RUSTY | STEVE HARRINGTON

six - danger ahead

NOVEMBER 7TH 1983

RUSTY WAS NEVER ONE TO HAVE NIGHTMARES. When she did, they were debilitating. Threats of murder and betrayal coursed through her sleeping veins, sending her to a state of violent paranoia that woke her up screaming. Her head would pound like a hammer against brick, and her lungs shrunk to deflated balloons. These nightmares happened once in a blue moon, and struck out of nowhere. Steve had been the best at dealing with them whenever they occurred in their childhood - Rusty would alert him on their awful walkie-talkies in the middle of the night, and he'd run across the street in a minute.

Rusty really wished she was having a nightmare right now.

She grasped the glass bottle between her fingers as she continued to walk through this strange environment, as though it was drawing her back to reality. Wandering through this world, this mouldy, distorted world, Rusty felt her brain churning and her eyesight swirling. Millions of spores hung in the air, dancing around her head. It was as though she was looking at a scene in Lucas' ViewMaster - slightly blurred and shrunken around the black edges. Rusty always hated the toy when Erica thrust it into her hands, and felt a little unnerved by the time she had clicked around the entire reel. So it was no surprise that the nausea was quickly settling in her throat.

It took a while before Rusty began to recognise what she was trudging through. At first it seemed like nothing other than a haze of rotted trees and gloomy navy sky, but it was when she stopped in front of what appeared to be a crumbling building that she gasped in shock.

Everything about this world was familiar, and as she stared up at a building that almost exactly mirrored Melvald's General Store, to the point that a few white letters from its instantly-recognisable sign remained against the moulding wood. Vines twisted around pillars and all of the windows were intact, yet smeared with enough grime to prevent any transparency.

"Where am I?" She whispered to herself, whipping her head around to notice the line of stores she saw nearly everyday. This was Hawkins, but not. Everything seemed the same, and logically her walking directed her to downtown Hawkins, but there was no way that this was her hometown. If Hawkins went through a nuclear apocalypse, maybe.

That was the first identifier that really struck Rusty with panic. Finding a new world in a tree trunk was bad enough, but this world seemed to tear apart any good from reality and weave decay amongst the brickwork. She thought of Lucas, Dustin and Mike, who so often explored the quiet Hawkins, accidentally stumbling across this void and placing themselves in the danger Rusty felt looming over her shoulders. She thought of Will. If she felt unsafe, there was no way she wanted to imagine how terrified the kids would feel.

"R-Rusty?" The small voice would have been missed if Rusty had been distracted by a single thought, as it moved through the air as quietly as a still breeze. But Rusty was fortunate in that she paused, and then spun around wildly when her ears caught her name. It took a moment of twirling on the spot before her blue eyes halted, and fell on the reason she had stayed in this shitty place.

"Will?" She breathed shakily, the first smile gracing her lips since she had arrived. The young boy was poorly crouched behind a fire hydrant, peering nervously at this familiar figure. His cheeks were sunken and his fringe lay plastered against his sickly pale forehead. Rusty stepped towards him, but became hesitant when he flinched at the movement. "Hey, hey, Will, it's me. It's Rusty, I promise."

Relief flooded Rusty's heart immediately - Will Byers wasn't dead. All that worrying, that immense panic, was suddenly replaced with sudden hope.