WHISTLEBLOWER | ❝It only gets stranger...❞
Hawkins has never looked back on the events of November 1983. They know the surface-level story. 'The boy who came back to life.' Will Byers is alive and well, while the futile search for Tonya McCarth...
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MONDAY 29th OCTOBER, 1984
TONIGHT is a quiet night in Hawkins. Too quiet.
Eyes shut, deep in slumber but troubled, a fair-haired girl of thirteen tosses and turns in her bed. Underneath her arm, a stuffed bunny with matted fur is swaddled to keep her comforted. Moonlight pierces a small slit between the curtains, bathing the room in a beam of dim grey light that makes her struggle to sleep uninterrupted.
But truly, she doesn't mind. She prefers it to the pitch black dark.
She remembers things... that come from the shadows. Monsters with gnarled claws, bones protruding out of rotting skin, a face that so deceivingly appears to be a blossom — only for it to open up, displaying row upon row of razor-sharp teeth. Creatures that travel between worlds, that can follow you through wallpaper or a brick wall as easily as unlocking the front door. Nightmares, insatiable nightmares, that haunt her.
The girl squirms in her bed, as a chill creeps through the crack in her ajar door, rolling like mist along the carpet. It climbs over the bed and caresses her cheeks, making goosebumps surface all across her skin. She shivers.
Wait... but she never sleeps with her door open. Not anymore.
She doesn't dare to open her eyes, but slowly rolls over on the mattress — the sound of a click makes her freeze. A ring of cold metal is pressed against her skin, right at her temple. The chill that rolls down her spine on its impact stirs her from sleep. The girl cautiously opens her eyes...
She is staring into the dark abyss of a gun barrel.
Her throat muscles contract to scream, but a leather-gloved hand clamps itself over her mouth. In the vice grip she writhes and recoils, desperately trying to free herself like her life depends on it. She is helpless. Just a kid.
The silhouettes of men in suits materialise in the shadows. But not just any men.
The Bad Men.
Don't take me, the girl wants to beg. Just leave us alone, all of us... please...
Her arms go weak, unable to resist any longer, and she begins to cry. The hot tears burn her eyes and blur her vision; she tries her best to blink them away again.
The girl notices, suddenly, that the grip has loosened on her completely. She looks around dumbfounded at the Bad Men. They are crying too. Except they are tears of crimson, trickling down their cheeks in steady tendrils — from the sinister, nameless lab rats to the blond trench coat-clad woman and the silver-haired man she recalls so reluctantly.
