Chapter 33

025

• 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐆𝐨𝐧𝐞 •

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

☄. *. ⋆ Max had insisted her and Stella sit outside. Insisted the others could wait for Stella’s perspective, that she could wait for El’s, whatever. She ignored the protests from the others– mainly Mike –as she guided out her verge-of-hyperventilating girlfriend by the hand.

A few moments had passed, minutes filled with Stella finally releasing the sobs, the breaths, all the things she’d refrained from in front of everyone else.

It was strange, really. Stella didn’t quite remember allowing herself to feel out loud much. Even alone, she’d tell mirror-Stella to suck it up. It was like herself, fully shown, fully vulnerable and genuine was something only Max got to witness, and even Stella wasn’t an exception.

Stella and Max sat on the steps leading up to El’s house. They were quiet now, letting the fireworks fill the silence as Stella slumped against Max’s side.

“I wish we could be at that stupid fair,” Stella muttered. “We could be sitting in the ferris wheel watching those fireworks and like, devouring too much food.”

She could feel Max smile. “Well, we are watching the fireworks.”

Stella gave an attempt at a grin, the action coming out half-heartedly and weak. Max spoke up again after a minute. “They kinda remind me of you.”

“Why’s that?” Stella took just half a second to register what she was talking about.

“Light in the darkness,” Max shrugged the little bit that she could. Then, less seriously, “and fire, of course.”

Stella smiled, a true one. “Can’t forget the fire.”

“Can’t forget the fire.”

Small chuckles filled the pause until Max’s next words. “And you’re, like, so cool, so everyone has to stop to look at you. Everyone sees you. Everyone loves you.”

Through teary-eyes, Stella watched another firework explode with a loud pop. “Corny.”

“Shut up,” but Max was beaming ear to ear, and so was the brunette beside her.

–

☄. *. ⋆ Stella was the one to point out that they would inevitably have to return sooner or later. Max had opted for later, but with the fate of Hawkins in their hands, Stella suggested they choose otherwise.

“He told me our plan was useless,” Stella recalled, eyes on the floor and knees pulled up. “Said me and El would ‘join them’,” she shrugged with raised brows. Her tone wasn’t soft, or afraid, simply annoyed. Doesn’t mean that’s how she was feeling, though.

“‘Them’ like… the flayed?” Max wondered, looking around expectantly like someone else would know. Nancy gave something of a nod. “Most likely.”

“Billy said he was building something,” El told them. “That it was all for me and Stella.”

“The army,” Lucas realized.

“Does this dude want us to join it or attack us with it?” Stella rolled her eyes, head lolling back a bit, hoping talking would distract from the pain in her ankle.

“Maybe us meant something else,” Will suggested, sending them all into thoughts pondering what it could’ve been. “Like the Upside Down in general?”

“Whatever it was, we know this army is to stop Stella and El,” Nancy brought them back to the facts. Mike nodded. “Last year, El closed the gate on him. I have a feeling that really pissed him off.”

“Like royally,” Lucas agreed.

“Well, what does he want with me?” Stella raised hands in a fake surrendering motion. “I didn’t do anything to this asshole.”

“But the Mind Flayer knows you and El are the only things that can stop him,” Mike explained, Stella holding back on her snarky comment about using ‘things’ describe them. She couldn’t even save herself earlier, let alone defeat the Mind Flayer. “But if you guys are out of the way–“

“Game over,” concluded Lucas.

“He also said… he was gonna kill all of you,” El looked around, and Stellla winced. “Yeah, I was gonna try to leave that part out,” she muttered, more of a whisper to herself that everyone heard anyway. Max broke the lingering silence. “Yeah, well. That’s nice.”

Fireworks from outside filled the air, but attention was brought to Nancy when she neared the window. “Do you guys hear that?”

“It’s just the fireworks,” Jonathan said, and technically he was right; it was all Stella heard, but something rested under it. Nancy turned to face them. “Oscar and Billy. When they told you this, it was here? In this room?”

El nodded, and Stella’s heart dropped as she realized she would’ve answered the same. “Shit.”

They heard it now, a thumping that they could feel as much as hear.

“He knows we’re here,” Will’s words finalized the reality of their fears. Nancy moving first, they all followed through the door to outside.

In the distance, through rustling trees, something moved toward them. A fleshy mass taking the shape of what resembled a spider, tall and huge in every other way. It was like the creature from the hospital, but bigger. Way, way bigger.

They had rushed inside when Nancy instructed, the words sending them bursting with movement. Stella started shouting for everyone to block windows and doors, taking the sofa into her own hands to barricade the door with more struggle than she had hoped. But it was okay. She still did it. Her powers weren’t gone yet, she reminded herself.

Her reflexes. Her strength. The fire. Her running, which she had noticed sped up. It was not completely gone.

Nancy cocked a gun before ordering that they stay away from windows, and everyone gathered in the center of the room, subconsciously circling up. Stella clasped Max’s hand in hers, and Max remained despite the growing warmth from her girlfriend’s palm.

Silence settled over them as well as dread while the only sound filling the air was the slight movements in the cabin caused by the rumbling that neared them. Lights flickered, and as the thuds drew closer, the rattling of objects became clearer. Stronger. Breathing got heavier. Hands gripped impossibly tighter.

“It’s close.”

Soon it was the trees just outside that shook, visible through spaces of uncovered windows. A mug dropped and everyone jumped, Stella disappointed in the fact that she didn’t react to it as quick as she usually would.

Not completely gone, she remembered.

The rumbling stopped, leaving them somehow more fearful. “Where’d it go?” Max asked. Stella clenched her jaw. “It didn’t leave.”

The silence seemed to contradict her statement.

Nervous glances around. Tightened grips. Held breaths. Pounding hearts. Eyes too scared to blink.

A crash through a wall and long fleshy tentacle shooting right through them. Everyone moved in time, screams erupting throughout the room.

The tentacle moved as if it had eyes and they were staring right at Eleven, who backed up against a wall beside her friends. The limb paused, Jonathan stopping it with an axe.

Stella moved to help, finding herself interrupted by a similar vine headed right for her. She ducked just in time.

Reflexes, she reminded.

Not completely gone.

“Ess!”

Her hand left Max’s as she jumped back up to grab the vine-like flesh and tear with all her might, grunting. It ripped apart with a squeal and retreated as Stella caught her breath, thankful for Dart’s bite once again. Specificall, now, the strength that it gave her. Gunshots brought her eyes to Nancy, then Jonathan cornered by another limb.

But the shooting stopped, and the shooter looked down, confused. Out of bullets. The creature turned to her instead, snake like movements backing her up but stopping suddenly.

Eleven held a hand up, and the vine was slowly dragged back. The girl’s arm bent, and the tentacle tore apart.

Max jumped out of its way as it pulled back through the hole in the wood and Stella hurried back to her.

“Holy shit,” she swore in the brief pause.

But another one came through the wall at El.

And another.

She stopped both, and they were severed as she screamed, a guttural roar.

The air filled with her pants, but the war wasn’t over as another vine bursted through the ceiling.

Reflexes awakening,– not completely gone –Stella ran over in an instant, ready to stop the monster, but after another crash behind her, she felt a wrap around her leg.

Stella bit down on her lip as her chin hit the hard floor, and in unison with El, she desperately clawed the floor as she was dragged back and up. “No!”

She was stopped mid air, a hand around her wrist, eyes quickly landing on Max, then El in the same position as herself behind the red hair. Mike gripped El’s arms.

Will rushed to Stella, Jonathan to El. And God, Stella felt like if one of them didn’t take her soon, she’d rip in half. She felt her shoulders pop, earning a scream amongst the many already sounding. A dislocation, she knew immediately. Same thing had happened to her during a game. She had raised her arms, jumping for the rebound. Another girl had jumped the opposite direction, and their arms accidentally caught, pulling Stella’s behind herself. She wished basketball was still the main source of her injuries.

Stella couldn’t make out many words from the voices and gunshots, but what she did notice were the pained faces from each person holding her, and she realized the heat in her hands had been building. She let go, letting them keep holding of her arms without holding theirs, but she couldn’t imagine it helped all that much. “You need to let go!”

“No!” Max screamed, a cry mixed with panic, fear, and pain all together.

“Cali!”

Max ignored her, shouting something else instead. “Lucas!”

The boy in question looked to the axe on the ground, hurriedly grabbing it and heading to Stella.

The sharp blade of the weapon collided with the vine. Once, then twice, then finally a third and final one. Stella found herself missing her knife. She reminded herself to bring Zoey next time.

She crashed to the floor, Max below her. “Are you okay?” The redhead sat up despite the weight. Stella nodded drowsily, then looked up to Eleven. She quickly staggered to her without a pause to stare at the horrific gaping mouth and teeth that the vine came from.

Instead of gripping onto El, Stella found her hold on the tongue-vine, and squeezed with all she could. It squealed in pain, claws loosening on El’s leg. Stella held tighter, the flesh melting into goo under her hands until it finally became thin enough to break off, releasing Eleven.

Mike sat up, taking ahold of the piece of the creature that had remained on El, and tore it off of her as she screamed in agony. It scuttled away.

Stella, dizzy, faint, and tired, ankle crying out worse now, gazed up at the terrifying creature and it stared right back down. Her hands were scolding, and it coursed through her whole body. Up her arms, in her chest, her stomach, down her legs, and up through her neck. She felt as if she could simply breathe, and the fire would leave her.

She backed up slightly, reaching to stand side-by-side to Eleven, who had managed to her feet.

More tongue-like tentacles tried to leave it again, but it was stopped as Eleven put hands up. It backed up a tad, its chittering screeches became pained. El screamed alongside it. Stella’s hands raised next to her, breathing increasing as she tried ready more than a just a little flame like last time.

Not completely gone.

The monster fought against the force that overpowered it anyway.

“Go to hell!” Came in a full-out scream from Stella, who stepped forward at the same time El brought her hands down.

The creature’s face tore, and out from Stella’s hand came a hot inferno

Everyone’s arms went up as if it would help shield them from the heat. The room lit orange for a moment, Stella the only one who didn’t stumble back even despite being the one forced to the most. She let herself scream. Let her throat become raw from it. She screamed about the Mind Flayer, about her parents, about assholes at school, about anything and everything.

She watched the flames. Felt the heat on her face, her whole body. Bathed in it.

She watched them catch on the monster’s head. The burst of the flames from her palms ended, leaving the giant spider burning. It flamed for a moment, before a loud explosion of half the huge head boomed through the screeches and the stomping.

It left Stella’s ears ringing and she listened to it like music.

The monster went out of view so her eyes fell forward.

A grin pulled at the corners of her lips, and she licked the metallic scarlet that leaked from them as she let the smile reach her.

See?

Not completely gone.

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

my oh ME was this fun to write

stayed home from school today so i wrote this in one sitting… again.

what can i say? motivation works in crazy ways ig. ANYWAY i hope you liked this one bc i certainly do and don’t forget to comment and vote

TY 🥹🥹