𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐍; steve harrington

ᶠ ᵒ ᵘ ʳ ᵗ ʸ ⁻ ᵗ ʰ ʳ ᵉ ᵉ

March 23rd, 1986

AVEN HAD NO FOOD. FOR the seventeenth time since living in the parallel dimension, the girl had opened the many cupboards lining the walls of the Harrington kitchen to be faced with nothing but the bare wooden shelves. There were no canned foods in sight, which meant she had to begin her fortnightly adventure out of the house to gather more tinned goods to keep her alive. After checking her water supply, having a good three quarters of the tank left inside, she got prepared to step out of the house and into the monster-infested world she had newly inhabited. She got more scared every time.

She had already raided all of the houses in Steve's street, so she had to journey further than she ever had before. With an empty backpack hanging from her shoulders, ready to hold the various supplies the girl would collect, she quietly shuffled out. The air fell stiff around her, the putrid smell of the otherworldly place blasting into her face. She wouldn't be able to handle living there much longer.

Luckily, she didn't have to. Her clumsy feet made that decision for her.

She tripped down the single stair on the front porch, catching herself on one of the supporting poles. She breathed out a sigh of relief, before noticing the ground beneath one of her feet squirming. She was standing on a vine.

Scrambling off, she ran backwards as it reached towards her, trying to nip at her ankle. The world around her was dead silent, other than the squelching coming from the slimy tentacle infront of her and the bats she could hear making an appearance in the distance. She didn't wait any longer to turn on her heel and run.

She sprinted down the street, the vines around her slithering out to get a pinch of her skin whilst the bats she'd heard swarmed behind her in flocks. The frantic girl ran down streets and turned corners, skidding to stops when almost stepping on other dark vines. She kept on running and running and running, until she saw it. What she saw finally brought her hope.

There, in the middle of the road, was something so familiar yet daunting. It was a pulsating lump in the middle of the deserted street, more vines spreading out of it's sides as it's middle glowed a deep red. It looked just like the gate she'd seen when exploring the Russian base beneath Starcourt Mall - only smaller.

She ran towards it, tearing at it's seam as the bats grew closer and closer. She could hear them flying above the trees that enclosed her as she hopelessly ripped at the opening. Then, saving her life, the gate opened.

She dove through head first, not wasting a minute as she caught a glimpse of the bats flapping above the dead plants around her. To her surprise, she came through the right way up, pulling herself out of the deep hole as she felt the gravitational pull shift around her. With a cry of pain, using all her deteriorated strength to push herself up and into the other world, she fell to the ground. She was back.

She stayed on the ground beside the gate for a while, taking deep breaths in and out as she stared up at the stars flashing above her. She could feel her cheeks heating up, the thankfulness leaking out of the corners of her eyes, and excitement flooding through her once dying veins. She was scared, grateful, and beyond happy.

She pushed herself up with her palms, her dry hands scratching against the spiky road as she took in what was around her. To her surprise, she was stuck inside a roadblock, police tape hanging from the trees whilst the barriers blocked both directions in front and behind her. Nobody was there - no cars nor people. What there was, however, was talk in the distance. 

With a hand running through her knotted hair, the girl took off through the trees as the voices grew closer. She wasn't prepared to be found just yet, she wanted to reveal herself to the people she loved. She had no idea how long it'd been - the rough calculations on Steve's bedroom wall not being accurate enough - but by the looks of the cars running down the sides of the streets, it'd been a while.

The first place that popped into her head was her house. So, running towards where she knew Cherry Lane was, she got herself ready to throw herself into her step-sister's arms. She didn't want to see her father, and she'd figured that no one, not even Eleven, would be able to survive the damage that Billy had been dealt, so she'd already gone through the grief of her brother's death. Although, she knew as soon as she asked the question to whomever she found first, a new wave of sadness would wash over her. She just hoped the reconnection would be enough to distract her.

However, much to her annoyance, no one answered the door. There wasn't a car out front, or any sign of life anywhere down the old street, and so, the girl kept going. She moved onto Steve's house, but faced the same problem. Nobody was around.

Although seeing the Harrington house without the vines covering every inch of the plastering was refreshing, she had to keep moving. She needed to socially interact with someone, since it had been however many months since she'd been faced with a real, breathing person. She wanted to see one of her friends, a member of her family - but no one was there.

And so, as one last chance, she went to the Wheeler residence.

As she stepped down the front lawn, she took a deep breath. She hoped, prayed, that someone would answer the door, even if it was just Karen Wheeler or the sleepy Ted - even though everyone knew that would never happen. 

And, just to her luck, someone did.

1036 words