Alexithymia | STRANGER THINGS [ON HOLD UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE]

twenty two | e pluribus unum

While Matthew continued to keep his eyes squeezed shut and his hands tightly clenched into fists and listened to Dokken's Breaking the Chains, the group of five middle-schoolers stood in a circle and stared up at the flickering lights, only to stop when Will brought a hand up to the back of his neck and told them, "He's here."

In response to Will's words, El only lowered her head with narrowed eyes before she quickly looked over at Matthew and said to him, "Matt." When Matt didn't respond, she once more said to him, "Matt."

When she still didn't receive a response from him, she quickly walked over to him and ripped his headphones off of his head, which got him to open his mouth to say something, only to stop when he saw that El was standing in front of him and was currently staring down at him.

Without even saying anything to him, El pointed a finger up at the flickering lights, which got him to say, "Oh. Right. Shit. Sorry."

It wasn't long after that that the six of them quickly walked past the woman that was sitting behind her desk, who was yelling after them, "Hey, hey, hey! Two at a time!"

Eventually, the six of them made it to an elevator in the hospital, where Mike was repeatedly pressing the up bottom to the elevator before he eventually stopped and said with a nod of his head, "Stairs."

* * *

With a growl, the creature let out a roar over Nancy, who had turned her head away from it, before it turned its attention away from Nancy the second a loud thud was heard.

It was then that the creature turned around to see El standing in front of the other members of the group with blood leaking out of her nose.

After the creature had let out a shriek, Matthew tightened the grip he had on his crowbar, despite knowing that it wouldn't even do anything to it, while Mike yelled, "Jesus!"

Then Max said, "What the f—"

Then the creature let out yet another roar before it started to quickly make its way over towards El, who threw her arm towards the side, which got the creature to let out a wail when it was sent flying into one of the walls.

Then the creature was sent flying into yet another wall, then the ceiling and then onto the floor.

It was only when the creature had let out a snarl and went to go towards El one more time that El let out a yell as she thrusted both of her arms forward and sent the creature flying out of the window to the room and falling down towards the ground just outside of the entrance to the hospital.

While the others were quick to run away from the room, Matthew stayed behind and watched as Jonathan ran over towards Nancy and asked her, "Are you okay? Are you okay?"

While Nancy only nodded her head, she looked over at Matthew, who was still holding onto his crowbar and silently gulping to himself as he watched his sister be consoled by Jonathan Byers.