PARANORMAL | ❝Nothing is stranger than believing.❞
Cath knows a thing or two about Will Byers. Daphne, on the other hand, knows virtually nothing about Tonya McCarthy. Still, none of that changes the fact that both of them have up and vanished with...
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( trigger warning: graphic descriptions of gore/blood)
FRIDAY 11th NOVEMBER, 1983
THE first inklings of consciousness trickle through Daphne like a dynamite's fuse; only small at first, tiny sparks nudging every vessel in her body. With it comes a slowly impending urgency as she relives it in her head — the blow to the head as she hit the ground, her body cutting a trail of her last moments in the leaves, and the sudden darkness that had overtaken as she was sucked in.
Then with a deafening BANG she awakes fully.
Daphne gasps sharply, and with it, inhales a lungful of something horrendous that lights her chest on fire. Daphne hacks and splutters until her chest aches, sleazily wheezing in the closest thing to a normal breathing pattern. Her head is throbbing. Each panicked pulse sends stars swimming in her vision, but not the kind ones she likes staying up late at night to see. These ones are cold and unforgiving... just like wherever she is right now.
She forces herself to open her eyes wider and hisses at the sharp sting that whips her head wound. Gingerly, she dabs the cut just above her eyebrow — her fingertips come away slick with dark metallic liquid. Blood. "Shit," she whispers, looking up at the sky and hoping to be guided by the moonlight. But the moon has been blotted out — only an inky black abyss looms over her. And there's something else too...
It is snowing.
Or at least she thinks it is. Another closer look, and Daphne realises this isn't the case at all. The flakes slowly cascading from the sky, floating mindlessly like plankton in the deepest sea depths, is cold like snow but looks more like... ash. Altogether it paints a picture of Doomsday that prickles the hairs on the nape of Daphne's neck.
Where the hell is she?
Daphne attempts to sit up, but finds something is restraining her. It takes everything in her not to descend into hysteria when she sees the coils of vine writhing around her waist and legs like pythons; tendrils of them slowly inching up her back too. They have a life of their own. How long has she been out?Is she going to be stuck here now?
Then she remembers what else she had packed.
With her hands still free, she leans forward as much as her restraints will allow her, and pats her shoulders. To her utter joy, she finds her backpack is still there cushioning her back. Daphne does her best to slip her arms out of the straps and, still elevating her bag out of the reach of the vines for now, she unzips it quietly. She catches a glint of the lethal blade sticking out from the soft padding of Cath's stockings and feels herself relax — but only slightly.
