with, Hawkins wasn't an exciting town that people actually wanted to live in, it was mostly by default. It was where young girls grew up to believe that their only options was to become a house wife or a disgraced outsider. Young boys were told to follow in their fathers footsteps, sometimes literally beating out any inkling of anything better. They would move to the end of a culdesac and start a nuclear family. Their world would be completely void from color, the weight of being perfect mixed with the desperate want for the approval of others would undoubtedly eat them alive.
Vada was never going to be that, she was sure of it. She always found warmth in color, often preferring to bask in the beauty of it rather than suffocating on all the bad things in the world. But like everyone else in Hawkin's, her colors flowed away, leaving her with nothing but grey.
The death of her beloved uncle, the man who taught her to always stick it to the man and to make her own happiness rather than relying on others, sent shock ways through her. She would never forget the day she walked in the diner, sketchbook in hand, her eyes gleaming with mischief and admiration. She remember how ecstatic she felt in the before. After months of arguments with her parents she finally decided what she wanted to do with her life, and she knew how proud Benny would be of her. You finally told them huh? You finally told your parents that you want to apply to NYU and leave this town behind? Vada, don't second guess it, remember what I told you? Vada would cock her head to the side and repeat the famous words he lived by. Screw what anyone else thinks. Don't listen to how they want you to be, you be whoever the hell you want. And if that means going to the Big Apple to become a poor artist, do it. They don't like it? They can stick it where the sun doesn't shine.
But Vada never got to tell him, because when she came barreling though the door she was met with the stench of death. It had a strangely specific smell, she still remembered it a year later. It was that day when she decided red was not a beautiful color anymore. How could it be, when all it reminded her was him laying there, motionless. Gun in one hand, a swam of flies buzzing above him. Red was an ugly color, and her drawings after that never contained it anymore. Instead she favored blacks, and greys, and dark blues. Those truly reflected how she felt inside. Gloomy.
