hook, line, and sinker

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

Vomit rose in Alina's throat as she tugged the blindfold off her head. Her breathing was wild and frenzied, her lungs aching, and she had to take a couple minutes to close her eyes, a sob choking past her lips.

What she'd just seen whirled around in her head like it was on a Merry-Go-Round, so it took her a couple of tense moments to finally notice the silence. The oppressive, looming silence, hanging over her like a storm cloud. The only noise apparent in the cabin was the buzz of the static on the TV and the distant sounds of crickets chirping outside, when the cabin should've been full of it, with the others huddled around them, stroking their hair, questioning them of what they'd seen. There should've been El's gasps beside Alina, with blood running from her nose and tears streaming down her face. There should've been noise. Activity. And yet there was none.

Because the cabin was empty. It was dark. Alina was here by herself, without another soul in sight. Like everyone had simply left in a hurry, tugging El along with them, and forgot about her, the girl they were supposed to admire. Could that've been it? Could they really have just left her?

No, they couldn't have. These were her friends. Which made Alina pause. Yes, these were her friends. Which meant that if they'd left her, they wouldn't have done it on purpose. They'd have to have been kidnapped, dragged away kicking and screaming, their yells permeating the cabin. And... thinking clearer now, Alina realized it'd been only seconds since Mike had told her and El to get out. Could they really have been found so quickly?

It didn't matter, either way, apparently, because she was alone.

She rose anyway, her heart thumping hard in her chest, and tentatively called out into the darkness, as if the others were lurking nearby in a twisted game of Hide and Seek. "Lucas?"

Oh, God. If anything had happened to Lucas, or Will, or Jonathan, or Gabe... really to any of her friends... Alina wouldn't know how to cope. She wouldn't be able to live with herself, because she'd already been shattered into a million pieces after Bob and her father's death. She couldn't survive being a million more.

"Will?" her voice was the only thing keeping her sane as she whipped her head around the cabin, searching each crevice for a sign of her friends. "Jonathan?! Gabe?"

Tears sprung to her eyes, and Alina began to sob. "Anyone? Is anyone here? Please! This isn't funny. Lucas!" After a couple of seconds, she crumpled, because she now knew that they were gone. "Lucas..." What would she do without Lucas?

"They can't hear you. None of them can."

Hearing a voice permeate through this awful silence should've been a tremendous relief to Alina. She should've sprung to her feet, rushing towards the person who'd spoken, locking them into a tearful embrace that would take a while to wrangle out of, bony arms or not. But who spoke was not one of Alina's friends. It was not one of the people in the cabin. It wasn't even who she feared it to be, because the person who spoke was a woman.

Alina rose her gaze to meet the eyes of Heather Holloway, who was, impossibly, standing right in front of her. Her hair was slightly matted, her skin—paler than normal—shone with sweat, and her eyes were blank and cold. She looked about as human as a mannequin, but there was no denying that it was, in fact, her, and that she was standing right in front of Alina Fairgrieves-Byers.

How did she get here? What was she doing here? What did she want?

Or rather, what did the Mind Flayer want?

"You shouldn't have tried to find us," Heather spoke, her voice deeper than what Alina had heard of it, cold, emotionless. "You shouldn't have tried at all. Because now we're here. And we can see you yet again."

Alina staggered back, her eyes wild, and attempted to form a ball of energy on her palm. A sob choked its way through her throat as she thrust it toward Heather, the girl who'd just been out of reach, but Heather sidestepped it easily, so it crashed into the wall instead, leaving a blackened burn. Tiles crumbled behind her but Heather didn't seem to care, she just marched towards Alina like there was nothing else in the room.

"You may not have let us into this world," continued Heather, "but you let us into you. And we know everything about you. We can pick your mind about piece by piece, unraveling it, because we made our home there for so long."

Alina continued to back up, crying now, tears streaming down her cheeks. "L-leave me alone," she choked, but Heather didn't even acknowledge that she'd spoken.

"We know how guilty you feel for not saving me. You didn't do anything to help me, Alina Fairgrieves, and now I has become we." As Heather got closer to Alina, her face morphed into a smile. A sickening, twisted imitation of a smile, because there was something so inhuman about it. "You don't have to be sorry, though. I'm happy now. We're happy."

"I'm sorry," Alina sobbed. "I should've tried harder to save you. You don't deserve this."

Again, Heather paid her no mind. "Don't you see? All of this time, we've been building. Building it for your friend. She let us in. She set us free. All of what we've been doing, all of the pain we've gone through... all of it has been for her. But don't worry, you'll get front-row seats in the show. Because we've been building it for her, but preparing it for you. We want you to come home. We want you to embrace us again." And then, with a delicate smile, she tilted her head. When she spoke next, her voice sounded more like herself. "It'd be the least you could do for abandoning me."

That was right. Alina had abandoned Heather, watched as she screamed, watched as she was dragged deep, deep down, away from her and El. She'd let her be flayed. And, maybe if she was flayed... well, she deserved it, didn't she? Not only for abandoning Heather, but for killing Tom. She'd killed somebody. She was dangerous. She deserved it.

"That's it," said Heather softly, her voice sounding more Mind Flayer now. "We can see that you want to. We can see that a desperate part of you is craving for it. You want to come home, Alina. You want to help us again. To heal us with your extraordinary abilities. You want this."

I do, Alina thought numbly. And then: I do? No. I don't. I can't. I'd rather be dead than a part of the army again. Rather be sliced to bits, and then burned to ash. I'd rather be shot a thousand times before I do anything that could go against my friends, my family, and the world.

Why, then, was Heather's offer so tantalizing? Like the smell of a warm pie wafting from the oven, Alina found herself, instead of shrinking back, away from her, stepping forward. Because her family and friends were gone anyway. They'd left her. The people she loved always did. By either dying, or simply leaving.

Right now, because everyone had left, it was only Alina and the Mind Flayer.

"Come home, Alina," said Heather, and Alina might've just done that if she hadn't noticed something when she stepped forward again. Something that had taken her an embarrassingly long time to notice.

She wasn't in any pain. Her ribs didn't scream with it every time she took a step. Her nose wasn't swelling and hard to breathe through. Her neck didn't prickle with the touch of the flayed. Her knee didn't shriek when she tried to bend it. And, most importantly, there was no blood on her face. She'd been in Billy's mind a while, which meant that there should've been some—not to mention when she used her abilities. Except, there wasn't. Which finally cleared something up in Alina's foggy mind.

This wasn't real. None of this was. Alina was still locked in Billy's mind—well, not Billy's. It seemed the consciousness of the entire flayed army. Her family and friends were still sitting in the cabin, probably anxiously waiting for her. They hadn't left her. Or been taken. They were okay.

And if she gave in now... she'd really give in. There would be no turning back this time. The Mind Flayer would make sure of it.

Alina stopped short, raising her chin and staring Heather down. Her heart rattled in her chest when she spoke. "No," she said clearly. "I'm not joining you. Not again."

And instead of getting infuriated, like Alina had expected, Heather just laughed. It was a dark chortle, laced with menace, and it could mean nothing good. "Oh, Alina Fairgrieves," she said. "Did you really think we'd give you a choice this time? Your friends will die. Your family will die. The world will perish and become us. And you're the one who's going to help us with it all. You will be the queen of the army, and serve as a source for our abilities. And this time, we're not letting you walk away."

Your friends will die. Your family will die. The thought of Alina's worst fears coming to life was enough to let the energy—the very power the Mind Flayer craved—form in her body again. Letting out a feral scream, Alina thrust it at Heather. It was moving too fast for it to miss, and Alina expected it to blow the flayed girl back like it had for Tom.

Except, it didn't. The energy flew right through Heather Holloway, emerging with a crash that caused the walls to shake. Heather raised a hand to her chest, even though there was no need to. It was perfectly intact. Her clothes hadn't even been ripped.

"That doesn't work anymore," she told Alina. "Did you really think it would? It seems you don't know us as well as we know you. You fell for our trap, you know. Hook, line, and sinker. Because we know you, and we knew that you'd try and find the source.

"Now," Heather continued quickly, her lip curling, "it's time. Time for you to rejoin us, once and for all. And this time, we'll make sure that nothing, not even death, can keep us out of you."

And before Alina could react, Heather had lunged forward, grabbing onto Alina. Her nails cut into her skin as she pressed her body against her own. Alina's vision immediately went blurry, and although she struggled, it only took a moment for those struggles to get weaker. She found herself sobbing, because she'd failed, and she was going to be flayed again. Because Alina Fairgrieves-Byers was going to be gone forever.

No, she thought frantically. No, I can't. I can't go. I have to be there for them. For my friends. For Lucas. For Will. For Jonathan. For Mom. For Gabe. For El. For Mike. For Max. For Dustin. For Nancy. For Steve. For Hopper. For Erica and Robin and Delores and even my half-sister, Nicole. For every kid who deserves a bright childhood, and every adult who deserves a peaceful end. I have to fight.

But with every minute, she could feel herself slipping away, her mind unraveling and her world turning fuzzy. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she struggled, darkness spreading across her vision, the echoes of a thousand Flayed ringing in her ears.

Then, like a glimpse of light at the end of a dark tunnel, a face came to mind. Lucas Sinclair, smiling at her, patching her wounds, kissing her, shielding her from harm. And the sight of him, looking so whole, was enough to give her a final burst of strength.

So, with her vision blurring, perhaps putting the biggest strain on herself she ever had, Alina Fairgrieves-Byers screamed, unlatched herself from Heather's arms, and pulled off the blindfold she was still wearing.

Pain assaulted her immediately—her ribs, her nose, her knee, everything that was supposed to be hurting—and she could feel a trickle of blood congealing on her upper lip. A wave of dizzying tiredness settled over her like a blanket, and, yet again, it took Alina a couple minutes to adjust to her surroundings. She was in the cabin again, but this time, she wasn't alone. This time she was surrounded by the people she was so terrified of losing.

And then she realized they were all talking, their voices layering on top of each other, but she could pick one voice out of the mass. "Al," Lucas cried, his arms suddenly around her, "Al, I need you to breathe, alright? I need you to breathe. You're safe, I promise. You and El are both safe. You're okay. Just breathe."

Alina breathed, and she also cried, sobbing into Lucas's chest with only the faintest of knowledge that El was doing the same to Mike. She breathed and she sobbed, because breathing wouldn't help anyone, not when she was flayed and everyone else was dead.

We're not letting you walk away, Heather had said. And yet Alina had, although it was more like she ran away, sprinting through the crevices of her own consciousness in order to slip out of her grasp. Alina assumed, though, that it'd be taken the same way. And that the Mind Flayer would be even more furious than it had ever been before.

And she was right. In Brimborn Steelworks, an army far bigger than any of them had imagined made their way down the rickety steps. Men. Women. Children. All with the same pasty white faces, the same sweat-slicked bodies and dilated pupils. They moved in a trance, making their way to where their fates would ultimately be decided. Where what remained of them would forever disappear.

Heather, back in her real body, was the first to step in front of the Mind Flayer. Much like Tom, her body trembled, seizing as the goo ate away at the fragile shell. It took only moments for her to fall, for her face to melt away into the slime that built up the creature that was waiting for them. What was left of Heather oozed its way into the meaty monster, followed by Heather's mother, Janet. The best sandwich maker in Hawkins. A mother of three. Mrs. Driscoll. Even Daniel Tree, his red hair flopping around his face as it was eaten away. More and more joined the unsightly, disturbing creature, a twisted chimera of all the bodies of regular people, and it grew. Oh, it grew. Bigger and bigger and bigger, until it formed the shape of the shadow it had been in the Upside Down.

And as the newly constructed Mind Flayer burst through the roof of Brimborn Steelworks at nearly an identical size it had been as a shadow, it let out a fierce roar, promising that it would bring everyone down.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: apparently, every novel over 110k words is an epic, so i guess paroxysm, which clocks in at a whopping 145k words, is one, too. that's actually so weird to think about LMFAOOO.

anyway, you can tell that things are getting worse and worse for alina!! i know she probably shouldn't have gone into billy's mind in the first place, but i really wanted to write a scene where she confronts heather (and yes, i know i changed canon by making her more like billy, but i honestly don't care-- this is a fanfiction). i know this scene is kind of similar to the one el faces, but i mean... the mind flayer is talking to two people at once. it's bound to repeat itself haha (also, i didn't know how else to write it :))

next chapter, we're finally going to have a little of gabe's perspective!! sorry for neglecting him, but i couldn't exactly write his pov while alina was traversing the mind flayer's consciousness. whoops.

'till next time!