AS ABOVE, SO BELOW (BENEATH HIS FEET) | STRANGER THINGS ✓

CHAPTER ONE | IF YOU LOVE SOMEONE. . .

JUNE 28, 1985
1 YEAR, 7 MONTHS, & 23 DAYS LATER. . .

The city of Hawkins was now a ghost town, all thanks to the new Starcourt Mall opening up and taking all of Hawkins' patrons with it. It was so empty that it would come as a surprise to absolutely no one to see a tumbleweed rolling through the deserted streets. It was hard for the people working in the small stores in Hawkins to get business because the new mall was taking it all away. Overall, business was slow, bleak, and boring.

     Linda Schwartz was a shoulder pad seamstress at a small fabric store called Padded!. No one was coming in because of the brand-spankin'-new Hess's at the mall. This town-wide emptiness gave her more time to think and all that thinking led to reminiscing about her daughter. It'd been a year since Amanda had gone missing and her memorial had taken place (it was held on her birthday to truly honor her.)

     Some of the kids from her Science class came to give Linda their condolences, Will Byers being one of them. He said he knew what it was like, being in a dark, cold, and dreary place like that because he had literally been there. Sometimes he felt like he was still there.

     The doctors that ran tests on him said it was something called "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," or PTSD for short. The term was still relatively new and the symptoms were still being researched and discovered. Will was their main patient when it came to these things, as he had been expressing a majority of the symptoms that were already recognized. So he understood what it was like.

     Linda also talked to Joyce about it from time to time, mom to mom. Joyce told her all about the panic she felt about losing Will to some. . .monster that had made its way into their world. It was heartbreaking to see her little boy (not so little at this point because he was taller than her now) drenched in sweat and crying in the middle of the night because of a nightmare he had. So she understood what it was like.

     Hopper came around sooner or later, opening up to Linda about his late daughter Sara, who had passed away from cancer. He said that he became a wreck when he heard the news, and that's what caused him to spiral a little bit, drinking his pain and parting from his now ex-wife. It was a void he could never fill, not even with El around, who was a big improvement in his life. So he understood what it was like, too.

     It was nice for Linda to have a good support system. She wouldn't know what she'd do without them. She probably wouldn't be here, if she were being honest. It was hard on her when Amanda's father left, so she had to raise Amanda on her own. But now that she was gone, Linda didn't know what to do now.

     Linda wasn't really the type to drown in her pain in wine, so she cleaned her house excessively, scrubbing away even the tiniest of dirt and imperfections. It helped a little because it would keep her distracted but once she was done, she was back to thinking about her little Manda bear.

     Her work was nice enough to give her some time off to grieve, but she refused because it would only make it worse for her and she needed to be distracted. Soon enough, she managed to make her way through the five stages of depression and move on from dwelling over her little girl, no matter how much it hurt. So now she sat at Padded!, a little bored out of her mind from the slow business.

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'

Down in a long-winding tunnel, there was a hand breaking and tearing through the dead vines. They pulled themselves out from and removed what seemed to be some sort of feeding tube from their mouth. Coughing and sputtering, they got up, dusted themselves off, and looked around for an exit. They knew that the only way out was through, but there was no way through. The only way was up.

Then there was a static sort of sound, the kind of sound you'd hear when you're changing the station on the radio or the channel on the TV. They turned their head towards the noise, but they soon realized that the noise was coming from inside their head. If this is what they thought it was, they could send a message to whoever was listening. They "changed" the station inside their head to an empty one, then they closed their eyes and began to concentrate on the static.

"Hello? My name is Amanda Schwartz. If you can hear me, I'm stuck in a tunnel and I need help. I repeat: My name is Amanda Schwartz. If you can hear me, I'm stuck in a tunnel and I need help."

SIDE NOTE!
(i still need to make a note divider)
welp! here's the start to our wild ride!