Chapter Text
Joyce and Hop stare at me.
“What do you mean, ‘did something to her’?” Hop asks with a condescending tone.
“I-I don’t know! Like I said she wasn’t meant to-“ I trail off.
I sit in silence as I try to process what happened. I close my eyes, thinking, trying to clear my head.
“We need to go, now”
Joyce and Hop don’t protest this time, they go into another room and grab, rifles and bullets, knives, blankets, radios and some random snacks.
“I hope you like granola bars Matt, cause that’s all we got to recharge your battery.” Hop mumbled.
I stand up to go help but Joyce sits me back down saying I should rest more, when a car pulls up. Joyce and Hop stop what they’re doing, looking relieved. They leave again, a door opens and I can hear a jolly, condescending sounding man enter. I stand up, curiouser and curiouser.
I hear the man ask something. “So, where’s the gold trophy?” it sounds like a joke, but it made me more confused.
I walk into the hallway where I’m greeted by an older looking man who has a receding hairline and bushy hair on the sides like a clown. He’s holding a juice box, apple flavour, odd.
“Ah, the gold trophy I presume.” He chuckles. “So young.”
“Murray, we have to go, now, it’s worse than just a kid with a tattoo like Ele-Jane’s.” Joyce mutters.
Confused I look at Joyce and then at my left wrist, I pull my jacket sleeve up to reveal the numbers “019”.
“I never showed you the tattoo.”
Hop, Joyce and Murray all sigh at the same time.
“When Hopper was carrying you into the car he saw the tattoo, we were going to just take you to a hospital, but we thought you might’ve run away from Brenner, turns out it was Brenner and your mother.” Joyce avoids my eyes.
‘Murray’ sips from his apple juice box, it makes a loud noise to signify that it is empty.
“Its all fun and games until the juice runs out.” Murray tosses the cardboard over his shoulder hitting Hop.
Hop glares at Murray for a bit before going back to packing snacks and essentials.
“Before we go, I’m going to make some calls to prepare people for our arrival. Matt, you sit back down, I need your help with something in a second, Murray make yourself useful.” Joyce walks over to the phone and starts making a call.
First she calls a few people, Will, Mike, Karen, Lucas, Nancy and some others I couldn’t hear the names of, then she needs my help, she puts the radio back onto white noise and I searched for Steve and Dustin, I found them and then Joyce made another call. She finishes up and so does Hop and Murray, we walk out of the house, I get my first glimpse of the rest of it, its small, but not like a cabin. Hop locks the door and we go to a police car.
“wouldn’t we like to stay more, low key, not ‘wow look at me I’m the chief of fucking police in Montauk’” Murray teases.
Hop glares at him but goes to the other car, the one I assume hit me last night, which would be Joyce’s car. We get in, Hop in the drivers, Murray in passenger and Joyce with me in the back. Hop puts the bag with the snacks next to me, he also gives me one of the radios, I grab the tea towel from earlier that I stuffed into my pocket. I switched the channels on the radio until it hit white noise, I tied the tea towel around my head once more and covered my eyes.
I search, for what seemed like hours, it wasn’t though. I couldn’t find her, I couldn't find Holly, only a black void, I walk around in the inky blackness. I walk for ages, until I finally find something. It was Holly, it was like she had fallen, she was conscious, I knelt to her, her head jolts up to see me.
“It’s you again!” She exclaims.
I open my mouth to say something, but I don’t know what to say.
“Who are you?”
“Matthew, Matt for short.” I finally get out. “I know who you are so no need for introductions.”
Holly stares at me, I stare back, she’s pretty.
“I-uh, are you okay?” I ask.
She nods very quickly, our eye contact broken.
“I don’t know how to get out of here, it’s not like Henry’s mind.”
“I, don’t know either, have you tried concentrating on your body in the real world?” I question.
She shakes her head but then closes her eyes, I wait for a while, nothing happens for a long time, until she disappears with a pop. I’m in shock for a second.
I take off the tea towel and wipe my nose that had blood pouring from it. I grab one of the granola bars and shove it into my mouth. I close my eyes and drift off in the car, the sounds of the road fading into nothing.
I had awoken about an hour ago and Hopper had told me something that to a normal person would be crazy, but it seemed normal compared to the things I have gone through, monsters, my mother, evil wizards, that’s my dad, mind controlling evils, Dr Brenner. The road was now dark, foggy and empty as we drive closer and closer to Hawkins, to the heart of this whole nightmare. I had only met Joyce and Hop around 24 hours ago but I trusted them a lot, now I must trust more people I don’t know, but it’ll be okay, because I’m here to find out more about my father and to save everyone from him. You know, maybe Joyce and Hop will let me live with them after all of this is over, I don’t want to go back to my nasty mother. We drive past a library with a stone obelisk that’s only a little bit taller than me, it has names written on it, I can’t make out the names though. We drive through a few streets until we get to a big house, Hop stops the car and he gets out, Joyce and Murray do the same, Joyce gets to my door and opens it for me, I step out into the cold air. I walk behind Joyce, Hop and Murray as we go towards the house, Hop does a loud knock on the door, an older man opens the door.
“Ah, Jim, Joyce and…I don’t know the other two of you.” The man says, bored.
“Murray and Matthew.” Joyce points from Murray to me.
The man nods and lets us in, his name is apparently Ted. Then I saw her, Holly’s mother, that must make Ted Holly’s dad, her mother’s name is Karen, and she greets Joyce and Hop like family.
“The others are down in the basement.” She says as she leads us down to the basement.
There are at least eleven people down there, it gets a bit crowded as we walk down, everyone stops talking and looks at us. Hop and Murray greet everyone while Joyce introduces me to everyone. There were so many names to remember, I knew most of them already from basically spying on them, but there are new faces I didn’t know, Mike, Lucas, Max, Robin, Jonathan and Nancy. There are two I knew the faces of but didn’t know their names, Samantha ‘Sam’ Harrington, Steve’s cousin who is wearing a yellow sweater and light blue jeans and Jenna Munson, she has jet black hair and pale skin. The door creaks open again and there she was, Holly Wheeler, the prettiest girl I had ever seen.