Alexithymia | STRANGER THINGS [ON HOLD UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE]

twenty eight | dear billy

While the seven of them stared at a blank wall in the hallway, Max said, "It was here. Right here."

Then Nancy asked her, "A grandfather clock?"

After only nodding her head, Max told them, "It was so real. And then, when I got closer, suddenly I just... I woke up."

It was then that Dustin said to them, "It was like she was in a trance or something. Exactly what Eddie said happened to Chrissy."

While Valerie and Matthew looked over at each other with furrowed eyebrows, Max turned around to face them before she said to them, "That's not even the bad part." It wasn't until they were back inside of Ms. Kelley's office that Max told them, "Fred and Chrissy, they both came to Miss Kelley for help. Uh, they both were having headaches, bad headaches that just wouldn't go away. And then... then the nightmares. Trouble sleeping. They'd wake up in a cold sweat. And then they started seeing things. Bad things. From their pasts. And these visions, they just... they kept on getting worse and worse, until eventually...  everything ended."

With a mere raise of her head, Robin said, "Vecna's curse."

While Matthew and Valerie shared yet another look with one another, Max said, "Chrissy's headache started a week ago. Fred's, six days ago. I've been having them for five days." While Valerie repeatedly blinked to herself and felt like her eyes were starting to burn from the tears that were building up inside of them, Max told them, "I don't know how long I have. All I know is that, for Fred and Chrissy, they both died less than twenty-four hours after their first vision. And I just saw that goddamn clock, so... looks like I'm gonna die tomorrow."

As soon as Valerie started to repeatedly shake her head with tears rolling down the sides of her face, Matthew went to wrap his arms around her, only to stop when they heard a clanging sound in the distance, which got everyone in the room to quickly turn their heads and look out into the hallway.

After a couple seconds of silence, Steve looked around at the others in the room and said to them, "Stay here."

Then, as he started to walk out of the office, he grabbed a lamp and took it with him out into the hallway, shortly before Matthew reached into his backpack and took out his crowbar and started to quickly walk out of the office as well.

Instead of saying anything once he saw that Matthew was silently walking beside him with his crowbar held high above his own head, Steve only shook his head to himself, shortly before the others soon enough joined them out into the hallway.

It wasn't long after each and every single one of them was out in the hallway that yet another clattering sound was heard, shortly before they could hear the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps.

In response to hearing the footsteps, Matthew tightened the grip that he had on his crowbar and started to raise it even higher above his head, only to stop when someone came to a sudden halt in front of the seven of them, which got Steve and the others to only let out a yell.