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food poisoning
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. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧
Alina Fairgrieves-Byers was currently perched on the closed lid of the toilet at Max's house, scrutinizing the cookie in her hand. She hadn't wanted to come in here, not after the blood in the cabinet and the ice in the bathtub, but both of those things were gone now, probably Max's doing. She wanted to feel safe. She didn't want to think anything was wrong.
Despite those two things being scrubbed away, eradicated, there was still an eerie energy in the bathroom. It was like there were shadows where there shouldn't be. Like a face would pop up in the mirror, tongue sticking out grotesquely, eyes bulging, sticking one rotting hand through the glass to seize her. It was like a different reality.
But as Alina sat here anyway, wary of beginning her test, she thought back to the way Max had so easily brushed everything off, and she now knew why she had. It was because Max didn't like to believe scary things. She hadn't believed Lucas when he'd first told her everything about the Upside Down, had twisted the snarling Demodogs into rabid animals in her mind. And now, she just simply didn't want to think of the horrifying prospect of her stepbrother doing something horrible. Or of it somehow being connected to the Upside Down. Because she wanted to move on. Forget everything that had happened last year. Forget the Mind Flayer, and its army, and the way it had claimed two of her friends, nearly killing them.
Alina wanted that, too. But unlike Max, she knew that just ignoring a problem wouldn't make it go away. She'd tried to do that, before, with her dad's death and memories of Linda and the whole situation with Lucas. But for every single one of those scenarios, she'd ended up realizing that the only way to make a problem go away was to face it right on. She'd have to confront whatever dangers came now.
Which was why she was sitting here now. Because this was what she had to do.
Slowly, Alina unwrapped the cookie Heather had offered her. It was an average chocolate chip cookie, a little burnt around the edges, as Heather had said, but still overall looking tasty. It had cooled by now, with chocolate still smeared the wrapper. But looks could be deceiving, which was why Alina broke the cookie in two, looking for any signs of tampering. She didn't know what, exactly, she'd find (what did people put in food?) but she checked for signs of it being poisoned—pills, maybe, or discoloration, or mini razorblades (okay, maybe that third one wasn't likely, but she liked to be thorough). When she'd found neither of those things, Alina sniffed it, trying to detect a hint of anything that might've been added.
