Alexithymia | STRANGER THINGS [ON HOLD UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE]

PROLOGUE

For as long as Matthew Wheeler could remember, he was always the one that stood out in his family.

While his little brother Mike Wheeler hung around with his small group of friends in their basement and played a game called Dungeons and Dragons and his big sister Nancy Wheeler was mostly being seen with Barbara Holland, Matthew Wheeler was getting in a lot of trouble both in and out of school.

Sometimes he got in trouble for running his mouth when he shouldn't have, while the rest of the time he got in trouble for getting in a fight with someone.

And that was something he was completely okay with.

He wasn't one to know how to properly express his feelings, which was something he liked to blame on his parents and the lack of care they seemed to have for one another due to just how annoyed his mother seemed to be with his father and the lack of care that his father had towards anything that didn't involve his own personal interests.

And it was this reason alone that, as a freshman at Hawkins High School, he was seen as an outcast that never seemed to fit in, no matter how much he would have tried— if he cared enough about that sort of thing.

Similarly to his own father, Matthew only cared about things that held an interest for him.

And it was because of this mindset of his that Matthew would find himself feeling rather confused when he'd find himself face-to-face with a girl that had a shaved head that was roaming around the inside of his own home after he was suspended from school because of another fight he had.

And because of just how confused he was upon seeing the girl, Matthew would take it upon himself to confront his little brother and demand why the hell he was keeping a girl with a shaved head inside of their basement.