𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐃𝐀𝐘. Bold For What Always Applies. Italicize What Sometimes Applies.

chrissy is at heart a profoundly private person who tires in social situations far quicker than she lets on and will never admit. this becomes especially apparent once she leaves hawkins for college and then for good. (her one exception is cheerleading.)

she’s also the type that will invite friends who don’t have a place to go for the holidays over for thanksgiving and christmas and new years and easter and whatever. you don’t have family or a place to go for the holidays? now you do. you don’t want to deal with your family? come over to her place instead. she gets it.

---

can chrissy season a skillet or must she undergo some training?

send me your character and I’ll tell you if I think they know how to season/care for cast iron cookware.

I don’t think she can. I’m so sorry Chrissy. Nothing about the Cunningh.am family screams cast iron enthusiasts. I feel like her mother would have some weird classist opinion on the use of cast iron. I feel like she grew up exclusively around soulless stainless steel cookware. Chrissy would probably enjoy cooking in cast iron later and learning about its care.

---

PHOEBE BRIDGERS LYRIC PROMPTS.

inspired from phoebe’s albums: punisher and stranger in the alps. as always, some triggering content may be present! change any pronouns to better suit your muse(s) needs!

why would somebody do this on purpose?

i wanted to go, but i didn’t.

we talk until we think we might just kill ourselves.

you were screamin’ at the evangelicals.

swore i could feel you through the walls.

i had to carry you.

i’m hungry for blood.

somebody better be dying.

now i can’t breathe, and i can’t sleep.

i feel something when i see you now.

anyway, don’t be a stranger.

i hate living by the hospital.

you must’ve been looking for me.

if it meant i would see you when i die.

all the skeletons you hide…

it must be something in the water.

will you have me, or watch me fall?

remember getting the truck fixed?

i know there’s something waiting for us.

i don’t know what i want.

baby, you’re a vampire.

i can’t open my mouth and forget how to talk.

always surprised by what i do for love.

we can be anything.

please don’t hold me to it.

i only went one time.

the end is here.

and what about the band?

show me yours, i’ll show you mine.

i know he needs you, you’re all that he sees.

be whatever you want.

i scared you in your house.

i want to live at the holiday inn.

i guess it’s too late to change it now.

i’m thinking out loud.

tell me what you’ll do, please.

one of your eyes is always half-shut.

i’m singing at a funeral tomorrow.

i’ve been talking to his dad, it makes me so sad…

somebody roll the windows down.

i’ve got a good feeling.

i would do anything for you.

i’ll be whatever you want.

i don’t need you to tell me what that means.

i asked him nicely once to pack his things and go.

something happened when you were a kid.

there’s a last time for everything.

i couldn’t take it any longer, and i lost control.

it’s amazing to me how much you can say.

i didn’t know you then and i’ll never understand.

do you feel ashamed?

i went with you up to the place you grew up in.

there’s something i’m supposed to say.

i swear i’m not angry, that’s just my face.

you, you must’ve been looking for me.

no, i’m not afraid of hard work.

you got me good; i knew you would.

you know the killer doesn’t understand.

man, i wish that i could say the same.

if i fix you, will you hate me?

i miss you like a little kid.

i could scream to drown you out.

next time i see you, you’ll show me.

he is a fine new addition, so young and so clean.

always have and i always will.

i’m at the movies, i don’t remember what i’m seeing.

i’m tired of trying to get in the house.

wouldn’t know where to start.

i want to believe.

i’m losing all my hair.

it’s a government drone or an alien spaceship.

everyone knows you’re the way to my heart.

i even scared myself by talking.

i’m on the outside looking through.

i’m standing too close.

sorry that it all went down like it did.

last night, i blacked out in my car.

i’m gonna kill you.

he came up through the water without a sound.

you get a few points for tryin’.

i can count on you to tell me the truth.

i’ve never seen you smiling so big.

he got me good, i knew he would.

i’m always pushing you away from me.

he missed my heart.

i grew up here, ‘til it all went up in flames.

i want to go home.

they dragged me off to jail, set a million dollar bail.

i will always be right here.

there’s no place like my room.

i don’t wanna be alone.

i wanted to see the world.

but i asked him one more time, this time pulled out my shiv.

was hoping you would let it go, and you did.

the drug stores are open all night.

no, it’s not important, they’re just pretty words, my dear.

that’s quite a list, but there’s one thing you missed.

it’s gonna be just like my recurring dream.

i’m a liar.

i get this feeling whenever i feel good.

i’ll stay out of my own hell.

for generations, they’ll romance us, make us more.

that’s just how i feel.

i buried a hatchet, it’s coming up lavender.

i turned around, there was nothing there.

from the window, it’s not a bad show.

not even the burnouts are out here anymore.

i hardly feel anything at all.

so i gotta go, i know, i know, i know.

you were still in the ambulance.

you always say that you’d prefer to drown.

i’m amazed that you’re alright.

when i’m lonely, that’s when i’ll burn it.

if you find me, will you know me?

they were screamin’ right back from what i remember.

i’ve been running around in circles.

i've been playing dead.

i’m sleeping in my bed again, and getting in my head.

they make you live in the past.

i can hardly feel anything.

i woke up in my childhood bed.

a feeling of relief came over my soul.

i want to know what would happen.

you’re gonna drown in your sleep for sure.

he never lies or picks up his phone.

you’re holding me like water in your hands.

baby, it’s halloween.

after a while you went quiet.

no, i’m not afraid to disappear.

you must’ve been looking for me.

i would give you the moon.

i have this dream where i’m screaming underwater.

they killed a fan down by the stadium.

i want to be wrong.

when i think too much about it i can’t breathe.

i can’t sleep and i miss your face.

they strapped me in the gurney, took me off to the infirmary.

i’ll find a new place to be from.

i hate you for what you did.

that makes me feel old.

he got me in the shins, and he got me in the arms.

i’m gonna chase it, i know, i know, i know.

all of our problems? i’m gonna solve 'em.

i’m stupid in love.

yeah, i guess the end is here.

i won’t be home with you tonight.

underneath her whimpering, i could hear the sirens sound.

fell on hard times a year ago.

sometimes i think i’m a killer.

we can be anything.

there is no distraction that can make me disappear.

i dreamt that he drowned.

when he gets older, he might be the one.

she can do anything she wants to.

plus, i’m pretty sure i’d miss you…

either way, we’re not alone.

you don’t have to know that it’s haunted.

you know i hate to be alone.

guess i lied.

wouldn’t know when to stop.

i think when you’re gone, it’s forever.

i’ll be glad that i made it out.

either i’m careless or i wanna get caught.

i hope you kiss my rotten head.

it’s 4 a.m. again.

we found our way out.

he missed my heart.

we have the same face.

hear so many stories of you at the bar…

all the bad dreams that you hide…

he’s half the man and you’re twice as tall.

i gotta go now, i know, i know, i know.

i don’t forgive you.

if i breathe you, will it kill me?

man, i hate this part of texas.

you know i’m never gonna let you have it.

and i changed my mind.

he might be the one.

it’s for the best.

you had to go, i know, i know, i know.

i’m too tired.

tell me what you wanna do to me.

i faked it every time.

you missed my heart.

oh, come on, man!

you were in a band when i was born.

i have everything i wanted.

i’m not gonna go down with my hometown in a tornado.

i don’t believe in that stuff anymore.

jesus christ, i’m so blue all the time.

saw him in the kitchen, hanging up the phone.

i feel something when i see you.

there’s nothing i can do.

i am sick of the chase.

you are somebody’s baby.

i hate your mom.

i got mean.

so long, prison boy!

it’ll be the last time.

i would do anything you want me to.

but right now, it feels good not to stand.

i love a good place to hide in plain sight.

i will try to drown you out.

take a dirty picture, babe.

it’s sad that his baby died.

i’m doing nothing.

hey, why do you sing with an english accent?

i get everything i want.

i look at the sky and i feel nothing.

when you touch down, i’ll be waving.

now i’m too tired to go to sleep.

i feel like i know you?

i hate it when she opens her mouth.

it’s just a matter of time before i’m hearing things.

call me when you land.

would you fuck this and let us fall?

they still got payphones…

you might be dying.

i’m a bad liar.

you wrote me a letter…

i’ve given all my love.

---

serendipity in deadtown.                        /                   @nonangelic​

there’s theories aplenty about the other side of death postulated by the living, but the problem is that no one actually knows anything about it unless they’re....well, dead. anecdotes about lamps or beckoning angels or loved ones or long ladders up to someplace bright and shiny were just that: anecdotes. unconfirmed even by dreams and near-death experiences alike. because it wasn’t the real thing if you came back from it. 

what does come after that anticipated, glorified transition from life on earth to the great beyond turns out to be, aptly, deadtown. the great city in the...sky? hell? either way, it’s the end. most times there isn’t any leaving.

exiting deadtown wiped the memories of death after death clean out of the brain. at least that’s the impression chrissy got from witnessing the one one or two exits followed by a reentrance not long after. brevity was long opined the soul of wit, but it the heart of heartbreak, too. no life was long enough, and not even the wizard or superhero or guy-who-knew-a-guy-who-knew-a-guy could stop the wheel of mortality from turning. all things ended.

except who chrissy was when she died. she was confused. shy. hopeful. looking for someone.

someone absolutely not here in deadtown, but that she’d look for eternally until further notice.

a gargoyle who introduced himself as neil lurked pleasantly behind a café counter, watching chrissy from the corner of his eye, as if her presence was both brand new and absolutely expected. chrissy hadn’t thought she’d died before the first friday of spring break, but at this rate anything was possible. best to stop asking questions.

                       ❝  so — how does this work, exactly?  ❞     ......after that one.

neil just chuckled. the door blew open in answer instead of him. evening and the scent of autumn trickled in like a discontinued department store perfume. considering the setting, that might have been true. chrissy watched from the corner of her eye as moonlight blew its way over the doorjamb in ruffled, yet smooth, locks. she used to be that put together, once. the cheerleader stared into the sudden appearance of a cup smelling like black coffee with just a hint of sugar. steam wafted up to her nose languidly, buoyed by the last vestiges of the entryway breeze. 

                      ❝  oh.  ❞  it’s easy, then, to smile. despite the missing and the looking over her shoulder, the answer was there before she knew the question. chrissy kept the smile pinned in place to level at the shadow near her shoulder.  ❝  do you have a usual, too?  ❞

---

as i watch (and rewatch and rewatch) s4 ep4, it's impossible not to reflect on how each of vecna's victims may hazily or not so hazily represent different stages of giving up on life as a young person. across the board, all four teens presented flickering signs of internal turmoil that could have been clocked under a more watchful eye. but it's still those small differences, those small choices, that make a world of difference when it comes to approaching a struggling friend.

chrissy didn't truly want to die, just to escape. she easily could have been pulled out of her state of desperation if someone had truly stepped in a little earlier. the one helpful person she managed to confide in, ms. kelley, despite ms. kelley's valuable efforts, didn't have the time or the bandwidth for her she might have liked. the next person didn't know chrissy well enough to properly step in and intervene, even though he tried and came the closest anyone had so far. but before that, none of her peers had invested in her in an actionable way despite her tries to find her way through the cracks of her own self-made image and call for help. everyone assumed everything was fine, until it wasn't. because it was chrissy.

fred was the bottler, who channeled and ignored his way through guilt and grief to build himself a normal life out of ruins. and it worked! it worked until a trigger appeared. enough of a trigger to bring him back down. it started small, but grew more debilitating over a short period and sent him down a dark, consuming spiral that he all of a sudden couldn't escape from. he'd unintentionally isolated himself, and no matter who might have wanted to step in for him in his time of need, they were too far away. fred didn't truly want to die either. but once his trigger became too close and suffocating, he lost his way.

patrick was the wilter, who incrementally became less and less of himself among his family and friends. the way his father treated him ground down his self esteem and warped the voice inside his head until it became nothing but his father's unkind words. unfortunately, the descent was so gradual that all his friends adapted until suddenly it was long past too late to pull patrick from the depths of his sunken self worth and tell him he deserved better.

then there's max. the avoidant. the stoic. she plugged along, trying to pull herself up and out by her own bootstraps. but the biggest difference here was the open investment her friends maintained in her life. they were willing to bend over backwards to remain by her side until she reached out a hand for help. they tried and tried and tried until it was almost too late, but by then, they'd done enough. max saw just how much she was watched over. she saw her friends' concern for what it was: love, not nagging complaints that she "wasn't who she used to be". they cared more for her well being than to where the old max had disappeared. they paid attention to what mattered to her and offered it when she was finally ready. at every turn after the graveyard, she worked to accept more help and they did the work to understand what kind of communication max needed so that she could continue trusting they had her best interest at heart.

td;lr - love your friends loudly. you never know who might need what.

---

Led Zeppelin – Going To California

---

 𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙊𝙉                           (hellmartyr​)

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆, 𝐈 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐘 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃, was what eddie would’ve said if his brain hadn’t flatlined. jaw rusted ajar by shock, his vengeance upended into an anemic stare. questions that were more sensation than language stacked themselves on his teeth, his tongue, leeching the dusty moisture from the back of his throat. his head wasn’t completely empty. there was something resembling a thought for a brief, crudely puerile moment when eddie’s suede eyes widened because chrissy cunningham remembered him. even in his state of oozing wounds, matted hair, and a complexion not unlike an autopsy.

      eddie was still playing catch up when chrissy’s arms interlocked around his torso. an instinctive arm swam around her, shocked by how close to nothing she felt against him. his protection amended itself into a firmer circle as her lament tumbled like tears down the chewed remains of his shirt.

      you’re not dead, his thawing tongue willed itself to say, not yet. as if on cue, an alien wail shattered the unnatural peace. pale surprise overshadowed by a sudden sharpness of narrowed eyes and iron-soaked resolve. the hard line of his lips bent at a grim angle at the shadows in the encroaching mist.

      an encouraging pat warned the girl of his intentions. ❝ come on, let’s get you inside. ❞ shuffling awkwardly, eddie eased chrissy into the station, gingerly rotating their position so that if any spawn of the upside down chose that moment to strike, it’d be forced to go through ed before it ever got a chance to even look at her.

      the door closed behind them with a bloated thunk. there were better odds finding the holy grail stashed in powell’s desk than a surface not covered in disemboweled rot. fearing he’d drop her, eddie settled chrissy in a chair that looked like a cramped piece of shit even without the upside down tinge. as eddie slipped his jacket around the despondent girl, he took the opportunity to take in the horror she’d been through.

      how was it possible for her to be even smaller than he remembered? her skin, a glass menagerie tinted by faded shades of livor mortis. and her eyes, maybe it was a trick of light straining through heavy motes. maybe it was because the last time eddie saw them was the last time anyone did. but eddie swore the twinkle that outshone gymnasium lights was still there. with ghost behind it, barricading the way between him and the girl hiding.

      any furniture not strapped to the ground by vines was dragged and deposited roughly against the door. eddie worked as quickly as his tremoring muscles allowed, always craning his neck to keep an eye on the object of his disbelief, replaying their one way exchange.

      was he real? he didn’t feel real, but he sure as shit felt alive. and — if you squinted — so did chrissy.

      panting from the strain of his task, the young man crouched in front of her, swallowing a dry knot of tension as he stumbled on what to say. because what the fuck do you say to someone murdered from the inside out? ❝ i’m, uh, i’m glad to see you too. ❞ despite the blood on his lower lip and the hellscape in the window, eddie smiled.

      realizing he was holding his breath, eddie flickered from side-to-side for a way to make her a little more comfortable. fastened to his back with medical tape was an outdoor first aid kit eddie scavenged from the drugstore. he was forced to clear out most of its contents, spoiled by the taint that permeated the upside down’s mimicry, leaving him with gauze, several bandages, and a tube of off-brand neosporin that passed the sniff test with skeptical colors. he needed to be careful retrieving its contents. a circular bite wound on his lower back was still runny, exploding with mauve-y pus if he touched it.

      placing the kit on a coaster of debris, eddie skittered to reclaim the treasonous ration from before. he returned, his joints ached as lowered himself again to meekly offer the can of campbell’s schlock to her.

      ❝ it’s safe to eat. i promise. just don’t look at it. ❞

forever ago, sometime during sophomore year, chrissy remembered an experiment she’d done in biology. for two months straight mr. stratner’s class had been drilling the ups and downs and insides and out of the human body and it had been a bumbling, awkward mess no matter what he did. but one wednesday, they’d turned to discussion of the heart. wonder of wonders, mr. stratner had lugged out one of the massive boomboxes from the a/v closet and plopped it on his desk wearing a well earned smirk. what followed was an experiment that turned out to be...fun. 

for almost 45 minutes the entire class experimented with the way music and sound affected the speed of a heartbeat. chrissy and her whole table bent over stopwatches, fingers on pulses and pencils flying. their smiles grew as 4/4 and 6/8 time signatures almost magically bloomed in the tattoo of their heartrates, responding to the music. thoughtful, melancholic strains of chopin eased their pulses to a tranquil putter while tchaikovsky and his cannons sent it sky high. a-ha, the doobie brothers, christopher cross, john waite, starship, spyro gyra, wynton marsalis, all with different rhythms but the same result; parallel rhythms. synchronicity. 

in the spiderweb-fragile moments between embracing what was left of eddie’s mirage, him grasping her back, and the eventual ripping of shrieks from somewhere too close by, there was silence. sweet, strange, then sour. the music of absence. emptiness. and chrissy’s heart paused to match that nothing rhythm. synchronicity in death, where nothing could truly exist. it was everything, everywhere. an ugly, inevitable peace. he’d promised my suffering would end. 

like a vhs struggling over a kink in its tape and then suddenly righting itself to rewind much too fast, time sped itself up again. the un-pause was quick but violent. only a blink and chrissy had been hastily rotated then ushered inside the police station. large hands were still firm over her arms, so she wasn’t going to fall, but she might as well have lost all sense of direction and balance. until a chair was under her. or she was on a chair. had the chair come to her or the other way around?

❝ ah - oh!  ❞  an unexpected face appeared out of nowhere. except it was just eddie, pale white, with muddy gray streaks. like the moon behind clouds. that was fine. five minutes ago she’d have wanted any friendly face at all and if - if only - leaping lizards why wouldn’t her heart rate go down? her breath was coming too fast and shallow, which didn’t calm the sloshing inside her head. all her presence of mind, melted. 

but....breathing. that was something only an alive person could do. eddie was breathing. he was. exhaled air was gusting around her ears as he adjusted something over her. unaware, shaking hands searched it out almost sans chrissy’s awareness or permission. looking down once her fingertips hit canvas, she registered a savaged jacket. 

then he was gone. a volley of thuds and clatters rent the air behind her, but the strawberry blonde didn’t turn to look for causes. instead, she shivered beneath a pile of army surplus as eddie barricaded every possible ingress point in the room, judging by the many slams and grunts in her peripherals. she’d help, but...what help would she really be? 

minutes crawled past. chrissy became one with the chair. behind her, legs of tables turned to splinters and desks became walls in lieu of any real barricade. the sound of metal denting peppered the air now and again, matched by the horrible squeaks of file cabinets digging into the floor with a last gasp of obstinance. 

nothing in hawkins ever did fold easily. 

and there eddie was again, this time at eye level and heaving like he’d forgotten about air during his rushed renovations. this wasn’t a dead man after all, she considered at long last, staring into the last real pair of eyes she’d seen before falling headlong into that...creature’s clutches. friendly then, friendly now. maybe more now because he was smiling. or giving his all in the effort. chrissy tried to offer him the same, although she had very little idea of what her face was doing. honestly, she might have started crying instead. it was hard to tell. maybe both. 

❝ th  —  ❞  her throat rebelled, spiraling her into a brief coughing fit. salt water kept getting in her mouth as she clumsily gulped down air. smiling and crying, then.  ❝ sorry. ❞  but he was skittering raccoonishly out of reach then back again, now proffering a raggedy can of goop. chrissy couldn’t exactly smell through her unattractively running nose, but she could imagine. her gut entire writhed and shrank away from the sight, petrified, but she commanded her shaking hands to reach for it anyway. inside looked like an extension of the vomitous wreath cloaking this nightmare land in every direction. the outside benignly announced “campbell’s”.

❝ thanks. i, um, don’t think i’m hungry, but thanks?  ❞  still, she clung to the aluminum as an anchor. unwanted as its contents might be, the gift she still understood.   ❝ so  —  you’re actually alive. right? you are? if you are, then i am.❞  teeth absently tugged at peeling skin across her lips, where another drop of salt water crept into the soft, red valleys and stung.  ❝ where are we? i don’t understand. what happened or how i got here. how did you get here?  ❞  one long, fierce swallow around a gordian knot inside her throat halted all progress, but not for long. even if she had to whisper to pry the words free. 

❝ is there a way to get out? ❞

---

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙊𝙉                           ( alwaysrevvedup​ )

Fairytale? Abrupt, airy laughter escaped him, and hands burrowed themselves further into his pockets. Well—at least she hadn’t laughed. Normally, Eddie didn’t whip out such eloquent descriptors for anything besides Hellfire’s DnD campaigns. After all, what was a good campaign without a good story? But there was a certain ease that came with being around Chrissy, strangely enough, and here came a sentimental ode to autumn tripping of his tongue. 

For a guy like him—a guy of his lower social standing in the high school food chain—he should be on egg shells around her, anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop. But he wasn’t. If anything, he felt lighter than he had in weeks. 

“Yeah, it is pretty. As pretty as Hawkins gets really.” Silence fell briefly as he searched for what he wanted to say. “You got big plans for Halloween?” he asked conversationally, a brow quirking as he glanced sidelong at her. “Or are you boring and just pass out candy?” The teasing was obvious: from his tone and how his elbow gently knocked against hers. 

                            ❝ so.... ❞  it was almost idiotic how hard she was trying to come up with a good retort, but at first all she could scavenge was an embarrassed, if wholehearted and helpless, giggle. chrissy kept pushing her steps onward through the leaves as though that cycle produced the electricity powering her train of thought. if she could keep moving, she could come up with an answer that sounded distinctly not boring but also reasonably cool.

funny  —  she’d had her expectations, then so did eddie. clearly they were catching up to him, judging by the bony echo of his elbow’s collide against her arm. and he didn’t even seem all that mad about it.

                            ❝ my little brother is going trick or treating and i’ll walk with him for a while. he’s twelve and my parents don’t really want him to go by himself yet. he’s stuck with me, but he still gets to go. i just stand on the curb and look at all the costumes. it’s really cute to see what everyone comes up with. ❞  chrissy shrugged like it was all simply business as usual, pausing to unsnag the toe of her sneaker from a clump of dirt. she’d have to clean off her shoes at school before heading home. coach tweedy wasn’t such a perfectionist that she’d call chrissy out on a smudge or two, but her mother would certainly notice. white reeboks were nothing to be trifled with. she had an image to uphold. an image that only spotless reeboks would support. 

                           ❝ i did used to go to my friend tina’s house after matty was done and she’d split her candy with me while we watched a movie, but she left for college last year. ❞  another shrug. nothing to bother dwelling on since nothing about tina’s absence could be altered. but enough about me. a small smile bloomed as chrissy made a pin-sharp pivot on her left heel to tread backward. now eddie was locked in her sights.  ❝ do you have big plans? ❞

---

𝚍𝚊𝚏𝚏𝚘𝚍𝚒𝚕  +  𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐  𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑  𝚑𝚎𝚛  𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜  .

---

there’s so much wrong with this place. everything, actually. 

as if the void dimension’s very existence wasn’t crime enough, chrissy stumbled down a hill covered in vines that appeared locked in a neverending battle with themselves, writhing and thrashing until too exhausted to continue. the ground crawled, the sky grumbled. unearthly animal voices chittered nearby every time chrissy so much as scuffed her sneakers too loudly. 

if her nerves weren’t completely shot by the time she escaped, they’d be numb enough to fool her into thinking they were useless. 

like the sky itself was ill, it regularly spat out streams of bloodstained lightning to wash the stale air in a rainbow of bruised indigo across sickly green, mocking her own bruised body - or complementing it. every sound echoed only to disappear moments afterward. even the echoes seemed doomed to die mere yards from their origin.

time burnt away meaninglessly the further chrissy walked on....and on.....and on until  —  yes, finally, main street snuck into view. hawkins always seemed so small from behind a set of wheels. just another pint-sized half awake middle american town that only stirred on weekends and holidays, where people still used the word “newfangled” and the church bell still told the time better than anyone’s watch. family businesses rarely closed because the family seldom moved. home was familiar. home was predictable, safe. 

chrissy had never been more sure of anything in her life when she stared down at the rotten facsimile of hawkins and reminded herself it was the farthest thing from safe. 

what she ought to have done was make a beeline for the police station. that would have been the wisest, smartest thing. but at the sight of the mayor’s office a few blocks away, a wall of exhaustion hit chrissy harder than a freight train. all that walking after an impromptu resurrection did nothing for her stamina and the thought of rest was enough to make her want to burst into tears. enough for her to creep up the office steps and gently pry open the door. inside was silent as a graveyard and twice as dark. dust motes floated in in the air, swirling into eddies while she tiptoed down the central hallway. going up the stairwell was tantamount to courting disaster - even keeping her back to it felt risky. then the smallest stroke of luck materialized in a plush (if musty) chaise lounge tucked away in an office. with some difficulty chrissy managed to drag it all the way back to the front doors and scoot it against the wall adjacent. this way, nothing could get in or out without her knowing. the best she could ask for at the moment. all that was left was to lay down, find an angle that didn’t exacerbate the shooting pain in her shoulder, and attempt to sleep. 

pain lingered no matter how she arranged her limbs, but sleep... sleep crept up on her without warning. the world fell into darkness so quickly that when chrissy awoke it was with a twitch of terror. she couldn’t remember toeing the familiar, milky line between consciousness and the void.

everything looked exactly the same as when she’d arrived. 

had hours passed? had days?

without any shift in light and no sound from the church bell or town center clock, chrissy might as well have been in the same place forever. such a thought blasted shivers into her every extremity. time to move along. this place gave her every species of the creeps ever invented. 

the next two blocks to the police station were small potatoes compared to her haunted trek from the creel house. her body still ached with every bend in her stride. rest had done nothing for her pain, only giving her sufficient energy to push through. well, that was something, wasn’t it? 

despite the flickering hope the notion of weapons provided, that light was dashed by the rattle of very secure locks on every door chrissy tried. she slammed her good shoulder into all of them; none did so much as tremble in their frames. the windows were barred even if she could find a rock to smash the glass. in the end, all she had were her frantic fists and shouts of panic that she knew, chrissy knew, were more foolhardy than anything else. any number of the nightmares lurking in shadows that she never spotted could hear her and come rushing out, discovering the easiest prey to ever wander in their vicinity. her yelps were careless and scratched like sandpaper over the tender meat of her throat, but she couldn’t seem to stop. she’d come all this way for nothing otherwise. this couldn’t be for nothing. she couldn’t let it stop here.

                               ❝  hello?? please, is somebody in there? i need help, please. hello?? ❞  if only faithful chief hopper was still alive, he’d have come running. maybe chief powell would, too. anyone, anyone.  ❝  it’s chrissy, chrissy cunningham. please, i don’t know what’s happening anymore. help, HELP!!!  ❞  

                             a note to @hellmartyr​ 

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