— CHAPTER 12 —
THE OMEN

FRIDAY 11th NOVEMBER,
1983

THE woodland floor is caged away from the bleak sky by the wiry, nude branches overhanging, now and then creaking under the weight of a bird perching there. Daphne has been hearing almost nothing but the crunch of dead leaves under her feet for... however long they've been walking now. She doesn't even know. But with every snapping twig or new sound she is alert, wondering if the monster is near.

     She pulls her woollen fingerless gloves over her knuckles, hoping it will somehow provide extra warmth. It isn't the first time today she has wondered what she's really doing here. Daphne shoots a glance forward at Jonathan, and then Nancy behind him. Why is she committing her day to monster-hunting with a couple of sophomores, when she could be spending this time making further amends with Felix, or something else more useful?

     For Tonya, she tells herself. And that she doesn't question. Maybe Tonya McCarthy isn't her closest companion in the world, but she is an innocent girl who might be in danger. If she can help, then of course she will...

Nancy stops in front of her, pulling out a flask of water and taking a swig. Daphne stops next to her and sticks her thumbs under her backpack straps. "You alright?" she asks.

"Yeah, just thirsty..." she replies, slipping the flask back into her bag and wiping some water from her mouth. They continue walking for a while, now falling into step with each other, before Nancy pipes up again. "Hey, have you noticed our siblings hanging out more recently?" she asks.

     "What?"

"I mean... Cath and Mike. She's suddenly there all the time whenever I see him with his friends."

"Yeah," Daphne feels her features lighten as she purses her lips through a fond smile. "I think it's really nice, actually."

"Oh yeah, me too. It's just... pretty random. For years, the most I ever heard Mike talk about her was when the Middle School Science Fair came around. Who is it she's friends with again?"

     "Pamela, Sandy and Gina."

     "Right, that's it," Nancy snaps her fingers. "Well, all I can say is if he's let her hang out with them, she must be pretty special."

     "She is special." Suddenly Daphne finds her heart sinking, as she thinks of her sister as of late. There's something about her the past few years. She just seems a little bit... sad. Like she has lost her colours. And worst of all, she thinks Cath might not even realise it. Daphne opens her mouth and shuts it again hesitantly; but it's too late, Nancy has already noticed.

     "What is it? You looked like you were gonna say something?"

     "Nothing, it's just..." she trails off for a moment, sighing. She doesn't know why she is telling Nancy this. But technically she was the one who brought it up, so... Daphne continues. "I worry about Cath sometimes. I probably shouldn't be saying this, but her friends... they're perfectly decent and everything, but I just cannot see what she shares in common with them. And at the end of the day, she can do what she wants, but to me it feels like she's always just sitting on the fringe the whole time. Not really being included. Maybe just hanging out with them because she thinks it's the right thing to do..."

     Daphne pauses for a moment, stealing a sidewards glance at Nancy. But she doesn't indicate for her to stop.

     "But I... I know her. She's got a wicked sense of humour, and this big heart with so much love and caring to give — if she could just find the right people to show it to. Instead she just seems to fade into the background. I... don't know where I'm going with this. Except that when I've seen her with your brother and his friends, I don't think she has to think about anything."

     "That's... really nice," Nancy nods sharply, her eyes glued to the forest floor as a muscle flares in her jaw. Nice? That's it? But something in her voice seems so small, as if Daphne has hit a nerve.

     Silence then spreads between the two of them like a ripple upon a pond's surface, more empty as it grows. She takes the opportunity to observe her own new companion herself. Nancy is the kind of person Daphne would never approach at school. She's popular, first and foremost, and follows the crowd like any other popular kid — and yet, right now, she also couldn't care less what stupid clique she comes from. Fundamentally they're both the same in this moment, in search of their person, and that is all that matters for a while. Although, she can't help but wonder if there is more depth to Nancy Wheeler than she lets on...

They continue their trek through the woods, Daphne starting to overtake Nancy and Jonathan. She doesn't know what it is about those two — the only thing she knows is that she is increasingly beginning to feel like a third wheel.

     "You never said what I was saying," she catches Nancy saying from behind her.

     "W-what?" Jonathan replies.

     "Yesterday. You said I was saying something, and that's why you took my picture."

     "Oh... I don't know." In that moment, Daphne looks over her shoulder to find Jonathan and Nancy sharing one of the most magnetic looks she has ever seen. Jonathan coughs nervously. "I guess... I saw this girl, you know, trying to be someone else. But, you know, for that moment... it was like you were alone, or you thought you were, and you could just be yourself."

     Nancy appears to consider this for a moment, squinting sceptically into the distance. "That is such... bullshit," she finally utters, with a slow shake of her head.

     "What?" Jonathan stops in his tracks, taken aback. Clearly this was not the answer he had anticipated.

     Now she's stopped too, and she storms up to him in a strop. Daphne is tempted to warn him that he shouldn't mess with Nancy Wheeler when she's wielding a handgun, but decides that now is not the best time.

     "I am not trying to be someone else," Nancy snaps, "Just because I'm dating Steve and you don't like him—"

     "You know what? Forget it, I just thought it was a good picture..." Jonathan huffs, bumping her shoulder as he walks ahead of her.

     "He's actually a good guy!" she insists, struggling to keep up behind him. Daphne has already cleared some distance between them and watches from afar, amused.

     "... O-okay?"

     "Yesterday... with the camera... he's not like that at all. He was just being... protective."

     "Yeah, that's one word for it."

     "And I guess what you did was okay?"

     "No, I— I never said that!"

     "You have every right to be pissed off—"

     "Okay, okay!" Jonathan yells, spinning on his heel to face her. "But does that mean I have to like him?"

     "... No?" Nancy settles on, blinking at him.

     "Listen, don't take it so personally, okay? I don't like most people. He's in the vast majority."

     "You know, if there were any monsters nearby," Daphne contributes loudly, "I think they would be licking their lips by now... that is, if they even have... lips... ugh, forget it." They can't even hear her anyway, seeming to have completely missed her call as they stand in their face-off, forgetting the world around them.

     Lover's quarrel, she thinks to herself.

     Daphne continues up the gradually steepening woodland hike, using the hockey stick to lean her weight on. She finds her mind drifting in these woods, thoughts getting tangled up in the leaves and hiding underneath blankets of dead leaves. It suddenly occurs to her that all of this would make a great story, and an even better movie, if they make it out alive... maybe she should write that down when she gets home. She could finally combat what feels like her entire life's worth of writer's block.

     She smiles to herself, looking up for a moment as she stops to catch her breath. But there's suddenly something that makes her blood curdle with dread, something catching her eye that makes Daphne stop dead in her tracks...

     A glimpse of mint green fighting its way through the thick mass of trees.

     "Guys..." she calls out, still fixated on what she has seen. No answer yet. Daphne edges nearer to the rim of the ditch, where mossy clumps of twigs and leaves sugarcoat the fall. Her mouth goes dry.

     It couldn't be. Could it?

     "Guys..."

     No answer. They're still squabbling.

     "GUYS!" she hollers this time. The white noise of Nancy and Jonathan's argument cuts itself off, and she can practically feel them staring at her.

     "Daphne, what is it?" Jonathan asks, suddenly sounding fearful.

     She can't wait any longer. Circling round to a less steep side of the deep ditch, Daphne tip-toes at full speed down the side, the earth skidding under her soles as she ignores Jonathan's calls to wait for them. Just before she thinks her knees might buckle in from the force, she reaches the bottom — her hand clamps onto the side of a tree trunk, where she can now see it in full view. To her horror, Daphne recognises the number plate...

     The remnants of Tonya's mint green Mini stand against a leaning tree, lopsided and crumpled from impact. The tires have been completely annihilated and punctured, and jagged holes have been left in the windscreen from what she can see behind. What happened here?

     "Holy shit..." Nancy whispers. She turns to see the girl's hand hovering over her mouth in complete shock, just as Jonathan makes it down the ditch and joins her at her side. "You don't think she's... in there, do you?" she asks, peering reluctantly at the car wreck.

     "I guess there's only one way to find out..." Daphne says, steeling herself. Slowly she inches closer to the car, anticipating something to jump out at her through the windows, or worse — find Tonya's body rotting in there. The ominous buzzing of flies like nonstop static does nothing to calm her nerves. She reaches the driver's seat and crouches slightly, able to look inside. It's empty.

     When she informs Nancy and Jonathan about this, they don't seem any less or more relieved.

     "I just don't understand how the police haven't found this yet," Daphne remarks in disbelief. "All those search parties... and it's not like it's that hidden, either."

     Jonathan anxiously wrings his hands around the baseball bat's handle. "Well... should we take a look inside?"

     Using the bottom of the baseball bat, he smashes in the driver's seat window so they can open the door from the inside. The flimsy door creaks open, the whole vehicle wheezing with pain as Daphne slips inside and sits down in front of the wheel. Her seat is scarred with giant slashes, looking suspiciously like claw marks, and the dashboard has a dusting of glass fragments which once made up the windshield. There are also dark, almost reddish marks streaking the dash, which Daphne hopes aren't what she thinks they are. She starts to pick the glove compartment's lock with a spare hair pin Nancy lends her. For a moment, she doubts over what they are doing — shouldn't they be leaving this job to the Hawkins Police?

     No, she eventually decides. If they haven't found this yet, they clearly can't do their job right.

     The glove compartment opens like a gaping cave's mouth, spilling out its treasures. Daphne takes them out one by one; first, a couple of cassette tapes. One is a Michael Jackson tape, the other one an evidently self-made mixtape, addressed to Felix "with love from Tonya" in her immaculate cursive handwriting. Daphne holds the tape limply in her hands and frowns — she can only assume this never got to Felix. She sets it aside on the passenger seat, moving on to a small black academic diary, filled with reminders for homework and rehearsals going all the way up to November before stopping abruptly. Slotted in to one of the pages is a brochure for Juilliard with two exclamation marks in red ballpoint pen at the top corner.

     But it's a small pill bottle in the back that catches her eye. Daphne reaches back to the dark depths of the glove compartment and brings it to the light, reading the label at the same time Nancy looks in through the smashed window.

     "What are those?" Nancy asks.

     "Laxatives," she replies, turning the bottle over in the light.

     Seeming to notice Daphne's perturbed expression, Nancy breathes in deeply through her nose. "Maybe she was just having... stomach problems?"

     "Yeah... maybe." But Daphne isn't so sure. Something about seeing the bottle makes her blood run cold, a vague unease overtaking her. And she can't pinpoint just why that is...

     "Guys, I think you should take a look at this," Jonathan says suddenly from up front. The two girls circle round to the front of the wrecked Mini, where he is examining his hand in what looks like perplexed disgust. He holds out his fingertips to them — they are coated in a thick, slightly translucent slime that is surprisingly less viscous than appearances suggest. "This was on the windshield and the bonnet, going down in stripes like this..." he gestures to the trails still glistening against the mint green coat.

     "Do you think it's... the monster?" Daphne suggests.

     "Could be," he shrugs uneasily. "She might've been dragged out the front."

     Oh, Tonya...

     Daphne is about to ask Nancy what she thinks, when she notices she has wandered off slightly. She appears to be entirely absorbed in something on the ground — whether it's something invisible hidden in the leaves or something else.

     "Nancy? What is it?" she asks.

     "It just... doesn't make sense," Nancy murmurs. She points to the ground. "Look at the leaves on the ground, right around where Tonya's car is, and look at the sides of the ditch."

     Jonathan and Daphne both stare downwards, and then back up at her. "What about them?" he asks.

     "Just think about it for a minute. First of all, why would Tonya's car have ended up this deep in the woods? And, even if she had, don't you think there would be some tracks left in the dirt or the leaves? It's only been a few days. They should still be there... right?"

     Daphne lets her head fall into her hands. Nancy is right, she's sure. Everything she is saying makes complete sense — unlike this scene they have just found. It only makes Tonya's vanishing even more mysterious, but her location now? Perhaps closer than they might think...

     She has to be close.

━━━━━━

CATH'S legs are throbbing by the time they reach a beaten-up old junkyard, compasses in hand. She can't remember the last time she has walked this far — mental note to self: wear more appropriate shoes next time. As the sun sinks lower and closer to the horizon, the evening November chill creeps in and tenses her every muscle, doing no favours for her sour mood. All she can do is hope, through her shivering and aching feet, that this trip will be worth it. That they will at least be closer to finding Will...

     All hope of this vanishes when they make a stop in the junkyard. Cath wonders why they have stopped, but doesn't complain as it gives her a moment to rest. She felt too much of a nuisance to ask earlier — the urgency of finding Will took precedence in her mind. And at a time when she already was feeling like enough of a spare part...

     Dustin adjusts his cap with a downtrodden expression as he stares at his compass. "We're headed back home" he mumbles.

     "What?" Lucas retorts.

     "Are you sure?" Mike asks uncertainly.

     "Yeah," he says, pointing towards the horizon. "Setting sun, right there. We looped right back around."

"And you're just realising this now?"

"Why is this all on me?"

"Because you're the compass genius?"

"Okay, just calm down," Cath sniffs tiredly, "What does everyone else's say?" She opens up her palm to reveal the compass tucked neatly in it. North. She bites the inside of her cheek, squinting in puzzlement at it. It turns out the others are pointing to North too.

"Maybe the gate moved?" Mike offers.

"No, I don't think it's the gate," Dustin shakes his head. "I think it's something else screwing with the compasses."

     "Maybe it's something here?"

     "I'm not sure Mike," Cath shrugs. "These compasses have been acting up for a while now."

     Nodding in agreement, Dustin weighs the compass in his hand. "Yeah, and besides, it would have to be like a super magnet..."

     During all of it, Lucas stays eerily quiet. Too quiet. There's something in the way his body is tensed on the spot — Cath notices his hands slowly clenching into fists at his sides as his jaw sets. If she weren't mistaken, it is anger that suddenly overtakes his features. "It's not a magnet," Lucas says through gritted teeth.

     His sinister tone surprises them all. He thrusts an accusatory finger in Eleven's direction; she stands helpless with her arms dangling at her sides, like defenceless prey.

     "She's been acting weirder than normal," Lucas snaps. "If she can slam doors with her mind, she can definitely screw up a compass."

     "Why would she want to do that?" Mike asks, appearing tired of Lucas's constant accusations.

     "Because she wants to sabotage our mission! Because she's a traitor!"

     Lucas storms up to Eleven, huffing furiously as she still stands stationary on the spot. Cath suddenly feels a pang of suspicion — if she knew he was lying, would she look as pale and frail as she does right now? Wouldn't she have reacted somehow? His face only inches away from hers, Lucas looks her up and down, sizing her up.

     "You did it, didn't you?" he hisses. "You don't want us to reach the gate. You don't want us to find Will."

     "Lucas, come on, seriously! Just leave her alone—"

     "Admit it."

     Eleven trembles in a cold gust that sweeps through the junkyard, completely unable to form a reply. "ADMIT IT!" Lucas shouts right in her face, Eleven jumping right out of her skin and gasping. Suddenly he violently seizes her wrist and exhibits it to the others — and Cath swears she feels her feet sink into the earth slightly.

     There is a dribble of blood on her sleeve.

     Now that she sees it herself, and she is standing closer, she notices the dried blood that darkens the rims of her nostrils. No, Cath thinks desperately. She can't have been. There has to be an explanation... some explanation... why would she want to keep them from finding Will? After all this time?

     "I saw her wiping her nose on the tracks!" Lucas adds, "She was using her powers the whole time."

     "Bull! That's old blood, right El?" Mike fires back, turning to Eleven for affirmation. But she stays silent once more. Shame is painted in the deep brown of her eyes, almost as if she might burst into tears at any moment. "Right El?" he repeats again, now more doubtfully. Still no answer from her.

     A tear dribbles down Eleven's cheek and Cath can't help but soften... even if she has led them to a dead end. There has to be an explanation. "Look El," she asks in her kindest voice, "We know you did it now, but can you just tell us why?"

     "It's... it's not safe," Eleven whispers back.

     Only those few words manage to detonate whatever has been brewing between the two boys. Lucas drags Mike to the side, now burning with fury. "What did I tell you?" he barks. "She's been playing us from the beginning!"

     "That's not true! She helped us find Will..." Mike retorts.

     Lucas scoffs bitterly. "Find Will? Find Will?"

     "Guys, just hold on a second," Cath pleads. All she can think of is El's words: it's not safe. "Can we please talk about—"

     "Where is he, then? Huh?" Lucas continues, ignoring her attempts at peacemaking as she spectated helplessly alongside Dustin. "I don't see him."

     "Yeah, you know what I mean."

     "No, I actually don't. Just think about it, Mike! She could've just told us where the Upside Down was right away, but she didn't. She just made us run around like headless chickens."

     "All right, calm down!" Dustin yells, shoving his arms between the two to separate them. But Lucas shoved him away with a shocking force that makes Cath uneasy.

     "No! She used us, all of us!" Lucas exclaims. "She helped just enough so she could get what she wants. Food and a bed. She's like a stray dog."

     "Screw you, Lucas!"

     "No, screw YOU, Mike! You're blind... blind because you like that a girl's not grossed out by you. But WAKE UP, man! WAKE THE HELL UP! She knows where Will is, and now she's just letting him die in the Upside Down."

     "Shut up!" Mike hollers at him.

     "For all we know, it's her fault."

     "SHUT UP!"

     "We're looking for some stupid monster... but did you ever stop to think..." Lucas says, shoving Mike hard in the chest and pointing at Eleven, "...that maybe she's the monster?"

     It is the last straw for Mike. He explodes. "I said SHUT UP!" he roars. Before Cath can even blink, he has tackled Lucas by the waist and they are wrestling each other fiercely to the ground. They land on the dirt with a grunt, shoving each other and rolling around — she just fears whoever might throw a punch first.

     "Stop!" Eleven cries.

     "Knock it off, you idiots!" Dustin yells at them.

     "Please, just stop!" Cath shouts. "Before someone gets hurt..."

     But it's no use. Lucas manages to gain an upper hand and flip Mike over onto his back, pinning him down as he grabs fistfuls of his coat, still shaking with fury. All of a sudden Eleven let out a shrill scream — the banshee-like shriek sends Lucas flying off from Mike's body, at high speed sliding along the damp grass until his back collides with a hard THUD against a sheet of metal.

     "Oh my God..." Cath gasps, clamping a hand over her mouth. She finds herself instantly running to his side, heart hammering furiously in her rib cage, nauseating as she carefully flips him onto his back. Her mouth goes dry; he's unconscious.

     What if he's...

     No, she wills herself firmly. He's okay. He has to be. Mike and Dustin are worriedly at his side now too, shaking him desperately in the hopes that it will wake their friend up again. Cath gently takes his head in her hands and cradles it in her lap — away from the damp ground, she thinks. All of the anger from before has diffused entirely... but now Mike has a new target.

     "Why would you do that?" Mike shouts at Eleven, who stands horrified as her nose bleeds once more. "What's WRONG with you?! What is WRONG what you?"

     "Is he bleeding?" Dustin asks, worry stinging his gaze as it diverts between Lucas's eerily still face and Cath's pallor one.

     "No, I can't see anything..." she replies, looking either side of his head and quickly examining her hands for any dreaded streaks of red. "Oh God, come on Lucas, wake up..."

     "Lucas... Lucas come on!"

     It has almost been half a minute, Cath thinks, when Lucas finally coughs and shifts. Dustin lets out a nervous chuckle and Mike clutches a hand to his chest as he heaves a sigh of relief. Slowly but surely, Lucas's eyes open, grimacing as he looks up — the first thing he sees is Cath forcing a reassuring smile down at him (despite how much she felt like she might keel over right then).

     "Lucas, you okay?" Mike asks.

     "You were out for a fair bit..." Cath breathes in disbelief, glancing at her watch. "Half a minute or something."

     "Lucas... Lucas how many fingers am I holding up? Lucas, how many fingers?" insists Dustin, thrusting his fingers into his face. Cath figures the poor boy has barely adjusted his eyes yet, so she pushes Dustin's hand away.

     "Do you feel dizzy?" she asks gently.

     "No..." Lucas grumbles, slowly sitting up again and rubbing his head. Then he catches Mike's eye and his jaw sets again, like before when they had been fighting.

     "Let me see your head..." Mike says, genuinely concerned as he reaches his hand out.

     But Lucas slaps it away instantly. "Get off of me!" he snaps, backing frantically away from Mike and barely able to even look at him. He shoves past all of them, storming off — it's best to let him go at this point. Although now the boundary of what's best seems to get blurrier and blurrier all the time...

     "... Where is El?" Mike asks, still breathing heavily from the almost-fight.

     "What do you—" Cath goes quiet, seeing the spot where Eleven had been stood. She has vanished. Done a disappearing act, just like numerous others this week. As the boys start calling her name,

     "What now?" Dustin sighs helplessly.

     Slowly shaking her head, she clenched her eyes shut and cups her hands over her face; like curtains shielding her from the mess that only ever seems to multiply with every move they make. "This is getting ridiculous..." she murmurs.

     "What is?" asks Mike, almost obliviously as he seems up for another challenger to his plans.

     Cath glares at him. "All of this. Everything is falling apart. I'm pretty sure we have driven Lucas away for good, and now Eleven is gone. She's going to be alone and vulnerable somewhere, and even if she didn't mean to, she could have really hurt Lucas just then... we're just doing more harm than good. I don't know how much longer I can go on with these false hopes for Will. It's killing me."

     "So, what are you saying? You're just... giving up?"

     "I'm being sensible, Mike."

     "Will is still out there, we have proof now, and we have to go help him—"

     "But we're just kids! How are we supposed to find Will ourselves?" Cath asks, throwing her arms up in the air. She can feel her throat closing up as the cold air coaxes held-back tears out to prickle her eyes. "I just... once again, I think we should leave this to the people who actually have the power to do something with it. That way, we will all be safe, El can get the real help she needs, and we... I can stop pretending that... th-that all of this," she says, gesturing to all of them, "is actually more than just a search party."

     "Hang on a second, what?" Mike's brows are knitted together now, studying her in surprise. But there is a gentle confusion in it that, for a very brief moment, gives Cath hope before her incessant thoughts catch up to her and cloud her vision.

     "Yeah, Cath," Dustin chips in too, voice laced with concern. "What do you mean?"

     "You know... all this pretending like we won't all go back to normal, when this is over..."

     "Cath, we literally don't know what you're talking about," says Mike. He pauses for a moment. "Is this... about earlier? Something I said? 'Cause I don't know what it was, but..."

     She cowers on her spot, another cold wind blowing. Cath zips up her jacket. You're just wasting their time, she taunts herself. Look at them. They don't even know what you're talking about. "I... I think I just want to go home. I'm sorry."

     Turning her back on them before she can get too upset, Cath shoves her hands into her pockets and starts on home along the path they took, hoping to clear some distance between her and the boys. Her fingertips graze the rim of her compass in her pocket; with it, Cath remembers briefly a happiness of feeling like she was involved in something where she was valued, and was being helpful. But now she realises it means more than that — she wants to be properly wanted, and not just to lend a helping hand in a one-off search mission...

     Cath has never missed Will Byers more.

━━━━━━

IN the pitch black of the night, especially with the knowledge that anything could be lurking in the shadows, Daphne isn't so sure she is overly fond of the forest anymore. Beautiful tree branches in the daytime are suddenly gnarled arms clawing out at her in the dark. Every shape she questions to be something grotesque...

And now after finding Tonya's Mini, she is more expectant of finding the monster than ever. But they have been walking for hours now, way into the night, and still nothing. Daphne can't think the monster would have strayed any further if only a few days ago it had taken Tonya — unless it had branched out to other ends of Hawkins.

Something glistens on the ground in the moonlight, and she stops in front of it. "Guys," she whispers sharply. "Look at this..."

Jonathan and Nancy join her, having not strayed as far this time; after the disturbing find of the wrecked mint green Mini, there was a much lesser urge to split up from one another. Jonathan shines his flashlight onto the stuff.

"Do you think it's the slime?" Daphne asks in a hushed voice.

"No, I think it's... blood..." he whispers back. An indistinct whimper from ahead suddenly catches their attention — and it must be in close range, only a few steps ahead. Jonathan slowly follows it, the two girls trailing behind.

His flashlight beam follows mostly the winding trail of crimson on the leaves until a few more steps forward. It expands into a wider pool of blood, the putrid stench of open wounded flesh choking Daphne. That's when the beam illuminates the carcass — a giant, gaping hunk of pink, bleeding muscle as whimpers of distress escape the mortally wounded deer.

"Oh fuck..." Daphne curses, tears springing to her eyes.

Nancy stares sadly at it, appearing to feel shameful for shining her flashlight in its eyes. "It's been hit by a car," she says gently. "We can't just leave it."

"I'll do it..." Jonathan holds out his palm towards Nancy, his eyes flitting down to the handgun in her gloved hand.

"I thought you said—"

"I'm not nine anymore."

Knowing it would be useless to argue with him, Nancy sighs and hands over the gun. Daphne is about to shield her eyes from the sight, knowing full well she couldn't bear seeing another being in pain like this, when the antlers and the open wound simply... vanish from their sight. Something must have dragged it out of their view — but it happened so swiftly she barely saw. Whatever it was, though, Daphne suspects it isn't friendly.

"Where'd it go?"

"I don't know..."

Blindingly through the dark, the trio try and head in the general direction of where the deer was dragged away. Daphne can hear her blood roaring through her ears, helplessly wielding her hockey stick in her defence. Crunch, crunch, crunch, go the dead leaves beneath her feet... and then silence. Something soft.

She stops. The other two are fading away into the distance, but she has already seen it on the ground.

The torn scrap of fabric on the earth; slightly muddied and worn, but the knitted rosy pink shade clearly discernible even in the impenetrable darkness...

Tonya...

Daphne can see her so clearly now — her cardigan lit up by the hazy lights on her porch, bashfully dropping her off at home before slipping back into her Mini, a flash of mint green disappearing into the night. She kneels down and slowly takes the fabric into her hands. She massages it between her fingertips. Even now, it is still so soft. "Where are you, Tonya?" she whispers to herself.

     The next thing Daphne knows is searing pain.

     She doesn't experience herself falling — it all happens so fast — just knows she was stood up before, and now she's flat on her belly and she hit her head on the way down. What's going on? Phosphenes float in front of her eyes, the tree trunks spinning deliriously like she was seeing the world through a kaleidoscope. Blood. She can feel blood running down her temple. Shit.

     Something grabs her ankles. Then she's being dragged through the leaves, and for only the briefest of moments time seems to slow down before tumbling into something fast, way too fast, and then she's screaming bloody murder — she has to. Someone has to hear her, she's being dragged into hell—

     "HELP!" Daphne shrieks at the top of her lungs — dirt buried its way underneath her fingernails as she claws at the earth, taunting her in its failure to keep her taut. Every bump in the ground is a punch to her shoulder, a kick in her gut, grazing her chin. "NANCY!!" she screams again. "JONATHA—"

     Darkness...

     It swallows her whole.

━━━━━━

A/N;

WELL... things are ✨kicking off✨ for real now.

in other news, we are OFFICIALLY halfway through paranormal! that feels absolutely absurd to say, but also amazing because i'm just so glad i took the plunge and finally started writing this. and also to see you guys enjoying it makes me so happy!

i'm going to try and update chapter 13 as soon as possible, since that was a MEGA CLIFFHANGER and we need to know if our girl daphne is going to be okay... i'll try my very best but i also have a lot going on right now in my personal life, so we will just have to see.

(p.s: i posted this really late at night and it is super unedited, so... excuse any mistakes or dry writing because i low-key didn't like this chapter at all oOPS)

— Imogen

[ Published: August 8th, 2021 ]