— CHAPTER 14 —
READY OR NOT, HERE I COME

FRIDAY 11th NOVEMBER,
1983

WILL doesn't know how long he has been running. He never does anymore. All he knows is that if he stops altogether, he might not make it. The young boy's feet pound against the dead earth, his tired heart hammering in a frenzy with every step he puts into his sprint.

He was so close.

Between the towering trees that caged him, all looking exactly the same when shrouded in the inky darkness, there had been a light. The first light he had seen in... days? Will didn't know how long he had been here anymore. He stopped counting when he realised the sun never rose in this hell. But this light had ignited a newfound hope in his weak-limbed body — for the first time, he could see the end. Then there had been all of these voices. The first one was Tonya, he knew that. He had crossed paths with her a couple of times. In fact, he had been surprised she was still hanging on by the time he spotted her crouched at the tree. And then there were two other voices that soon joined — two girls around the same age. One of them he soon figured out was Nancy, and his blood had run cold; had the demogorgon taken her too? And the other one... he wasn't sure at first.

But then he heard Jonathan's voice. In that moment, with the familiar rasp of his brother's call from outside of this place, Will had known he was coming home.

All three of them had talked in hushed whispers, with fearful glances over their shoulders. He had watched from afar, ducked behind a small log and safely obscured by it thanks to his small stature. The demogorgon had loomed ever nearer, and Will had observed in despair as they edged further and further away from his spot, completely unaware he was still there. How do I get their attention?, he'd thought desperately. Will observed with the deepest concentration as Nancy wriggled through the small opening in a tree trunk, dissolving into what might as well have been the abyss. She was through. He took that chance to edge nearer,

Tonya had slipped. The demogorgon flinched. He watched the creature creep from behind, the unsaid warning — "LOOK OUT!" — burning on the tip of his tongue and dying on his lips as her blood-curdling scream rang out through the dead forest. However, when her dead weight had slumped to the ground, Will found it wasn't Tonya who had screamed; it was the third voice.

Daphne.

Something had clicked into place within him then... a strange calm. He couldn't let Cath's sister die. Not her. Tonya was gone, and Daphne would have been its next kill if he didn't act fast. If it came to it, he would rather have spent more endless days running for his life in here, than escaping to remember the eternal guilt of leaving Daphne behind. Will stooped to pick up a sizeable rock from the ground where he was crouched, and wasted no time in lobbing it in the demogorgon's direction. Thunk! It had hit the tree trunk next to it — not where he was aiming, but now it was distracted. Good. On his second throw he managed to hit the monster in the flesh, detonating its agitation. It bought Daphne enough time to crawl into the shrinking tree portal...

It was shrinking.

Will tore off in the other direction, once again only able to hear his ragged breaths as he ran. The demogorgon was on his tail, no doubt, but he could still make it to the portal if he pushed himself. Skidding to a halt in front of the tree, he stuck his arm through the translucent curtain of slime that cloaked it, only to feel the space around it decreasing in size with every second. He retracted his arm back again, and watched sorrowfully at his knees as it sealed entirely. Tonya lay behind him, blood blossoming around her on her deathbed. He didn't want to look at her anymore, or at the portal, and he was going to be caught if he wasn't careful...

     And so he ran...

     He is still running now when he finally emerges from the woods. His feet slap against the gravelly road, and before him are rows of humble little homes — all distorted into some kind of alternate reality, as Will has long ago realised, but still uncomfortably familiar. He shoots up to the porch of the house immediately opposite him, trying the door handle — to his utter glee the door creaks open.

     Will rushes in and shuts the door behind him, securing all of the moss-covered locks. He sighs — his legs tremble and burn with lactic acid, his back still to the door. He takes in his surroundings, all the vines that obscure the ceiling lamp, and the torn coats hung on the pegs by the entrance, and... he knows that fireplace. Hang on, Will thinks, wandering over to inspect the array of photographs set on the mantelpiece. They may be coated in grime and the glass shattered, but after a close inspection, he has no doubt about it.

This is Cath's house.

He feels a strange sort of comfort wash over him. Although he may not have been here in years, he remembers this house like the back of his palm. He remembers when he and Cath used to play together, back when everything was so much more innocent. Will slowly makes his way up the stairs, trying his best to ignore the maggot-like things writhing on the steps, and instead imagines the house as he remembers it. Warm, welcoming, homely.

Is Cath's room still at the end of the landing? He creeps along it, slowly pushing the ajar door open and bracing himself for any hidden horrors inside. Will steps in. It's changed, he thinks for a moment, before smiling weakly to himself. I meant the layout, not about... whatever this place is. Things are relatively unchanged, with the same floral wallpaper and some of the furniture still in place. Perhaps just a bigger bed, a new desk and some other toys packed away to make way for other ones. She has a lot of books, he notices...

There is one thing he does recognise, though, and it makes his heart flutter — a small stuffed bunny sat up by her pillowcase. The matted fur is soaked through, making it sag sadly as it slumps against her pillow, but somehow it still stands out in the room. It is something pure, something familiar.

     Of course Will remembers it. He was the one who gave it to her.

     But he had been doubtful that she would still own it, let alone display it in her room. At least... he assumed she did. By now, Will was beginning to understand how this place worked. He thought of it as the world he knew, except flipped — a parallel universe. Everything was the same, and yet it wasn't.

     Will feels his head start to lull with fatigue. He's tired. So tired. But how can he rest, when he never knows what he will see when he opens his eyes again? Or where he will be?

This is no place for a small boy like him.

     Retreating into blissful ignorance while he can, Will curls up on the floor next to Cath's bed — he would feel awkward sleeping in it, parallel universe or not — and hugs the stuffed bunny to his chest. At first he has to brush the floppy ears away as they caress his neck, their dampness feeling too much like slimy tentacles, before letting out a weak breath. He lets his eyes shut and waits desperately to stop trembling and drift into a slumber...

━━━━━━

     DAPHNE has stared so long at the ceiling above her — the floral-print wallpaper, the dark hanging lampshade — that when she finally tries to shut her eyes, phosphenes of printed hydrangeas float dot the black canvas. She doesn't trust herself to keep her eyes shut for too long. She might wake up in that place again. Just as she anticipates the claw bursting through and gouging her face, Daphne opens them.

Rolling over to fluff her pillow, she lays back and clutches the crocheted blanket close to her chest, feeling her anxious heartbeat thrumming nauseatingly. Her makeshift bed set up on the floor next to Nancy's one is reminiscent of her childhood; she would pretend to be camping, building a blanket fort in her room and imagining she was an explorer camping in South America. But none of that joy returns now. Daphne reaches up to brush a strand of hair from her face, and instead her fingertips find the still-fresh cut above her eyebrow...

Tonya McCarthy is dead.

The reminder strikes her with an agonising hopelessness, the very thought making tears spring to her eyes. Apart from this she is otherwise numbed to what happens next. Since the trio arrived at Nancy's house — preferring to stick together after their ordeal — they have mostly remained in dumbfounded silence.

Daphne knows they are all thinking the same thing: Where do we go from here? She doesn't know the first thing about who to tell. Who would believe them if they said where they found Tonya, and where she died? Besides, the tree portal had shrunken, seemingly forever. For a moment, Daphne struggles to envision the look on Hopper's face as she tells him she slipped temporarily into another dimension...

... Which Daphne still can't quite believe. This was the sort of hellhole she saw in her favourite movies, the kind of creatures that the likes of Ellen Ripley would probably take down heroically. But she was no Ellen Ripley.

Suddenly another realisation drains more hope out of her. Felix... what will she tell Felix?

Giving up on sleep for now, Daphne sits up. Jonathan is knelt on the floor at the end of Nancy's bed with his own makeshift sleeping place too. He re-arranges a blanket for the fifth time in a row, flattening it erratically in his place to give him something to do. In a rare intermission of the silence, Daphne deadpans, "If you flatten that blanket any more, it'll be paper-thin."

Jonathan lets his hands rest on his thighs, sighing sharply. The bedroom door clicks open and in walks Nancy, arms hugging her torso in some kind of self-comfort. Her hair is still damp from the shower and the powder blue pyjamas hang limply from her frame. Daphne and Jonathan stare at her from the floor and she stares back. Something in her fragility right then makes Daphne think of a child, visiting their parents' room for consolation after a nightmare.

"Better?" Jonathan asks.

Nancy nods, unconvincingly.

After a long pause, Daphne swallows thickly and crosses her legs. "You know, we can still go home if you want," she says. "If... if it's—"

"No, please... stay," Nancy murmurs anxiously. "I don't want to be alone."

Daphne tries not to show her relief too visibly, but her shoulders still sag with that weight off her shoulders. Sure, she had her dad and Cath at home, but they didn't understand what she had seen take place tonight. She could never tell them... how could she ever tell them? It could wait until tomorrow morning.

     Thankfully, Nancy leaves the light on. Daphne never used to be afraid of the dark — but now she is afraid that the coat hanger by the door will look too much like a monster in the dark. It feels foolish to think, like a child's fear, but it is more visceral than she would like...

     She must have drifted off to sleep at some point, because when Daphne next opens her eyes the room is awash with grey morning light.

     Something rustles above her at the bed, and she notices Nancy's figure has disappeared from the side of the bed. Rubbing her eyes, Daphne sits up; for a moment she has to restrain her reaction when she spots Jonathan sleeping soundly on the other side of the bed. He is on top of the covers, fingers loosely wrapped around a handgun (just in case). At the end of the bed, Nancy sits cross-legged and much more awake than Daphne is. When she turns and sees the look on her face, the girl softens slightly.

     "I got scared," Nancy admits quietly, her gaze lingering on Jonathan. A beat passes. "Every time I close my eyes, I see that... thing."

     Daphne nods slowly. "Me too," she whispers. "And I see..."

     Tonya. She can't quite get the words out, afraid she might dissolve into a puddle of tears, but Nancy instantly seems to understand. "I still can't believe it. Do you think... that maybe Barbara..."

     "Who knows?" Daphne flinches all of a sudden, as a dreadful memory comes over her. The small silhouette in the distance, almost child-like in size. She had been too occupied then to notice, but she realises now: it was Will Byers. Will Byers saved your life. Daphne's gut clenches in horror. You could have helped him escape, but you didn't.

     Behind them, Jonathan stirs and eventually sits up, his hair slightly tousled and eyes still heavy with sleep. He notices the two girls sat bolt upright and straightens himself. "I didn't miss too much, did I?"

     "We're talking about last night," says Daphne. She wishes they weren't. She wishes she could run away right now.

     "Whatever that thing was, it was feeding... feeding on that deer." Nancy drums her pencil against an open book page. Probably feeding on Tonya too, Daphne thinks reluctantly. Why does she torture herself by imagining Tonya's fate? Apparently, Nancy is thinking the same thing too. "And if that's the case," she whispers fearfully, "that means if Will... and Barbara..."

     Her voice wavers on Barb's name, and Nancy gingerly touches the bridge of her nose to shield her face. Daphne would hope to comfort her, but after seeing Tonya killed last night, her usual optimism falters.

     "Hey..." Jonathan shuffles forward on the bed so he is next to Nancy. "My mom said she was able to talk to Will. That means he's still out there, he has to be. Right, Daphne?"

     "I guess so," Daphne replies weakly. Is he? Or did she leave him to die back there?

     "If he's alive, and Tonya was... at first... then there's a chance Barbara is too."

     "But then that means she's trapped," Nancy despairs, "in that... place." The girl trails off for a moment, the sheen of tears glowing over with a hardened expression as she appears to contemplate something. After a prolonged silence, Nancy utters words that take Daphne completely by surprise, and yet do not shock her:

     "We have to find it again."

     Jonathan stares at her. "You wanna go back out there?"

     Nancy nods. Daphne stares at her for a moment, at the determination in her eyes. Very quickly she is starting to feel ashamed that she only saw the girl as Steve Harrington's naïve, sophomore girlfriend. No matter how much she likes to think she sees those sticking out from the crowd, that she doesn't listen to the High School stereotypes, they still taint her visions of everyone. Maybe it's for survival. But Nancy has more grit in her than she had ever imagined; she sees that now.

     "Daphne," she says, turning to her. "Since it was feeding on a deer, the monster must be a predator, right?"

     "... I guess so, yeah," replies Daphne. "Tonya said something about feeding time."

     "Right." Nancy lugs one of the massive books laid out into her lap, and turns back a few pages. "And it seems to hunt like a lion, or a coyote."

     Daphne furrows her eyebrows, remembering back to the solo creature. "But it doesn't hunt in packs. It hunts alone..."

     "Like a bear. And remember last night at Steve's," says Nancy, turning to Jonathan now, "when Barb cut herself? And then last night, the deer?"

     "It was bleeding too," Jonathan realises.

     "And so was Tonya when I found her," Daphne adds. "Badly." So how did she last that long?

     Nancy flicks through some more pages, stopping on one displaying an image of a great white shark. "Sharks can detect blood in one part per million — that's one drop of blood in a million — and they can smell it from a quarter of a mile away."

     "So you're saying it can detect blood?"

     Shrugging in an anti-climactic way, Nancy glances between both of them. "It's just a theory..."

     Daphne blinks at the page again, at the giant jaws of the shark. She painfully remembers Tonya's final moments, feels the phantom sharpness of her scream ripping through her throat as she watched. Tonya McCarthy is dead. They cannot change that. But as far as she knows, Will is alive and perhaps Barb too. All three of them were innocent souls who had so much life ahead of them, and two still have a chance yet. Daphne will not live to see either of their blood spilled as Tonya's was if she can help it.

     "I want to test that theory," she blurts out.

     "You do?" Nancy asks.

     Daphne nods, swallowing thickly. "But if it works... what then?"

     "At least we'll know it's coming..."

     What they don't see coming is the urgent knocking on Nancy's bedroom door, then the doorknob being riddled with furiously. Daphne's heart lurches and she sees the other two jump in her periphery as they glare at the door. "Honey, are you up?" Karen Wheeler's voice calls from outside, and Daphne wipes the instant sweat from her brow.

     "Yeah. I'm... getting dressed," Nancy calls back awkwardly.

     "I made some blueberry pancakes!"

     "I'll... be down in a second."

Karen's heels clattering down the landing get quieter and quieter, until the three of them bask in the silence once again. Daphne rubs her eyes tiredly again. "I think pancakes are gonna have to wait," she sighs. "I should get back home. My dad might start freaking out otherwise."

"I understand," Nancy nods.

"But I'm still in. We should kick that monster's ass for good."

Daphne stands up, trying to massage the feeling back into her legs as she glances back at Nancy and Jonathan. She notices their hands clasped together just as they do, before they shyly retreat them away with an embarrassed look.

━━━━━━

SATURDAY 12th NOVEMBER,
1983

     THE Saturday morning is well in swing, when Cath hears the front door downstairs finally open. Her gaze shoots up from 'Sense and Sensibility' and she slots her leather bookmark inside it, before springing up from her seat.

     Yesterday afternoon, Cath had wandered back home alone and shivering from the evening drawing in. She felt so useless: to the girls at school, to Mike and the gang, to Will. Everyone. Gina's words still haunted her — "You're just there" — and now she was ever aware of only living on the fringe, never actually being of any use to anyone. Had she really convinced herself this was real friendship all along?

Admittedly, she had woken up this morning feeling slightly better. At least it was the weekend and she wouldn't have to face any of them at school just yet. But Eleven was missing... and the boys could still be looking for Will... what would she say to them if she came back? Cath meant most of what she said — at the end of the day they were kids, with no real way of finding Will. Time and time again, just when she thought she had hope it would come crashing down again. Cath could only go through that pain so much.

     But Cath had other things on her mind today. Daphne still wasn't home. She had begun to worry, and so had her father. She heard him in the night, and waking in the early hours of the day, pacing anxiously around the house since. So now to hear the front door open, she perches at the top curiously to eavesdrop on Daphne's homecoming.

     The first thing she notices is how exhausted Daphne looks. It is the first thing Thomas seems to notice too, stopping in the hallway in front of her and tensing. "Jesus, what happened to you? And where have you been?" he asks incredulously. "Is that a cut on your head?"

     "I'm fine, Dad," Daphne swats his hand away weakly.

     "I've been worried sick. Your sister barely got home in one piece last night, and now you wander in hours later? What is going on this week?"

     "Dad please, I just— I'm really tired..."

     Thomas goes quiet for a few moments, taking her in. "You're not hurt anywhere else?" Daphne shakes her head slowly. He pats her shoulder gently. "Go sit down," he says. "I can make you some breakfast before I go to work. But we'll be having words later, young lady... both of you."

     Cath freezes at the top of the steps, as her father stares at her from below. She disappears upstairs again and grabs her book, before going back down to sit in the living room. Daphne eats some slices of toast slowly in the kitchen, lacking in appetite as she labours through mouthfuls. She tries not to stare at her too much. Eventually she disappears upstairs, the question still lingering unanswered in the air of whatever ordeal her sister faced last night.

It isn't until Daphne runs downstairs, in a change of clothes with her bag slung over her shoulder, that the silence is pierced once more. Thomas stands up and scrutinises her from the kitchen table as she scurries to grab her coat. "Hey, where do you think you're going?" he asks.

"I have to go, Dad, it's urgent," says Daphne.

"You're not going anywhere. I'm going out to work today, and I don't want either of you sneaking out of the house, especially way past sundown. Do I make myself clear?"

"Dad—"

"I said do I make myself clear?" Thomas repeats sternly. Her father never likes raising his voice at them, but even something as firm as this is enough to bolt Cath into her seat out of obedience. "Good..." he says, once Daphne shrugs her bag onto the floor with a frown. "When I get back from work tonight, I want to see you two in here in one piece."

Cath peers over the spine of 'Sense and Sensibility' as her father locks the front door behind him, and Daphne lands herself into the couch opposite her. She tries to study her subtly — Cath knows that face. It's the face her sister wears when she is immersed in deep thought, when there is no hope in bringing her back by yourself until she suddenly snaps back to reality. Except today she appears much more troubled than usual...

Daphne leans forward and lets her head fall into her hands, the bottoms of her palms digging into her eyes. Her shoulders sag with a heavy sigh.

"Where were you really last night?" Cath asks.

"It doesn't matter."

She shuts her book with more force than she had intended, but it doesn't startle her. "Actually it kind of does matter. You were gone for ages, and you got hurt. You look hurt."

For a moment, Cath worries that she might cry. She watches her eyes glass over across from her, scrambling for the right words to comfort her.

"If something happened, you... you would tell me, wouldn't you?"

To her surprise, Daphne chuckles bitterly. "This one time, I'm not so sure."

     It shouldn't sting, but it does. Cath sinks back into her seat. Has she really driven her sister away, too? Is she the reason why they don't hang out anymore? They used to be inseparable. Daphne was her best friend. And then she got older and it suddenly changed, without warning. But they are here now. She fiddles with her bookmark, smoothing her fingers over the worn parts.

     "This is nice," she murmurs. "Us hanging out together. We don't do this often."

     Almost right on cue, Daphne gets up and walks out of the room. Spoke too soon, Cath thinks. But when her sister returns, it is to rummage for things in her bag once more. She can't believe this.

     "You're going again?! After everything Dad said?" Cath retorts.

     "What's the worst he's going to do? Ground me?" Daphne slips her bag onto her back. "There are bigger things at stake."

     For another time this week, her sister disappears out onto the porch and goes to her bike. But this time she will not let Daphne get away that easily. She lingers in the doorway, hands linked in front of her.

     "Well... can I come with you?"

     "No, this isn't the kind of thing you should get involved in."

     "It never is."

     Daphne stops, staring quizzically at her. "What do you mean?"

     "We used to spend so much time together, and then it just stopped..." Cath murmurs. "Was it me?"

     "I don't have time for this right now. I've had a lot going on this week, things you don't even know."

     You didn't answer the question.

     She should stop going. She knows it. But now her mouth is moving faster than her brain, and all of her worst worries are melding into one that eats away at her mind. "So why don't you tell me what's wrong? Maybe I can help?"

"It might be dangerous." Daphne clearly says more than she wanted to, because she shuts her eyes in frustration and exhales sharply. They are plunging into the deep end now.

"Dangerous?" Cath echoes. "Daphne, please, can't you just stay home? It would be safer. Maybe Dad's right about the whole sneaking-off thing."

"It'll be fine. You have other friends to hang out with," says her sister.

"I..." she falters. "I do. But I don't think now is a good time."

"You don't have to be so scared of everything, you know."

"I'm not scared! I just miss when we—"

"Cath, I'm not your Mom!"

The words hang in the air — each beat being absorbed by Cath as a flash of instant regret passes over Daphne's face. But behind that, there is pain. A lot of it. She starts to wonder just how much she underestimated what her sister was feeling. Something has clearly been ailing on her, and not just this week. And the puberty excuse won't work this time.

"Cath..." Daphne whispers, suddenly looking rather pale. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it, I promise you I didn't mean it."

She nods slowly, as if to consider this. In truth she is lost for words. But she finds an unexpected steadiness in her voice when she next speaks. "Well," Cath says firmly. "Good luck wherever you're going."

And with that, she shuts the door and bolts up the stairs. A strange adrenaline makes her feel queasy from the aftermath of what had been, realistically, one of their extremely rare fights. Cath puts a hand to her head and sits back in her desk chair. She listens intently, listening for any movement from outside. After around half a minute of nothing, she goes down the other end of the landing and into Daphne's room, where she has a view onto their front entrance.

Daphne is still standing there below — mounted on her bike, but hesitating as she looks longingly at the front door. Her foot taps anxiously on the road as she checks her watch. Then she seems to sigh heavily, making the first push and pedalling out of her sight.

Cath steps back from the window, in deep thought as she meanders back to her own room. She knew she was prying too much. She didn't know what had come over her — only an insatiable desire to feel an inkling of being needed, after an unfortunate streak of feeling like a bother to everyone.

But as she sits down in front of her desk again, reminding herself of where she left off with 'Sense and Sensibility' as Ringo stretches out on the carpet, something occurs to her. No one has ever told her she was never needed (except, perhaps, Gina indirectly... although she is still confused as to what that meant). It is something she has convinced herself of subconsciously. In some ways, Gina was right; she has been letting herself live on the fringe. Never thinking she deserves better. Simply assuming it was what she deserved, for some unspoken reason.

For the first time in a long time this week, Cath felt like she had her calling. It was certainly random, a last-minute decision to follow a group of boys she barely knew into the woods on a stormy night, bringing a peculiar little girl under their wing, all in the efforts to find their best friend. But more and more, she is starting to think it might be the best decision she has made in a long time.

With them, she hardly finds herself second-guessing her actions or assuming the worst. And she admires them — Mike's tireless courage, Lucas's valuable intelligence, Dustin's easygoing nature. Even Eleven's quiet bravery. She would go as far to say they make a great team. There are only two other friends she has had where she felt this same relaxation — Will and Andrea. Andrea... she definitely owes the girl an explanation as to where she has been. Once everything has blown over, Cath vows to herself that she will make the effort to hang out with her. She isn't scared anymore.

A light scratching noise behind her catches Cath's attention. She spins around on her chair, catching Ringo in the act of pawing at the space of wallpaper next to her bedside table.

"Ringo! What are you doing?" she scolds him. He turns, pointed ears raised in momentary guilt, but the slits of his eyes seem otherwise unfazed. He meows with frustration, looking up at the wall again. Ringo has been glued to that spot all morning, and she is quite sure her cat has gone mad.

Uneasily, she stands up. Usually she wouldn't be so cautious around Ringo, who she never fails to be comforted by. But after the incident last weekend with his howling and the blackout, suspicion rises at every small thing he does.

"You'd better not scratch me again," Cath murmurs, carefully scooping him into her arms. Luckily he does no such thing, only purrs indignantly and cranes his head back at the wall.

The moment she places him down, however, he only goes scurrying back to the same spot. The urgency in Ringo's clawing increases, as he looks back and forth to Cath, almost as if to say "Don't you get it?!" — finally she stands up from her spot, meaning to pick him up and move him again when a different scratching noise makes her blood run cold.

It's coming from the other side of the wall.

It could be mice, she tries to reassure herself. Although that isn't particularly comforting either. After the week she has had, nothing seems impossible anymore. Cautiously, she takes a step closer and puts her ear to the wall. She can almost feel the vibration through the wall — something must be on the other side. A loud thump from inside the wall makes her heartbeat plummet into her gut.

     That's when the room goes dark. With a click of her desk lamp losing its power, the room dims into pale grey light. Cath's mind races back to Sunday night, with the intense strobing lights and Ringo's screams before everything was swallowed by darkness. She looks to him now, for some sort of sign, anything. He has frozen on the spot, eyes fixated on the wall behind her in an oblivious gaze.

     Cath turns her head back, back to the wall when the space next to her morphs. A small bulge tries to emerge from the wallpaper, growing larger as it stretches out. Then another bulge appears to her right, then by her ankle, her waist.

     She doesn't wait any longer to see the rest — she lets out a startled cry, tearing towards the door and dragging Ringo with her on her way out. She slams the door hard behind her, back pressed to it as she lets Ringo jump to the floor again. What in the world was that? Panting in total bewilderment, she glares with wide eyes at Ringo.

     "You could've given me some warning," she tells him, voice and body still trembling.

     Ringo looks blankly at her, about to start scratching his head against the stair railing. Maybe she could use him as a gauge for danger. Sucking in a breath she slowly opens her door again, dreading what she might find... only there is nothing. She cranes her neck around, surveying her room, just to be sure. Nothing.

     But as she walks out from her room again there is a new sound, this time coming from downstairs. Ringo waits expectantly at the top of the steps, as if he is waiting for her. Trust in Ringo, Cath chants to herself unconvincingly, following him down the steps. By the time she has reached the bottom, she no longer needs his navigation. It is a crackling coming from the kitchen radio — a struggling signal, snippets of a voice trying to break through the white noise.

     Cath freezes in the doorway of the kitchen. It couldn't be... could it?

     She takes the smallest of steps towards the radio, struggling to pick out coherent words and recognise who she hopes the voice belongs to.

     "Hello?"

     Holding her breath she pulls the radio further out, as far as the cable will stretch, practically cradling it in her hands as she listens intently.

     "Is anyone there?"

     "Will?" Cath asks nervously, speaking into the void. "Can you hear me? It's me, Cath... Cath Delaney. Are you there?"

     "... Cath?"

     "Will!"

     "Cath!"

     She lets out a breathy, slightly on-edge laugh of disbelief. She is talking to Will Byers. The signal is messy and his voice keeps cutting out, with her having to strain to make out his words, but he is still there. Will is still alive. Before any part of her can doubt how it is possible, Cath hugs the radio close to her. There is so much she wants to say and such little time.

     "Will," she says, "we've been looking for you, we all have. We're going to find you, I promise!"

     "... Hurry."

     "I know, we're trying." Cath holds the radio tighter. His voice sounds so weak, still laced with urgency but like a mere whisper of the hoarse screams they had heard over the Heathkit Hamshack. His Nope sounds as if it is dwindling. She thinks of the flea and the acrobat Mr. Clarke had shown them — how little he is in that endless underworld. The Upside Down. Oh, how Cath wishes she could console him right now, to keep him warm and safe...

     "I don't know how long— I— keep going," Will's voice shudders through the poor signal.

     "Will, you have to hold on. Just hang on a little bit longer, okay?"

     A thick crackle emits through the radio, painfully piercing her eardrums; a nervous breath follows at the other end.

     "I have to go!"

     "But wait! Where are you going?" Cath asks desperately, fiddling with any button she can find on the radio to keep him with her. "Will? Are you still there? Will? Please, talk to me, Will? WILL!"

      The radio cuts out. The silence that follows poisons the room with impending doom. But there is no time to sit in the doubt — finding Will was always urgent, but now Cath has the dreadful sense that his time is ticking away. The sand is slipping through the hourglass faster than ever.

     Without a second thought, Cath hurtles out of the kitchen and up to the front door, hopping frantically as she puts on her Mary Janes. She flings open the door with such force that it slams against the outer wall of the house. After briefly checking she has locked the door, Cath hops onto her bike and kicks off the ground to pedal so hard she thinks she may never stop.

     She pedals like Will's life depends on it.

━━━━━━

A/N;

OH IT IS WELL AND TRULY KICKING OFF NOW

originally this was going to be a chapter for tonya's backstory, but i ended up not feeling motivated to make that a full-length chapter. however there is a cool scene with tonya, so maybe i will write that as a bonus scene here or in my one shots book! now that means we are even closer to the end of paranormal... me is emotional 🥲

i'm wondering if, assuming i don't dissolve under my college workload, i could finish this fic by christmas? it would be rather fitting seeing as the last chapter is almost like paranormal: the christmas special. although i won't put pressure on myself to do this, that would be pretty cool.

anyway, I LOVE BYLANEY!!! the best friendship ❤️ that last scene where cath takes off on her bike, i imagined "smalltown boy" by bronski beat playing. just to give you that ✨atmosphere✨

thank you for reading as always! if you have the time, please leave some feedback in the comments as this really helps me out with motivation. hope you have a lovely day/evening.

— Imogen

[ Published: September 12th, 2021 ]