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cliffside melancholy
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. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧
The first few weeks after the Accident were, of course, difficult. The party found themselves referring to the event that claimed so many lives as just that—the Accident—as if the Demogorgon's brief claim on the town of Hawkins was just that. As if you could believe the newspapers that began to flood around town, proclaiming an 'accident' that got Will lost in the woods and an 'accident' that occurred within the halls of Hawkins Middle, claiming the life of the beloved Brandon Fairgrieves (and unnamed others). Lucas tried not to read those newspapers, especially the ones that spoke about Will, as if his return was some kind of miracle. It wasn't. It was just plain old skill developed from years of playing hide-and-seek.
The people of Hawkins treated Will like some kind of mascot, something to be paraded around, as if to brag to the other cities around them that no, Hawkins wasn't just a boring town. Look, they had news! A little boy came back from the dead! Could you say that in Indianapolis or New Castle or Richmond? And even though the boy had to stay in the hospital for a week after his reappearance, that didn't stop the news reporters trying to barge in on him, that didn't stop the phone calls constantly ringing through the Byers household, and it didn't stop the constant questions Lucas, Dustin, and Mike, would be barraged with at school.
Lucas hated it all. He hated how the people of Hawkins were treating Will, like he was some kind of dog instead of a human, but he also hated how they had treated Alina. The girl who had been found in Hawkins Middle clutching the dead body of her father, screaming her head off. How had they explained this, plus the broken wall? An Accident. A fire that started within the halls. A fire that had only taken out one section before the brave firefighters (there had been no firefighters at the scene) had put it out. By then, it had been too late, and poor Brandon Fairgrieves was dead.
The people of Hawkins treated Alina as if she was someone to be pitied, which was annoying, considering several racist remarks that she had been subjected to before the Accident. Like, she'd go into a diner, and everyone's faces would fall, and the waiter would give her a free dessert. Having her trauma so public seemed to really hurt her, but it wasn't even the adults in Hawkins that affected her the most. No, it was the kids. Of course it was the kids.
