Daisies || Max Mayfield

Part Four, Chapter 76: Frozen

Sorry I had to update this chapter four times because I'm a dumbass and forgot to change the chapter name, then remembered, then didn't change the important part, then forgot to proofread, then remembered I didn't care, so here ya go.

The wind howled in my ears as the chilled air hit the side of my face. I shuffled on the ground, the world still dark. It was completely silent.

I opened my eyes.

The wind stopped. 

It was as if the world around me froze.

I rubbed my eyes, double-checking my surroundings. The same dark blue sky was above me, with soft gray and red clouds, swirling around in silence. I stood on purple dirt, surrounded by dead vines and shuffled dirt.

Fuck.

FUCK.

I'm still in the upside down. What the fuck-what the fuck.

Everything is gone. There's no Steve, no Robin, and no Nancy. There's no Vecna, there's no creepy old living room set, or a glitchy tv, or Vecna. There's no Vecna. There's no Vecna and there are no bats left. They're gone. The sky's still moving, but barely. The vines are dead. The wind is gone. 

Maybe I imagined it.

Maybe I'm imagining everything. Maybe I'm imagining the clock ticking, maybe I'm imagining the four fucking chimes.

Maybe this isn't real, maybe I'm still in a trance. Maybe there's still a fucking chance of me surviving-

An earsplitting cracking sound erupted behind me, shaking, sending me to my feet when the ground was jerked out from beneath my feet. I covered my ears, scrambling to the rocket.

Bright orange lines split the Creel house in two, breaking the ground apart when it reached it. It moved in shaky lines, coming closer and closer to me.

I cried out, running from under the rocket to back where the tv had been. The gate traveled down it's patch, sucking in the rocket, and all the fucking grass and trees and shit.

Vines snaked out of it, grabbing the ground around it.

Three figures ran out of the house, and now I'm too far away for them to see me.

Steve is shouting, and Robins freaking out, and Nancy's screaming at him with the axe. Robin shouted, waving her arms toward the gate. Steve looked back to where I'd been, by the rocket. 

"She's gone, okay Steve!" I could overhear Nancy. "We need to go!"

"No-"

"It's gonna be fucking worse if we have three more people dead instead of just one, now cut it open!" She grabbed his axe before he could respond and swung it down over the gate with a crunch. 

Fuck.

 I sprinted as fast as I could to them. I'm on the other side. They can't see me. They don't notice me. 

"Nancy go!" Robin shouted, looking back at the Creel house. "You need to fucking go!"

"I'm going!" She screamed in between hacks. 

"Stop!" I yelled, panting in between my words. "Stop! Wait!"

Nancy broke through the gate, throwing the axe through. "Now!"

Robin looked between the two, then dove in. Nancy looked up at Steve, then back to the gate, saying something. She pointed at the gate, shouting.

"Stop!" I screamed. "Steve!"

He looked up at his name, locking eyes with me just as Nancy dragged him through the gate. As soon as he disappeared, the vines grew back over, leaving me stopped in the street.

The gate finally stopped, now just leaving the vines writhing on the pavement. 

Someone shouted, sounding muffled behind me. I whipped my head around. There's no one there.

"Come on!"  It sounded like Robin.

"We need to go! Now!"  That's Robin. Holy shit that's Robin.

"Max, what happened?!"  Now it's Nancy.

"I-I don't know she just came back and she's fine-" Lucas's squeaky voice echoed around me, growing louder.

"It's Daisy he fucking got her!" Max shouted.

"We know!" Robin screamed. A muted crash sounded. "We need to fucking go!"

"Where is she?!"

"Steve come on!"

"She was there I saw her!" Steve. That was Steve. Oh shit oh shit oh shi-

"Steve!" I shouted.

"He opened gates!" Nancy said. "She's gone! She's dead, and he fucking won! Now we need to go!"

Oh.

"Nancy!" He exclaimed. "Let go of me! She's alive I fucking saw her!"

"It doesn't matter now! There's nothing we can do!"

"Yes, there is! We can go back- she's my sister!"

"How would you feel if that was Mike?" Lucas asked.

"I'm not stupid enough to let that happen to Mike!"

I stopped, standing in the middle of the road, frozen in disbelief.

"Don't listen to her, we can go back-"

"Just give it up, we can't afford to lose you and Steve." Nancy's voice slowly faded with everyone's, as they moved from the spot I was stuck in. "We actually need you guys."

We actually need you guys.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck this is fucking insane. This should not be happening. This isn't real. It's just Vecna fucking with me, it's just his sick and twisted game and it's fucking fake. 

I hope this was a good introduction to my last part of the story. 

yeah, it's also a short chapter, but I don't care.

I'm also working on a byler fic on Ao3, readable through this link:  

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44800093/chapters/112716811

yay self-promotion.

whatever.