MELANCHOLY [S.T. B. Hargrove]

60

I rest my hands on Nancy's shoulders from behind. She shakily exhales through her tears and lowers her cheek to my hand for comfort.

She was trying to explain the things Vecna showed her. The things he said to her.

He showed her horrible things. By the way she described it, it was the end of the world. And by how shaken up and scared Nancy, the most badass person i know, was.. it wasn't far from our future reality.

"He's just trying to scare you, Nance," Steve assures. "I mean.. it's not real."

"Not yet," Nancy whispers. "There was something else.. he showed me gates."

"Gates?" Dustin repeats.

"Four gates, spreading across Hawkins. They looked like the one in Eddie's trailer. But.. they didn't stop growing. And this wasn't the Upside Down Hawkins.. this was our Hawkins. Our home."

"Four chimes," Max speaks up, looking at me. "Vecna's clock. It always chimes four times."

Slowly, I nod i agreement. I could still see the clock in my head. Hear it, even.

"Four chimes.. four gates.." I piece together.

"I heard them, too," Nancy mutters. "The chimes. Like a grandfather clock."

"He's been telling us his plan this whole time," Max sighs.

"Four chimes.. Four kills.. Four gates," Lucas adds. "End of the world."

"If that's true, he's only one kill away," Dustin reminds.

Eddie mumbles at a loss. Steve urges Max to call the Byers again.

"We didn't figure it out fast enough. That's why he showed Nancy those things. Tokd her to tell Eleven," I speak up. "He wants us to know what's coming."

"So, we're walking into a trap no matter what," Steve decides.

"So, then we should ambush him first," Nancy says as she stands up.

"What?" Steve questions.

"We have to go back into the Upside Down."

Eddie repeats a string of 'no, no, no'. Steve stands up and walks to Nancy, trying to talk her down.

"Let's think this through," Steve begs.

"What is there to think through?" Nancy asks.

"We barely made it out of there in one piece."

"Because we weren't prepared! Plus, Rocky, Billy, and you were all injured. We had no weapons. Those bats came out of nowhere. We didn't know about multiple gates. Not to mention we didn't know Billy was alive and Rocky was there to begin with!"

As if it summoned him, Billy eases into the room unnoticed by anyone but Max and me.

Robin starts to back Nancy up.

My head spins as I try to figure out who was right.

I'm sure between all of us, we could figure out a plan and gather the right things needed to put up a fight.

But.. did we even know what would/could kill Vecna?

How would we catch him off guard?

There's a whole other world of the Upside Down we've only seen snippets of. What if there was something even worse than Vecna, demodogs, demobats, Mind Flayers, and demogorgans?

Why wasn't Joyce answering the goddamn phone?

"If Vecna is like Eleven, that gives us an upperhand," Dustin cuts into the argument. "We know Eleven's strengths and weaknesses."