August of 85'

She doesn't remember when she first started running away, but she knows that it had been a long time ago. Now it was finally catching up to her.

     The it in question was the dark monster like vine chasing her.

        She was fast but so was it. Too fast for any human the thing grasped on to her right leg. She tried swatting it away however, it didn't even budge.

   The vine was pulling her forcefully till she was on the ground. Fast, in a blink of an eye the girl was dragged through the dark and dreary empty world that smelt of death and decay.

She didn't have time to fight back or shout out before she saw them all tied in other vines, dead. There was no saving any of them: her family, her friends, her neighbors, random civilians. Everyone and everything was gone. Tears and screams came from her. She knew she was going to be the next victim.

Another vine slithered towards her slowly, this one was for her. At the speed of a snail it tangled around her throat, she couldn't do anything against the strong force. Panicked she tried hitting it off her, but the thing tightened, strangling her till she saw stars, then till she saw nothing.

     When she awoke with arms around her the screams and sobs were still coming out of her mouth.

"Kathryn it's okay, you're safe." The girls mother whispered.

     Kat continued crying but the screams stopped.

"It just felt so real." The girls hands went to her neck checking for any marks, marks that she couldn't find.

"Another nightmare, did these happen in Montana too?" Her mother asks her comfortingly rubbing her back.

"Sometimes." She lied. The nightmares didn't happen regularly until after the battle in the star court mall.

"Alright honey. Try to get more sleep tomorrows the first day of your senior year."

Her mother left her lamp on, knowing she couldn't help much much more she left closing the door behind her.

What Kat didn't do was go back to sleep.

    She got up from her bed to wander over to her book shelf. The girl picked up her favorite book 'Anne Of Green Gables' . It was something she always read when she needed a distraction. You would never hear her admit it (especially to her band mates), but in her 18 years of living she had read the whole series at least 5 times.

The story was a comforting read for her. When she was younger she had a babysitter, one who practically raised her everyday for five years; her older neighbor Ms. Cowell from next door. The lady read to her every single night.

Kat brought the book back to her bed, opened it and started reading it. It was only four o' clock in the morning, she felt exhausted, however the fear of something happening if she fell back asleep kept her awake.

When it was around six she got up to get ready putting on an outfit, brushing her teeth, fixing her hair, and grabbing her shoes and book bag, before later walking out the door car keys in hand.

Her parents and brothers had already left for work so she wasn't able to say bye, not that they ever seemed to care.

She pushed the feeling of hurt aside starting to drive to cherry lane in her bright red Audi Quattro.

On cherry lane lived max, after the death of Billy Kat decided she would pick max up for school whenever she could knowing max's mom and stepdad were fighting.

    Pulling up to the quaint house she walked to the door and knocked.  "Goodmorning Mr. Hargrove. I'm here for max." Kathryn said with a smile on her face when it opened.

     The man looked like he had just gotten done yelling.

"Maxine your rides here!"  He shouts out.

   Fast the red head walked out the front door quietly giving a small wave to Kat.

       After getting in the car Kathryn drove them to Hawkins high school. This was their first day there. Max's first day of high school and Kats first day back.

"Nervous?" Kat asked Max.

"Not really, it's just gonna be hard you know?" Kat nodded. Max was going to have to put up with people asking if she was okay, with people talking about billy, and walking by his old locker.

"I'm always there for you even if you just need someone to talk to." Kathryn gives a small smile, but the car stays silent. She knows that Max would always go to her, even if she didn't say anything out loud.

                                      ***

     It only took a few minutes to get to the school from Max's house. When the two teens got out they were welcomed by a busying school yard of teens hugging and talking to their friends.

"I'll give you a ride home too, just meet me in the same spot." She was parked in the middle of the lot.

   Max gave a nod, got out of the car and started walking towards the door closest to her locker. Kathryn had to head the complete opposite way to get to hers.

   She roughly knew where everything was from the year and a half she once spent there. Her locker number was 684 and she finally found it located near her science class, luckily her first class of the day.

      After putting all her stuff away and grabbing everything she needed she walked in to the class. There were a few minutes left till the tardy bell rung, but she wanted to get there early. She introduced herself to her teacher that was going to be there for a few months, her principal Mr. Higgins. The actual science teacher was sick and they couldn't find a replacement in time for school to start.

She made her way over to where the principal said her seat was going to be and put her head down til class started. Science class, like every other class that day, was going to go by quickly for her. It was the same old thing she went through every first day of a new school year. The teacher told the rules about their classrooms, what they were going to be doing that year and let the students catch up with eachother from the summer. Kat was planning on laying her head down again, but someone decided to start talking to her.

"Hey are you new to Hawkins?" The girl asking was Asian, pretty with poofy curled hair."

"Sort of, I took a little break before coming back, are you?" Kat gave a smile.

"Well last year was my first year, I moved here from New York." The girl was looking over her shoulder at someone.

"Oh that's actually really cool, I'm Kathryn and I moved back from Montana during the summer."

     "I'm Lori, did you move away before or after everything in Hawkins happened?" She asked organizing some of the things she had set on her desk into a new folder.

    "Afterwards." Kathryn made out putting away the little part of her that didn't want to admit it.

    "Well that's understandable my parents knew about it but my grandma got sick so we had to come stay here with her."

   "Sorry about your grandma." Kathryn said not sure what else to say. She just wanted to lay down.

    "Oh yea no it's fine, She's getting better .. Anyways, I'm sure you don't want to hear about my grandma, I just like talking to newer people."

   "Lori why are you telling someone you just met about your grandma." a girl with fiery red hair joked as she walked over from across the classroom.

    "Hello to you too Judith." Lori grinned.

  "Judith Moore?" Kathryn questioned.

  "Yea that's me, and you are.?" Judith sassed.

   "Kathryn Callahan. I went to school with you for like forever, until last year."

    "Oh wow I didn't even recognize you! You used to wear a lot of...."

"Don't remind me." Kat cringed cutting her off.

"You're back that's great. How have you been? You moved in with your grandparents right?"

  "That's right, in all honesty I miss it now that I'm here again."

    "Well I'm sure after you spend more time here you'll like it a lot more. Hey maybe you can han-" the bell cut the girl off mid sentence.

      "Maybe you can hang out with me, Lori, and some of our other friends sometime." She finished.

      "Yea maybe." Kathryn grabbed her bag and left to her next class along with the others, she didn't want to tell her that she'd already been back for 3 months and didn't think she'd ever not miss Montana.

After school she recalled her second class of the day being the most eventful. Kathryn was sitting in the front doodling on her notebook when a lady in her mid 30's with dark curly hair wearing a long bright yellow dress walked in about 5 minutes after the bell rang.

"I'm Ms. Monroe. I'll be your English teacher for the year. We all know the drill on the first day. In my class we'll be going on plenty of adventures, trekking through the glorious pages of our new English books. They can be found under your desks. Go ahead and grab them." She cheered.

Everyone sighed but did as she said.

"Now tear out the entirety of the introduction, all of it, I want it gone." The class was shocked not sure if they should or not. "I don't hear any ripping."

Eventually a ripping sound from the back of the room echoed.

"Thank you Mr. Amberton, finally." Ms. Monroe beamed at the boy who started the chain, one after the other people started pulling the pages out of the thick book.

     Kathryn ripped out page after page not even caring how rugged they looked, then watched the girl next to her rip them very calmly, the girl next to her was no other then Nancy Wheeler. Once one of her best friends neither of them had said much to each other since they waved goodbye to the Byers weeks ago, now in California. Kathryn finished in less than 30 seconds while Nancy was still at it.

    "What's taking you so long Nancy?" Kathryn teased.

     "Listen, I want to save the pages, so I'm ripping them out where they'll actually be recognizable if we need them again."

    Kathryn couldn't make fun of her for that, she knew it was a smart thing to do, especially considering the teachers teaching style, this was the 80's, she wouldn't be surprised if Ms. Monroe were to be fired, though she was starting to like her.

"That's smart." She said looking down at her pages, some of them were ripped in half so there was no saving them.

"Alright I'm going to pass out some of my class rules. Take them home and look at them there." Ms. Monroe finally spoke as she saw people start to finish.

When Kathryn got her copy she looked over it. Most of the rules were understandable, but some of them were more motivational: get an A in this class, graduate, go to college. She could tell Ms. Monroe was going to have her own style of teaching and she was excited for what was to come in her class.

Ms. Monroe started telling her class about the different short stories and books they'd be reading: "In this class we'll be reading Shakespearean pieces like 'Julius Caesar' and 'Romeo and Juliet', but we'll also be reading 'The Lord Of The Flies', 'The Great Gatsby'. And 'The Catcher In The Rye.' Any complaints anyone?" No one said anything.

    "No? Okay then that's all I have, the rest of the time time is yours now until the bell rings."

   Nancy and Kathryn looked at each other

    "It seems like Atleast one class this year won't be boring." Kathryn started.

  "How Great." Nancy sarcastically replied.

    When the bell rang once more Kathryn was relieved, it was only her second class, but she was already tired of the first day routine.

      By her 3rd class she stopped paying attention, and by the 4th she was completely zoned out. Then came lunch, she didn't feel particularly hungry and didn't know anyone who she could sit by other then her band. She wasn't feeling like ruining her social status on the first day. Her parents would be royally pissed and although she wanted to change, a part of her still did whatever they liked to get their approval.

After grabbing a lunch tray and filling it with a salad and an apple she looked around the cafeteria.

"Over here!" The girl from her science class waved over to her.

She walked over there, but rolled her eyes when she saw who was sitting there. Her goddamn cousin Cady. She had the urge to turn away, no to run away, but Lori stopped her.

"Hey you can sit by me!" Lori exclaimed . She didn't want to, she really didn't want to.

    "Kat?" Cady had a confused look on her face.

   "Hey Cady."

    "My parents didn't tell me you were staying, I thought you were going back. I'm glad you're here though." Kathryn felt like she was lying, but she was being genuine.

      "You didn't know our grandparents were selling the farm?"

     "Hold up grandparents? You two are related?" Lori was absolutely shocked.

       "You didn't know that? They're both Callahan's dip shit." Judith hit her playfully on the shoulder

      "You know I'm not good at putting two and two together."

     Kat sat down next to Lori and started eating her apple. Other than Lori, Judith, Kat, and Cady a mixture of basketball players and cheerleaders sat along the table. One in particular had his arm around Cady. Blonde with short hair Kat recognized him as Jason Carver, total grade A asshole. Her cousins boyfriend, how she could stoop so low she had no clue, but apparently he was sweet to her.

Eating lunch quietly and listening to her tables bustling she finished what she wanted to eat by the time it was time for her next class.

The next class she drew, same as the one afterwards, but during her last class of the day she saw a familiar face.

"Eddie Munson? In government? How many times have you taken this one?"

"Hey 3rd times a charm." There he was, the jokester she missed. Now she was feeling guilty for not eating lunch with her old friends.

"That is what they say." She laughed.

"This is my year, so don't worry you won't see me in this class again."

"Well hopefully I'm not in this class again either, I'm planning on living far from here basking under the sun on my free time when I'm not take college classes."

    "Woww smart stuff, where are you going?" He questioned looking straight at her. He was admiring her sharp jawline and her long eyelashes. Eddie was someone who always noticed little things in people.

"Somewhere in California, or maybe Florida? I hear there's pretty beaches and nice weather." She had a big dream.

"I can see that lifestyle for you, really bright." He flicks his hand when he says the word bright.

"So what about you?"

"What about me?"

"What are you going to do when you graduate high school?" She asks.

"No disrespect to uncle Wayne, but I'll probably end up like him working at the plant, I'd hate to though because that means cutting the glorious hair." He runs his hands through his hair.

"Oh no how will you every recover?"

"Listen this is the only way I can get the ladies."

"Ah yes the ones lined up here to ask you on a date?"

"Harsh, but you do know you're here too right? And very sorry but I think it's way too early in our rekindling of our friendship for you to ask me on a date."

"In your dreams Edward."

"What ever you say Katie."

They continued talking, mostly about corroded coffin: about the next songs they were planning on doing and how Kat was going to add to the band. It'd only been a day since the gig, so she was a new member.

       That class was her favorite class she had that day due to the fact that the teacher mostly left them alone. He seemed bored too after 7 hours of instruction. It was also the fact that there was someone she didn't mind in there.

                                     ***

      Strolling out of the school after she got some of her things from her locker she made her way to her car.

      Waiting for max she stood at the front fidgeting  with her locket her nana gave her before her and her papaw finally left Hawkins, after Marks' wedding. They went back down there to settle everything with the house.

She didn't have to wait long before the girl came out. "Ready?" Kathryn got in the car.

"Ready." Max opened the door and hopped in.

Kathryn started the car like she did when they left the house and turned the radio on.

The lyrics of 'Running Up That Hill' by Kate Bush spilled from the speakers as they pulled out of the parking lot.

Max turned the radio up.

"Is this a new Kate Bush song?" Kathryn wondered.

"I think so, it's good." Max replied to her really taking in the lyrics.

'If I only could,
I'd make a deal with God ,
and i'd get him to swap our places.'

Listening to that lyric Kathryn really related to it, and knew max did too. She knew that she had prayed to God late at night after Barb disappeared and asked him to make her go missing instead.

They both really listened to it, Kathryn knew it was going to be one of her favorites. She liked being able to bond with max, even if it was with both of them being silent.

After more songs on the radio played she pulled into the driveway of Cherry Lane and turned the radio off so she could say bye. Max's mom was sat out on the porch wiping tears when she saw them. Max rushed out and waved off Kathryn so she wouldn't see anything. Something had happened between Max's mom and stepdad.

Kathryn drove away fast. She knew Max wanted her to.

When she was finally far away from the house she turned the radio back on once again to listen to her favorite song.

3 Months in Hawkins and she already dreaded the days to come, but she knew it was good for her to face what used to burden her: Hawkins.

'Things will get better' she kept reminding herself as she pulled into a garage filled with instruments.

A/N hope you enjoy, right now this is unedited!!

next chapter you get to see a high Kathryn and the band??? 🫶🫶