𝐖𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐍. ˢᵗᵉᵛᵉ ʰᵃʳʳⁱⁿᵍᵗᵒⁿ ¹

001

001. 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱𝘀
𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝘂𝗺𝗽𝗸𝗶𝗻𝘀.

    𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐈 𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐁𝐈𝐍 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐖𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐒, 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐀, was its affinity for omnipresent gloom. Nothing about the dull sky or the rows of leaden grass made her feel particularly buoyant in the middle of the October day— when she passed the town line, drifting by the Welcome To Hawkins greeting sign in all its miserable glory. Suppose that the town wasn't bad on the inside, she would still feel the same displeasure with the salty taste of the rain on her tongue that was soon to come, and the dimness of the sky overhead. To put it simply, her first impression of Hawkins, Indiana: dull.

    The second thing Lori noticed was the clouds, dense and painfully overwhelming, and really, they were more of a singular cloud rather than many. One big, fat cloud loomed over the whole entirety of the town and mocked anybody who looked up at it. The teenage girl actually liked the rain, loved it, although not in these circumstances. Not in the circumstances where it reflected every single one of her feelings, and seemed to only be there for adding irony, unpleasant irony, on her very first day. All that she needed for this sequence of events to be complete, was a crash of lightning.

    Preferably on Aunt Claudia's little Volvo that they were driving in.

     Small and longing raindrops landed on the window, as she sat in the backseat of her Aunt's car. Now, her Aunt— the third thing that she had noticed about Hawkins. Aunt Claudia would've been one of the last things for her to notice if the woman hadn't been standing right beside the bus station, smile beaming off of her plump cheeks and arms flailing at her sides for them to see. Her Volvo was parked next to the station, and she'd been standing beside it, simply waiting for them. Claudia was so excited that she had hugged her sister and her niece at the same time, and then eagerly helped them with their bags straight away. They'd been right outside Hawkins' town line.

    Aunt Claudia was a peculiar thing. She was a chatty one, and talked with a sweet voice, and every time she spoke, it was almost impossible to imagine the woman ever getting mad at you. Lori simply thought such a thing wasn't possible— this Aunt, whom she'd supposedly met when she was an infant, was incapable of rudeness, and she'd discovered that in their first few minutes of meeting. She was plumper than Lori's mother, and although the two women were sisters, their appearance and their personalities were already quite contrasting. Aunt Claudia was just too good for her own good.

    Maureen Philbin— Lori's mother— was, putting it simply, the opposite. Maureen didn't have the same short bob, or the same round cheeks, neither did she have the same sweet voice or constant cheerily chatty attitude. Compared to her sister, she was evidently more governed, you could say, more punctual, more dependable, and more exquisite. She was rich, over everything. Although not as wealthy as before— but Lori thought that no one in Hawkins could possibly be so rich, anyways. Lori supposed Aunt Claudia and her mother would be quite the same if her mother never married Kent Philbin, way back when.

    The arrival scene was set. Claudia was driving the car past the Welcoming Sign, Maureen was particularly interested in the real estate pamphlet of their new home, and Lori had her headphones pressed to her ears. She wasn't excited. Although there wasn't much happiness in her hometown to begin with, Michigan was a much better contender than the overwhelming gloom of Hawkins. It set a peculiar feeling inside the pit of her stomach, how paralyzingly boring everything there seemed to be— but it never occurred to her that there could be a reason why everything appeared so monotonous, a reason why the sky seemed to have no colour. She just wanted to get everything over with. Breeze through senior year.