In case you don't live forever

Chapter 1: Dig Dug

Peter's Pov:

I ran out of my room and down the stairs to see my dads in the living room watching tv. I ran in front of the tv so my dads would look at me. "Do you have any quarters?" I asked them both. My dad, Harry nodded and pulled out 2 dollars in quarters. My other dad, Harry stood up and started going upstairs telling me to follow him. I followed him and he led me to his room and pulled a bag full of quarters. "Thanks dad" I smiled widely at him. "No problem, sweetie" He replied. I ran to my room hearing Dustin's voice coming from my supercom "Peter, do you copy? Over" He spoke. I picked my supercom off the floor and dumped my bag of quarters onto my bed and started counting them. "Yeah, I copy. Over" I replied still counting the quarters. "Lucas and I have six bucks total. What's your haul?" He asked as I finished counting. "20 dollars" I told him. "Holy shit" Dustin muttered. "I'll see you in a little bit. Over and out" I turned it off and put the many quarters into my fanny pack before putting it around my waist and running out the door. I pulled my bike out of the garage and started riding towards the arcade. On my way there I met up with Dustin, Mike and Lucas and we rode the rest of the way together.

When we got to the arcade the four of us parked our bikes in the bike rack and Wills mom pulled up in the parking lot a few seconds later. "Hey!" Dustin yelled waving at Will and his mom. We waited outside for Will to finish talking to his mom and when he came he grabbed my hand with his and I gave him a soft smile. Ever since he had come back from the Upside Down, the two of us have been a lot closer then normal. And by that I mean holding hands when the two of us are in public to help Will feel safer, spending nights at each others houses because I don't want Will to have nightmares, stuff like that. The five of us entered the crowded arcade and went straight to Dragon's Lair which Dustin had been trying to beat for the longest time.

"To slay the dragon, use the magic sword" The character in the game spoke. "Oh Jesus, I'm in uncharted territory here, guys" Dustin explained as the rest of us stood around him as he played the game. "Down! Down! Down! Right! Right! Right! Right!" We yelled as Dustin listened to our commands. He moved the joystick in the exact directions we told him too. We were all yelling at Dustin over each other and it was becoming quite annoying. "Shut up. Shut up! Shut up!" Dustin yelled. He was almost done defeating the dragon but his character died in the game. "No, no, no! No! No! No! I hate this overpriced bullshit! Son of a bitch! Piece of shit!" Dustin screamed, kicking the machine. "You're not nimble enough. But you'll get there one day. But until then, Princess Daphne is still mine" Lucas told Dustin. "Whatever, I'm still tops on Centipede and Dig Dug" Dustin spoke. "You sure about that?" Keith, the arcade worker came up to us with a bag of cheese puffs in his hands and orange, cheese coated fingers which made me gag. "Sure about what?" Dustin asked Keith. "You're kidding me. Move, move, move No, no, no, no, no no!" Dustin ran to the games with the rest of us following. Dusti stopped in front of Dig Dug and looked at the high scores. "751,300 points" Will read the top score off the screen. "That's impossible" Mike mumbled. "Who's Mad Max?" Dustin turned around to face Keith. "Better than you" Keith told him and Dustin flipped him off. "Is it you?" I asked him, gagging a little as he put another cheese puff in his mouth leaving more orange cheese on his fingers. "You know I despise Dig Dug" He told me. "Then who is it?" Lucas asked him. "Yeah, spill it, Keith" Dustin snapped. "You want information, then I need something in return" Keith told us looking at Mike. "No. No. No, no way. You are not getting a date with her" Mike said. "Mike, come on. Just get him the date" Lucas looked at Mike. "I'm not prostituting my sister" Mike explained. "But its for a good cause" Lucas said to him. "No don't get him the date. You know why? He's going to spread his nasty-ass rash to your whole family. Or even some weird cheese puff disease" I spoke. "Acne isn't a rash and it isn't contagious, you prepubescent wastoid" Keith told me. "Oh, I'm a wastoid? Maybe you're the wastoid" I snapped back. "She wouldn't want to go on a date with you. You make, like, what? $2.50 an hour?" Dustin told Keith. They continued to fight with Keith that they didn't notice Will had disappeared. I tapped Mike's shoulder gently and he looked at me. "Where did Will go?" I asked him quietly. He just shrugged "I don't know. Maybe he went to the bathroom or something" He said. I looked back outside the door and saw Will standing there looking at the sky. I walked towards the door and opened it. "Will, are you okay?" I asked him, snapping him out of something. He looked at me then back up at the sky. "Yeah, I just... I needed some air" Will told me but I knew he was lying. I grabbed his hand gently "Come on, you're up on Dig Dug. Lets take that top score back" I gave him a gentle smile as we walked back into the arcade.

Time skipopopopo

"Meet the human brain. I know. I know, it doesn't look like much. A little gross even. But consider this. There are a hundred billion cells inside of this miracle of evolution. All working as one. No, no. I did not mispeak. I did not stutter. A hundred billion" Mr. Clarke explained to us, first period in the morning. The only people actually paying attention to his lesson was Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will and I but that was completely normal. The door slammed closed and thr principal walked in with a girl. She had red hair and seemed to be pretty feisty. "Ah, this must be our new student" Mr. Clarke said. "Indeed it is. All yours" The principal spoke and left the room. The girl started to walk toward the empty seat in the back of the room but Mr. Clarke stopped her. "All right. Hold up there. You don't get away that easy. Come on up, don't be shy" Mr. Clarke told her and she moved beside his desk. "Dustin, drum roll" He told Dustin and Dustin started drumming on his notebook. "Class, please welcome, all the way from sunny California, the lastest passenger to join us on our curiosity voyage, Maxine" Mr. Clarke told the class. Dustin stopped the drum roll  "Nobody calls me Maxine. Its Max" Max corrected Mr. Clarke. "MadMax" I heard Dustin and Lucas whisper to each other. "Well, all aboard Max" Mr. Clarke gave her a smile and she went to sit down in the empty seat at the back of the room.

"There's no way that's Mad Max" Mike said as the five of us stood outside watching Max. "Yeah. Girls don't play video games" Will exclaimed. "And even if they did you can't get 750,000 points on Dig Dug. Its impossible" Mike added. "But her name is Max" Lucas told Mike. "So what?" Mike asked him. "So, how many Max's do you know?" Lucas asked Mike. Mike shrugged "I don't know." "Zero. Thats how many" Lucas said. "Yeah, and she shows up to school the day after someone with her same name breaks our top score. I mean, you kidding me?" Dustin explained. "Exactly, so she's gotta be Mad Max. She's gotta be" Lucas agreed with Dustin. "And plus, she skateboards, so she's pretty awesome" Dustin added. "Awesome? You haven't even spoken a word to her" Mike told Dustin. "I don't have to. I mean look at her. Shit, I've lost the target" Dustin said, looking at the exact place Max was a few seconds ago. I looked over a little and saw Max heading towards the stairs leading to a door. "Oh, there" I pointed to her and everyone else looked at her. We moved a little so we were all facing the direction she was and watched her. When she reached the top of the stairs, she threw something into the trash can below and Dustin started bolting towards it, with the rest of us following. Dustin started digging through the trash can and the four of us stood in front of it, awkwardly waving at a few girls passing by. "Got it. There we go" Dustin grabbed the paper and stood up. He unfolded the paper and we all looked at it. "Stop spying on me creeps" We all read aloud. "Well, shit" Dustin mumbled before the principal came up behind us. "William Byers, your mother's here" He told Will.

"You guys think he's okay?" Dustin asked as the four of us watched Will from afar. "He's always weird when he has to go in" Lucas told Dustin. "I don't know. He's quiet today" I said worrying a little. "He's always quiet" Lucas spoke. I bit my lip a little, watching Joyce drive away with Will.

Word count: 1597