Hawkins Unraveling

CH 19 : About Running Away

June knew where she'd gone wrong with her good memory before, but Vecna didn't even give her a chance to hide away in a better one this time. She was falling, falling, falling into the abyss that was the vision of his making, but he stopped her before she could hit the ground. When she jerked to a stop, levitating in thin air, her arms out to her sides and her legs powerless to help her, Vecna appeared before her. His grotesque arm extended, and the mangled fingers touched the side of her face.

"I grow weary of this tired game," he told her, enraged as only a now-inhuman being could be. "Your end is here, June. Your suffering is mine."

White-hot pain laced through her skull, and June made a high, keening sound in the back of her throat. Her body felt taut, pulled too tight, and she was desperate for a release. Before, when Vecna had tried to kill her the first time, he had hardly tapped into the depths of his powers, had hardly made any progress in draining her completely, but now as his mangled hand settled over her face in its entirety, she knew this was it. There was no Pat Benatar to save her now, and she was too dizzy and weak from the fighting before to put up much of a fight now. Still she tried anyway, clinging to snippets of her good memories as they danced through her mind– broken segments of an afternoon with Robin, melted ice cream dripping down their hands as they both laughed; a moment of cloud-watching with Max in a field while the boys biked around them; a flash of Steve's smile– her favorite smile– and his voice saying, "There's no other version of you that I'd want to exist."

Those memories were weak, as weak as June felt, but she could also feel that Vecna was weaker, too. Something had affected him before he pulled her into this trance– even though Max had clearly begun to suffer at his hands, she must have done something to him. He was pushing himself, aiming to drain her now for more power before he was really ready to. He couldn't sustain so many partial attacks between her and Max, and she was hopeful this was his last shot.

Vecna's hand pressed more forcefully on her skull, and June wept openly at the painful sensation that wracked through her body, but still she held on. Her broken memories rolled repeatedly through her mind like a movie montage, and they were enough motivation for her to keep going. "I...am...enough," she managed to say with great effort. "I...am...worthy. I...matter."

"Let go, June," Vecna commanded, pressing again into her skull. She burned where he touched her, and her whole body jerked now at his efforts. "Time to let go."

June cried out again, feeling herself slipping. Vecna was weak, but he was still stronger and more powerful than she was, and he was about to make her fold. Here she'd thought she'd stood another chance, that maybe she'd make it and see her friends again, but yet again her hope was being ripped away. She was being ripped away, the final piece to Vecna's plan fitting into place.

Until she wasn't. Vecna's power wavered, rippling enough that she could sense something was happening, and in a sudden blaze of pain and light, everything ceased.

June dropped on that wooden attic floor for the second time. Her body ached, especially both sides where she was most severely injured, but now her eyes also burned. She pressed the heels of her palms to them, crying as the clarity of what had happened swept through her. Somehow, someway, she'd survived another time against Vecna, but this time she didn't know how.

But her cries weren't the only ones in the room. Across the floor, just a short distance away, June heard Max sobbing. "Lucas? Lucas, I can't see anything!" she cried, panic in her voice. "My eyes– I can't see anything."

"It's gonna be okay," Lucas told her, and his voice was thick with his own emotion. "It'll be okay, okay? We're gonna get you help. We're gonna get– Erica! Get help!"