the pollywog

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SCARLETT SAT AT THE TOP OF THE GYMNASIUM BLEACHERS WITH HER HEADPHONES ON, turning the dial on her walkman to the max as Heroes by David Bowie blasted in her ears. Her eyes scanned the pages of a comic book Lucas lent her, telling her she and Ben couldn't wear the costume they'd planned if she didn't.

He had actually lent her all of the Batman comics he owned the night prior, and after she had returned home from the party she intently read through a majority of them, even though it was quite late. She had begun to learn Batman's story, seeing as before she had never even touched a DC comic.

Ben was more of a nerd than he was letting up. She had a well understanding that he had every single DC and Marvel comic there was, all in a box under his bed. She knew she could talk to him if she had any questions about any specific comic. Speaking of Ben..

The girl glanced up from the book to the court and rolled her eyes as she noticed Billy guarding the ball handler, Steve and appearing to be saying something to him to get in his head. The boys were currently in a competitive game of basketball, shirts vs skins. Suddenly, the ball was stolen away from Steve, ultimately sending him to the ground. Billy rushed down the court with the ball, sending it through his legs before finishing the flashy layup.

She scoffed in disgust, turning away as Billy celebrated with his teammates. Scarlett glanced towards at the door where a voice belonging to Nancy called for Steve to come outside with her. She knew whatever Nancy was talking to him about, had something to do with the party last night. Steve himself had told the girl what had happened, and it was no secret what had sent them into their inevitable plummet. Just a simple spill of a drink changed a seemingly stable relationship for the worse.

Her eyes drifted back down to the comic in her lap, Batman "A Death in The Family" In which, Robin dies at the hands of the Joker. Scarlett let out a small gasp of shock, she really hadn't expected the Joker to kill Robin. Lucas really read this stuff? Actually, it didn't surprise her. Her cousin loved dungeons and dragons, and on top of that, he and his friends had fearlessly searched for their lost friend, using clues and a girl with superpowers to locate Will, who was in an alternate dimension.

Steve jogged back into the gym, visibly upset as he flashed Scarlett a look of sadness before getting back into the game. He and Ben were on shirts, and currently were getting demolished by skins. Billy had been carrying his entire team on his shoulders, and if he hadn't impressed the ladies then, he surely did now. But the one girl that wasn't impressed sat at the top of the bleachers, completely engrossed in her comic book as the music continued playing through her ears.

When the bell had finally rung, indicating the end of the period, Scarlett dashed out of the gymnasium and waiting outside of the locker rooms for Ben. He usually never took long to clean himself up, and was almost always the first person out of the locker room. Soon enough, Ben had walked through the door alongside Steve.

The girl had the comic book pressed to her chest, but as soon as she noticed her best friend, she had it waving in front of her face. "Why didn't you tell me Robin died?" She hissed as she sped up to match their pace. "We could've made your costume so much cooler! Dead Robin." She panned her hands out as she envisioned her idea.

"Why are you reading comics..?" Steve asked her, mentally slapping himself in the face for coming off as rude.

"I mean, you didn't really need to know. If you hadn't read it, there was no need to find out. Keep Robin alive in your mind I guess." Ben shrugged. "Cool costume idea, but you're a little late."

"Okay.. thanks, but-" She said, stopping herself. "I did not understand a word you just said. Oh and Steve, long story short, Lucas said I needed to read them or I'd be a fake fan or something."

"Hm." Steve hummed, accepting the simple response with a nod.

"I saw you two getting demolished by Billy out on the court, by the way." Scarlett poked at them, "And I say just Billy because he was technically carrying his entire team."

"Alright, enough. Knock it off." Ben playfully shoved the girl, letting out a laugh as she stumbled into someone walking the opposite direction and had begun to apologize profusely, although the person didn't care one bit.

"You're not funny." Scarlett pointed a finger at him, narrowing her eyes and scowling.

"Neither are you." The boy continued to laugh, this time earning a shove from Scarlett.

"You guys are both nerds, and not funny." Steve joked, separating the two.

"Okay, Mr. Star Wars." Scarlett said in a mocking voice. "You sound just like Erica. Nerd this- nerd that- Her mouth is just constantly running. Like, nerd, nerd, nerd, nerd-"

"That was three years ago, alright?" Steve interrupted her, referring to the Star Wars part.

"Three years isn't that long, Steve!" Scarlett laughed along with Ben, who hadn't stopped since his own joke, which to Scarlett wasn't that funny, and she didn't understand why he was still laughing.

"Yeah, well, I was a weird eighth grader." Steve helplessly defended himself. In that moment he admitted to himself that Scarlett was always right, and he was a bit of a nerd.

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That morning Scarlett had driven Lucas to school, and their plan they had agreed on was to drive him back home. But now, the girl sat by her car in the middle school parking lot, waiting for her cousin with concern growing minute by minute.

Soon enough, she had enough. She stormed inside the school, carelessly pushing by children in the hallway. She noticed a familiar redhead by the AV club door, and decide to approach. The chance of her cousin and his dimwit friends being in that room were extremely high.

"Um, hey." Scarlett spoke softly, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she looked down at the girl.

The redhead glanced up from the ground, her eyes meeting those of Scarlett's brown ones. "Hey."

"Does Lucas Sinclair and his dipshit friends happen to be in there?" She asked, pointing to the door.

The younger girl let out a laugh, nodding. "Yeah, they locked me out. Mike said it was a strictly 'party members only' meeting." She mocked Mike's voice, causing the older girl to laugh.

"They're weird kids." Scarlett shook her head, walking up to the door and knocking on it. "Hey! You guys better not be doing weird shit in there. Open up!"

"Uhh, one second!" A voice belonging to Dustin rang out, followed by a bunch of argumentative whispering.

"It's no use, I've been knocking for the past ten minutes and they've been saying the same exact thing." The ginger let out an exasperated sigh.

Scarlett's eyes lit up with a bright idea, "Try this." She handed the girl a pin from her pocket, to which she took gratefully, sticking it in the lock and wiggling it around a bit before finally unlocking the door. She was swinging it open just as a abnormal small creature slid out of the room, between the two girls before skidding around the corner and disappearing down the hallway.

Scarlett's eyes widened as she took in the flash of the creature before Lucas toppled out of the room, causing her to end up on the wall but ultimately catching him. "What the hell was that?"

"Dustin's new pet, we don't know what it is and it just escaped." Lucas explained shortly, panick seeping through his voice.

"It's Dart!" Mike said, the only one who got out of the room without ending up on the floor.

"What?" The redhead said, confused. She had never seen anything like this in sunny California, and never would've expected it from the small town in Indiana.

"You let him escape!" Mike directed his words towards the other girl, who stared at him with the constant confusion in her blue eyes.

"Why did you attack him?" Dustin yelled at Mike, grabbing the collar of his shirt. Mike sighed, urging everyone to come with him. "Don't hurt him! Don't you hurt him!" Dustin yelled as everyone had begun sprinting around the school, splitting off.

The redhead had followed Scarlett down a hallway, speeding up to match her pace. "What was that?"

Scarlett shook her head, not even knowing herself. "I have no clue, worst case scenario, it's a deformed toad or something. But we still need to find it, it might have a disease. Also, what's your name?" Scarlett had a feeling this girl was the girl Lucas had been raving about, but of course she wanted to make sure before she called her a different name.

"Max. And you must be Lucas' cousin, right?" Max asked, following her into the gym.

"I am." She grinned as they ventured into the girls locker room. After searching both sides of the lockers and finding noting, they met back up at the door. "What are the chances Dot or whatever could be hiding in the boys room?"

"He could be." Max shrugged. The two girls rushed to the boys locker room, immediately searching through and around the compartments on the left side. Max shot Scarlett a disgusted expression as she held up the most disgusting pair of socks to ever sit on a locker room bench. Scarlett grimaced, urging Max to put them down to which she gladly obeyed.

The reached the end of the left side, dropping jackets off hooks in case Dart was hiding in any. Suddenly, Mike popped around the corner with a yell, broom in hand. The girls heads snapped towards him, sending him an unimpressed look at his lame attempt to be threatening.

"What the hell are you doing?" Max yelled, now fully turned towards him.

"What are you doing?" Mike shot back. "Why are you in here?"

"We're looking for Dart." Max said very matter of factly.

"This is the boys room." Mike informed the two.

"No, really?" Scarlett muttered under her breath as she continued to search through the cubby areas.

"Yeah, so?"

"So you should go home." Mike said aggressively before dropping the broom and storming out of the locker room.

"Ignore him, he doesn't mean anything he says." Scarlett rolled her eyes at the younger boys antics, disappointed in him. "He's just.. emotional."

"Keep looking here, I'll be right back." Max turned to Scarlett, holding a finger up as she urged her to wait before rushing after Mike with her skateboard in hand.

"Alright, have a blast." She spoke with a dull tone, sure the girl couldn't hear her as she was already out of the room. She always seemed to be with these kids when something abnormal happened, it was strange.

After a lot searching, she found nothing. No weird noises, trails, nothing. She groaned, about to leave until the door swung open, Mike and Max standing in the frame. "Bathroom. Mr. Salerno's. Dart. Found." Mike said breathlessly, as if he had just been running a marathon.

They exchanged looks before sprinting out of the gym and down the hallway to Mr. Salerno's classroom. Right across was the bathroom Dart was suspected to be in. Lucas had arrived just as the other three had, and the all entered the bathroom together.

"Where's Dart?" Mike asked, noticing Dustin as the end of the row of stalls.

"I don't know, not here."

"What?" Mike immediately began swinging open stall doors in search of the creature.

"He said by Salerno's?" Max inputted.

"Will was the one who radioed, right?" Scarlett added to Max's input, putting emphasis on the 'was'.

"Yeah, maybe Will has him." Dustin suggested with a shrug. Seemed totally skeptical to Scarlett, she didn't believe him for a second.

Scarlett glanced at him with suspicion in her eyes, causing his to widen more than they already were and give her a nervous smile.

Mike pulled away from the stall, staring at Dustin with concern. "Where is Will?" The five shared worried glances, words unable to form in their mouths as they stood frozen for a moment.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Scarlett was the first to run out of the bathroom, her eyes wide and heart pounding in her chest. She would never forgive herself if something bad happened to him after all he had been through the previous year. She wanted to keep him safe, and she should've gone with him in search of Dart, but she didn't. And now, Will was possibly in danger.

The five stood in a huddle outside of the bathroom, concerned for Will Byers safety. The school was a good size, but yet there was no way of telling where in it Will could be. Whether he be hiding or in plain sight, they'd never know until they searched for him.

"Dustin, Max! Take the right side. Me, Mike and Lucas will search the left." Scarlett explained in a panicky voice before breaking out of the huddle. Dustin and Max complied, rushing the opposite direction. "I swear, if he's playing some kind of sick prank on us-" Scarlett said through gritted teeth, stopping herself and rushing to catch up with the two boys who had already begun running down the corridor.

"Will!" Lucas called out cupping his mouth with the hand he was not holding his walkie-talkie with. "Where are you?"

Something caught Mike's eye as they passed by a door that led to the fields. A blue plaid shirt.. Will's blue plaid shirt. Without hesitation, Mike left the other two, rushing outside towards Will, who stood frozen in the middle of the field, only the whites of his eyes visible.

Scarlett stopped, noticing only her cousin was next to her, "Mike?" She looked at Lucas, who's heart had dropped to his stomach. They ran towards the only place Mike could've gone, the field door.

Swinging it open, they noticed Mike shaking a very fragile Will, begging him to respond. Scarlett observed the boy, who stood unresponsive, as if he were in a trace. "Will? Will! Buddy, wake up! Lucas, go get the others!" Scarlett yelled, shaking Will before turning her head to look at her cousin. Lucas stood frozen in fear, his jaw on the ground. "Now!" He obeyed her, nodding vigorously as he ran off to find the two others.

As the frightened two pleaded for Will to snap out of his trance, Lucas had found Max, Dustin and Joyce and they were currently running across the field to rescue Will from his struggles. Mike called out to them, "I just found him like this! I think he's having another episode."

Joyce rushed up to him, taking Scarlett's spot in front of him and grabbing ahold of his arms, "Will? Will. Will? Sweetie, wake up. It's mom." She choked out, looking around for support. Scarlett placed a comforting hand on her back before the mother continued, "Will! Will, wake up. Can you hear me?"

They were completely oblivious to the horrors Will Byers was going through behind his white eyes. Every ounce of the Mind Flayer traveled through the boy, choking and possessing him. Will was one pawn on his chess table, and acquiring him meant getting one step closer to the rest of the world.

"Come on!" Joyce yelled at her son, trying to wake him up once again. "It's me!"

Will's eyes shot open, a gasp of breath heard as he woke from his trance, collapsing into his mothers arms. Everyone let out a breath of relief, but Will let out a choked sob. "Let's get you home." Joyce embraced her son, shaking her head.

The group followed Will and Joyce through the school to the front, standing on the steps as they watched the two get in Joyce's car and speed off. Max was the first to speak up, "Okay, that totally freaked me out."

"You and us all, Max." Scarlett shrugged, her eyes still glued to the green car which drove down the empty road and away from the school.

"Two episodes.. In two days." Lucas said slowly, leaning against the beam that held the small roof over the front door up.

"It's getting worse." Mike stated.

"You think it's true sight?" Lucas turned to his friends.

"What's true sight?" Max asked a valid question, Scarlett didn't know the answer to it either.

"It that another DND term?" Scarlett groaned.

"It's nothing." Lucas brushed it off, directing his words towards Max. He sent Scarlett a look that said, 'I'll tell you later,' and she was fine with that.

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guys i just realized the comic i put in was released in 1988 i love myslef 😜

but i literally have it in my room and i put that edition in so they had something to talk about🙁 but pretend it wasn't released in '88 alr thank you 🤭