The Long Game━ (l. sinclair)

teaching a college lecture on feminist literature!

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Needless to say, Sam was scared out of her mind after what happened with Max.

When Nancy and Robin arrived, Max told the group that she had heard a clock chiming in her head. She didn't think it was in her head, though; to Max, it all seemed real. Then, upon further inspection, Max claimed she followed the chiming and found a tall, grandfather clock shoved into the wall of a stunted hallway.

But as the group shined their flashlights onto where Max did see the clock, the wall was just blank. There was nothing there.

"It was here," Max told them, distressed. "Right here."

Unconvinced, Nancy asked, "A grandfather clock?"

Max shook her head unstably, face morphed into terror. A lone tear slipped down her cheek as she said, "It was so real... And then, when I got closer, suddenly I just," she breathed in shakily, "I woke up."

Max...

"It was like she was in a trance or something," Dustin told the girls. "Exactly what Eddie said happened to Chrissy."

"And what happened to Fred," added Sam.

"Nearly made me go psycho," Auggie told Max. "You freaked me out."

Max turned around to the group, distraught face deepening. Her teary face was illuminated by their feeble flashlights.

"That's not even the bad part," she told them.

Sam wondered how it could get worse.

Max proceeded to bring the whole group back into Ms. Kelley's office. It was more crowded now with the addition of Nancy and Robin, but Sam didn't mind; she wasn't claustrophobic like Corey.

Max stood behind Ms. Kelley's desk, facing everyone as they peered at Chrissy's and Fred's files.

"Fred and Chrissy, they both came to Ms. Kelley for help," Max started. She finally let the group get a clear view of their symptoms now that Max wasn't in a trance over them. "Uh, they were both having headaches — bad headaches that wouldn't go away. And then... then the nightmares."

Max's voice cracked as she gripped the desk with her hands. Sam, who was nearly shoulder to shoulder with Max, put her hand on top of Max's for comfort; she was just as, if not more distressed as Max. Sam's mind fell back to the nightmares of her own.

Max continued, "Trouble sleeping. They'd wake up in a cold sweat. And then they started seeing things... Bad things, from their pasts. These visions, they just... they kept on getting worse and worse, until eventually," tears covered her cheeks as she cried the information out, "everything ended."

Robin peered up at Max from the chair she was sitting in. "Vecna's curse."

Max nodded, solemnly.

She wasn't insinuating...?

"Chrissy's headache started a week ago. Fred's, six days ago." Max looked up at them, "I've been having them for five days."

Max...

That had been the same voice Sam heard with Fred.

Fred... I want you to join me.

No.

"I don't know how long I have," Max tried not to cry as the tears started falling faster. "All I know is that, for Fred and Chrissy, they both died less than twenty-four hours after their first vision." Max gripped Sam's hand with her right and gestured wildly with her left. "And I just saw that goddamn clock, so..."