empty space // james arthur
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mike & el
El received Hopper's message loud and clear. As she deciphered the Morse code he taught her, she realized what had happened. He was late. He promised he'd be here at 5:15 and he wasn't. He lied.
He lied and it really hurt her.
She's stuck in this cabin all day, every day and all she wanted to do was enjoy Halloween like all the kids her age. She could go as a ghost, just by simply throwing the sheet over her head and nobody would ever see her. It was the perfect plan.
But he said no, so she compromised, as Hopper informed her, to watch scary movies and eat candy.
It wasn't what she wanted, but she would take it. It sounded like it could be fun.
Halfway happy right?
Wrong, because he didn't show up and as stated before, it hurt her.
It hurt so much that she was furious. Furious that he wasn't there when he said he would be, furious that he didn't let her go out tonight, furious that he never lets her go anywhere and furious that she couldn't see Mike.
He keeps saying soon. She can go out soon. She can see Mike soon.
Well, soon was not coming quick enough.
So El decided that soon was now.
She was going trick-or-treating and there was nothing anyone could do to stop her, if you could even call it trick-or-treating. She wasn't going door to door like a kid normally would. She knew the one house that would have exactly what she wanted and that was the only stop she planned on making tonight.
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Mike was sitting in his basement all alone. Will had just left and everything was quiet again.
Today hadn't gone as planned. School was humiliating, given they were the only ones who wore costumes. Then the others had invited that new girl to come along and all it did was make him think of El, which wasn't a rare occurrence. He thought of El almost every minute he was awake, sometimes even when he wasn't awake.
El should have been the one trick-or-treating with them. They should have been excited to show her all the good spots, not Max.
He wanted to tell his friends how he felt, but he didn't think they would understand. It's like they all forgot about her, like they don't care that she disappeared before their eyes and could possibly still be out there. They just moved on and Mike didn't see how he could ever do that.
He meant what he told Will. Sometimes he feels like he still sees her. Whether it's out his window or across the schoolyard, it's like she's still around, watching him. It's crazy, he knows it, but he doesn't care. Something inside of him is telling him that it's real, that she's alive.
Mike looked over at the fort he had built for her last year. With the exception of the one time out of anger, he hadn't torn it down. It would stay up as long as he had a say in it. It served as a reminder of her and the short, but still very memorable amount of time they spent together.
The only thing he hated about the thing is that it's empty. It's always empty, unless he's the one slightly crouching down in it, calling for her.
