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ANA DIDN'T FOLLOW the rest of the crew to Hawkins Lab

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ANA DIDN'T FOLLOW the rest of the crew to Hawkins Lab. Despite seeing Hopper and Will obviously in dire straits, Ana felt she had intruded in other people's problems enough for one day.

Instead, she'd gone to the cabin. With Hopper indisposed, someone would have to check up on Eleven, right?

However, the home was bathed in darkness when she pulled up. Never a good sign, but she ventured inside regardless, almost expecting what she would find inward.

It turned out her assumptions were accurate-nothing was on the other side of the door. No short-haired human who was supposed to be hiding, nor any indication of where she had gone.

The day, the week, the month, hell, even the year, it had all become too much. Ana was tired, exhausted really, but the hits just kept on coming. Crumpling underneath the emotional weight of it all, Ana collapsed to the floor of the empty cabin and cried until there were no more tears left.

Once the sun rose, and Ana's pity party had reached its pathetic conclusion, she headed out in search of the absent Eleven. Ana knew she couldn't be with Mike because he was at Hawkins Lab with Will, Hopper, and Joyce. That left her with Dustin and Lucas as possible suspects for aiding and abetting.

Dustin's house was closest to the cabin, so she figured she would try her luck there first.

Pulling up to the Henderson residence, Ana saw Dustin already out in the drive, but he wasn't alone.

Ana didn't know much about Steve Harrington except that he was Nancy Wheeler's boyfriend, and that he too had been unwillingly dragged into the strange events of last year. That, and that the kid had a beautiful head of hair. If he and Dustin were working together this early in the morning, it could only mean that her day would once again be disintegrating into madness.

"Yesterday" by The Beatles seemed to be mocking her as it played through the car's speakers. It had been over a year since her troubles had seemed so far away.

"Do I even want to know what the two of you are doing with buckets of raw meat and gasoline?" Ana asked the suspicious looking pair.

They both jumped in unison and let out a startled, "Ms. Thompson?"

"Contain your excitement, boys," she said with crossed arms. It wasn't her fault they'd been shocked by her sudden appearance in the driveway, the truck turning off and the driver's side door slamming behind her should have given them ample warning. "So, what're we doing?"

What they were doing was trying to lure Dart out of hiding. Dustin regaled her with his tale of finding Dart eating his cat, ew, and then locking the treacherous creature in his cellar. When none of the other party members would answer his emergency radio calls, Dustin had enlisted the help of Steve Harrington and his baseball bat with nails. The two boys had arrived back at Dustin's cellar to find no Dart, but proof he had molted again, and a hole in the wall suggesting that the monster had dug its way out of their temporary holding cell.

STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED_JIM HOPPERWhere stories live. Discover now