[COMPLETED UNTIL SEASON 5]
Ana Thompson always seems to wind up in the strangest predicaments...
A perpetual victim of Murphy's Law, Ana finds herself arriving in Hawkins, Indiana just prior to the events of November 6th, 1983.
And, just prior to f...
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IT HAD BEEN nearly one year since the world had turned upside down. The notion hung like a dark cloud over those who had seen and now knew too much about the underside of Hawkins, Indiana.
To say the upcoming anniversary had everyone on edge would have been to understate the gravity of their shared foreboding.
Will Byers was starting to see things again, Hopper had divulged to Ana one evening in October. She knew he'd been attending Will's appointments at Hawkins Laboratory alongside Joyce, feeling a sense of responsibility for the young boy.
And Ana could have chalked it up to just that, could have justified Hopper's increasingly distant behavior on demons resurfacing, had it not been for the night of October 30th, 1984.
That evening, Ana couldn't fall asleep, not for the life of her. She tried reading, she tried drinking, she tried sitting in silence and letting the darkness envelop her, but nothing worked. There was an itch at the back of her brain that begged to be scratched, one that wouldn't let her rest until it was acknowledged.
She'd felt it for sometime now, but that night, it refused to be ignored any longer. So, she'd decided to drive out to Hopper's place on the lake. Naively believing his company could lull her into the peaceful sleep that was alluding her.
Upon arrival, she noticed that the entire place was encased in darkness. This wouldn't have appeared unusual for any normal person. After all, the hour was late, but Hopper tended to be as restless in the evenings as Ana had always been.
Letting herself in with the key he'd given her, she found the owner nowhere in sight. It was strange, but perhaps he'd been called into the office on some emergency, or, at least, that's what she tried to reason. But, as the hours ticked past, that justification fell flat. The night turned to day, and Hopper never returned home.
The good excuses had run out by the time the sun rose, and all that remained in their stead was a certainty that Hopper was hiding something, and paranoia over what that something could be.
Humanity is both living and learning.
Ana had been in this scenario before, the memory still stung like a fresh bee sing, but she'd be damned if she hadn't learned from it. Which is why she didn't confront Hopper immediately and outright.
You can't accuse a bullshitter head-on, that lesson had already been hard learned years prior. No, liars will just double down on their own lies to save themselves. You have to catch a deceiver in their act of deception, leaving no room for half-assed explanations, and the opportunity to concoct even bigger untruths.
A hollow feeling sunk in Ana's chest as she grew convinced that that's exactly what Hopper was, another trickster she'd believed to be true. The notion churned her stomach until she felt sick.
Hadn't she warned him about this shit not even a year ago? The truth, no matter how painful was always more preferable. She'd told him she'd always sniff out a falsity. Too bad the lesson hadn't sunk in, apparently.
