PARANORMAL | ❝Nothing is stranger than believing...❞
Cath knows a thing or two about Will Byers. Daphne, on the other hand, knows virtually nothing about Tonya McCarthy. Still, none of that changes the fact that both of them have up and vanishe...
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( trigger warning: implications of child/neglect abuse, i.e. the bad men to el)
THURSDAY 10th NOVEMBER, 1983
IT'S a miracle that Cath got any sleep last night. Hiccuping through sobs for most of the night, staring through glassy, leaking eyes at the faded floral-print wallpaper in her room, it took everything in her not to think about Will's body being dragged out of the quarry. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more vivid it became — his skin ghostly grey with an algae tint, water dripping off his soaked-through clothes that she desperately wanted to wring of all the cold water, and the dark circles under his closed eyes. Is that what her mother looks like underground? That beautiful, monochrome photograph on the mantlepiece? Or her grandparents?
Cath had decided, right there and then, that she never wanted to see a dead body again. Not if she could help it.
But then Daphne showed up in her doorway, crawling into bed with her like they used to do. It brought her back to the nights when she used to pick a random book from her bookshelf, and she would act it out with the utmost confidence and storytelling. Those nights used to leave a warmth in her chest, like a log fire had been lit within her — she still had that feeling as she eventually drifted off to sleep, eventually exhausted from her tireless tears, her face nestled into Daphne's chest.
However this morning, she wakes up in an empty bed, the outer side still slightly warm from where her sister had slept. The sky must be hanging with clouds outside, for the room simply feels cold with a grey, muted light that dully creeps through her lacy curtains.
Cath squints helplessly in the dim light, trying to massage her eyelids until they become unstuck from the adhesive her salty teardrops had formed in the night. Through the blurriness that ensues, she can vaguely make out a shadow growing larger from a slit underneath her door, which is followed by a gentle knock before it slowly opens.
"Oh, you're awake..." Thomas leaves the door open a crack, stepping cautiously before perching at the end of her bed. Patting her mattress, as if unsure of what to say next, he tilts his head at her pitifully. "How are you feeling?" he asks.
How am I feeling? In truth, Cath feels numb. Like she's been shackled to her bed. Like the sun just grew a little bit dimmer. Like it just got a little bit lonelier. She tries to stir herself with the intention of sitting up, but her dead weight resists — in the end she simply stays curled in a foetal position, eyes peering over the top of her duvet. The best she can come up with is:
