↣ 𝘐𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴

Kathleen stood up as the darkness began to resemble the trailer once more. But everything was so different this time. She turned to face the women, who looked at her with pride in their eyes. "My darling, look at you, you've grown so beautiful," she remarked as she approached her.

"Mommy?" Kathleen whispered, her voice like the sound of small scared child. Her mother's nodded as she pressed her hands lightly against her cheeks. "Am I really dead?" Kathleen inquired, and the elder woman merely laughed at her, as if she had made a joke. "No, but you don't have much time until you will be." She stated that her grasp on the girl's cheeks tightened.

She tried to push back, but the individual was far stronger. When she looked up, she saw her Chrissy  standing in front of her. "Oh Kathleen, look what you did, you killed me." She let out a small cry. Kathleen finally got out of there grip and ran out of the trailer. Only to see she was back at the Creel house.

"No, no, no, this is not happening to me." She turned around to look at herself in the mirror. Dark red vines encircled her, steadily approaching her reflection. She screamed and turned around to see Eddie standing in front of her.

"Kathleen, what did you do?" Kathleen looked down to find Eddie was handcuffed, and there was blood all over him. She sobbed at the imposition.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," she cried as she ran, only to discover all of her loved ones lying on the ground, blood dripping down their faces. Robin was in the midst, looking the worst of them all.

"Come with me Kathleen, join me."

When Kathleen's body collided with Steve's, he immediately began to freak out as he sought to persuade her to open her eyes. "Please come back to me. Kathleen! Hey," he cried, but it was futile because the blonde haired girl was entirely engrossed.

Robin began searching her room right away. "Eddie, what kind of music does she listen to!" she exclaimed. Eddie dashed into the room and began going through her belongings while the others looked about.

Kathleen observed Robin's transformation into this repulsive person. "I know what it's like to be alone, Kathleen, and I can help you stop feeling so lonely," he stated as he began to walk approach her. Kathleen exited the room only to reappear in this red place, just like max had described.

"Hurry!" Steve yelled out, he looked back down at Kathleen. He didn't even want to imagine what her mind was seeing. Eddie instantly grabbed onto a tape that had something written over it.

"Pretty woman, she says it reminds her of you." Eddie spoke urgently, placing it into Robin's hands. Robin looked down at it, a blush spread across her cheek over the sweetness that her girlfriend is.

As she gazed about, memories that weren't hers began to flash over her mind. The Creel residence was being occupied by a young family. "Victor creel." She mumbled as she observed them being content and in love. What was the aim of Vecna showing her this?

Kathleen watched as the young child began to realize what he was capable of, killing things to satisfy himself. Vecna is this young man. She exclaimed in surprise. She turned around and realized she was standing at their dinning table.

Hearing her bones fracture and watching her die was horrifying as she witnessed Henry murder his own mother. Kathleen dashed out of the room and into the foyer. She witnessed him murder his own family, and the father was blamed for everything.

Kathleen was now in this strange experimental building, watching as the young man had something tattooed on his arm, similar to the numbers El had on hers. "Kathleen, would you like to take a turn?" the elder man asked. She sprinted out of the room.

She quickly came to a halt, "shit," she said, unable to get the stapled wood off the door. She turned to find Vecna approaching her. "Dude, I'm not interested in what you're selling, so go find another soul to take." She stated her case.

"I believe you do, something deep within you longs to be free, to be free of agony, to be able to love. That's all you desire, and I can show you everything." Kathleen instantly turned around and raced away in a different direction. As she rushed, the lights flickered. As she rushed, music began to fill the room.

"Is if working!" Robin asked urgently, the headphones placed over her girlfriend's head, panic was fully alerted inside her.

Kathleen found herself back in the room with the tattoo guy. "Oh, come on." She said frightened and turned around, only to see Vecna  entirely behind her. She backed away gently till she was sat in the chair. "Are you telling me I'm going to die at this point?" She asked, watching as the vines crawled over her body.

Vecna pushed his hand against her face, and images of her friends, family, and Eddie began to flood her consciousness. "I...Want you to tell Eleven. I want you to tell her everything you see."More images of things began to fill her thoughts, but the music became louder.

"Her name is rock star asshole," she exclaimed as she continued to fight it.

"Tell her..." he whispered, Kathleen closed her eyes and when she opened them, she found Steve staring at her and backed away from him. Completely freaked out weather  he was real or not.

"Hey, Hey, it's me, Steve, and you're fine."Kathleen gazed at him before wrapping her arms around him, he replied. She immediately began to cry in relief. They gently crossed the bridge. Robin instantly snatched Kathleen into a hug.

"You've scared the living daylights out of me." She murmured this while kissing the girl. Kathleen felt immediately safe as a result of the move and clung to her.

After Robin let her go, Eddie crushed her into a hug, Nancy held her, and all the kids hugged her. They all started walking towards Max's trailer, with Robin wrapping her arms around Kathleen and Steve and Eddie walking alongside her. Feeling overly protective right now.

They all turned to stare at Kathleen as she sat there. "He showed me so many things, and my mother was there, chatting to me." Eddie's ears perked up as his aunt was mentioned. "I saw Chrissy, you guys were all dead, and I saw that red area Max mentioned. He told me about his family background, Vecna is Victor Creel's son. He framed his father for what he did," she continued, a quick glance at Eddie, who was looking down.

"He wants to tear this town down piece by piece, and he's only just begun, but what I don't understand is the chimes, which I kept hearing throughout the mind trip." she said, looking around for hints.

"Four chimes." Max said, realization hit her. "Vecna's clock. It always chimes four times. Four exactly."

"He's been telling us his plan this whole time."

"Four kills. Four gates. End of the world." Lucas said, realization hit all of them.

"If that's true...He's only one kill away." Dustin said.

"Oh Jesus Christ" Eddie mumbled, he ran his hand over his face.

"Try 'em again. Try 'em again." Steve urged, gesturing to the phone.

Max walked over, she picked it up only for it to be a busy signal again. She shook her head.

"Maybe you punched it wrong. Try again."

"I didn't punch it in wrong." Max argued.
Steve groaned in response. "Well, I don't know."

"I think she knows how to use a phone." Dustin said

Max rolled her eyes, she picked up the phone once again. "Same shit."

"How is that possible?" Lucas asked.
"Joyce has this telemarketer job. Always on the phone. Mike won't stop whining about it."

"Yeah, but this phone's been busy for, what, three days now?" Max questioned. "That's not Joyce. No way. Something's wrong."

"She's right. It can't be just coincidence. It can't be." Nancy said, she turned to the group with a plan already forming. "We have to go back in there. Back to the Upside Down."

Everyone began to disagree. " Lady, you're insane, there's no way I'm going back down there." Kathleen objected.

"Let's think this through." Steve said.

"What is there to think through?"

"We barely made it out of there." Steve reminded her. "Kathleen was basically in his mind hive, I'm not letting that happen to anyone else."

"Yeah, because we weren't prepared. But this time, we will be. We'll get weapons and protection. We'll go through the gate, we'll find his lair, and we'll kill him" Nancy reasoned.

"Or he'll kill us." Steve said. "The only reason Kathleen even survived down there is because his twisted mind wanted her to."

"Thanks Steve." Kathleen mumbled.

"And for good reason. We were wrong about Vecna. Henry. One. Sorry, what are we calling him now?" Robin asked, they all on the name that suited him most "We've learned something new about Vecna/Henry/One. He's a number like Eleven, only a sick, evil, male, child-murdering version of her with really bad skin. But my... my point is, he's super powerful. Could turn us inside out with a snap of his fingers. It's not a fair fight."

"Then why fight fair?" Dustin brought up. "You're right. You're right. He's like Eleven. But that gives us an upper hand. We know Eleven's strengths. And weaknesses."

"Weakness." Erica commented.

"When El remote-travels,she goes into this sort of trance-like state. I bet the same is true of Vecna." Dustin explained to her.

"That would explain what he was doing in that attic." Lucas agreed.

"Exactly. When he attacks his next victim, I'll bet you he's back in that attic, physical body defenseless." Dustin responds.

Steve rolled his eyes. "Defenseless? What about the army of bats?" he asked.

"True. We'll have to find a way past them. Distract them somehow." Kathleen shared a glance towards Eddie, who already shakes his knowing what she might be thinking.

"And, uh, how do we do that, exactly?" Eddie asked.

"No idea." Dustin replied honestly. "But once they're gone, he doesn't stand a chance. It'll be like slaying sleeping Dracula in his coffin."

"That all sounds good in theory, but there is no pattern to Vecna's killings. Not one that I can decipher. We don't know when he's going to attack next. Don't even know who he's going to attack." Robin said.

"Yeah,we do." Max responded, all eyes landed on her "I can still feel him. I'm still marked. Cursed. I ditch Kate Bush,I draw his focus back to me."

"Max. You can't. He'll kill you." Lucas argued.

"I survived before. I can survive again." Max said.

"I just need to keep him busy long enough so that you guys can get into that attic."Max looked at everyone. "Then you can chop his head off. Stab him in the heart. Blow him up with some explosive Dustin cooks up. I honestly don't care how you put this asshole in his grave. Just...whatever it is...Whatever you do...Try not to miss."

"Check this out. The War Zone. I've been there once. It's huge. They got everything you need for, uh...Well, killing things, basically." Eddie said, slapping the newspaper down onto the table that they were surrounding.

"You think fake Rambo has enough guns there?" Robin asked, looking at the advertisement on the page. "Is that a grenade? I mean, how is any of this legal?"

"Well, lucky for us it is, so... This... This place is just far enough outside of Hawkins. As long as we steer clear of main roads, we ought a be able to avoid cops and, uh, angry hicks." Eddie smiled, a fake one at that. Kathleen knew when he was faking it.

"If we're trying to avoid angry hicks, maybe we shouldn't go to some store called the War Zone." Erica said, probably saying what everyone was thinking.

"Normally, I'd agree, but we need the weapons. So I think it's worth the risk." Nancy shrugged.

"But is it worth the time? It'll take all day to bike there and back." Dustin asked.

"Who said anything about bikes?" Eddie questioned with a grin.

"You got some car we don't know about?" Steve asked looking at Eddie who pulled himself up so now they were eye level.

"It's not exactly a car, Steve."  Eddie said, tilting his head to the side. Kathleen and Nancy looked at them with a raised eyebrow. "And it's not exactly mine,but, uh... it'll do." he smirks, before turning around to Max. "Hey, Red, uh, you got a ski mask or a bandanna, something like that?"

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Author's notes

Soo you're probably wondering why Robin wasn't the one who helped Kathleen. I wanted it to be between Steve and Kathleen because they have that type of connection while Eddie and Robin scramble to help save her. Those three people are the most protective over her. Also we get to see Kathleen's mother a little bit, Chrissy in her visions.

Shout out to my favourite people.norasnetflix RuffieRoseStories arsvenal kiesluverr KleeAlise11 andorss

Well that's all from me. I hope to see you in the next update