❝𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙢𝙖𝙮𝙗𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙖𝙮𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚'𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜.❞

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Juniper McKennan opened her eyes to nothing at all. It was completely black, with nothing to see, except herself. A scared look was on her face as she turned her head in attempt to find a spark of light.

"Hello?" she called out to the nothingness, "Eddie? Where are you, Eddie?"

Only there was no Eddie in this reality, she was alone. Once she realized that, her sight became blurry because of the tears forming in her eyes, she was afraid with no clue of her whereabouts.

She turned around one last time, her thick, curly hair bouncing on her shoulders, far away appeared a big brown door with stained glass with roses. She decided to go towards it, any attempt would be better than staying there, staring into the void.

The door knob turned, the door opened and revealed a perfectly normal house. One unfamiliar to Juniper, but it looked normal enough to step through the door. The minute she stepped through the door, it closed with a bang and locked itself.

She was now stood in the hallway of the strange house, an eerie vibe hanging onto it, she heard the ticking of the grandfather clock a few metres away from her. She peeked her head around the corner to the living room.

June walked the room, but there was no one there, "Hello? Anyone here?" she tried calling out again with a tremble in her voice, "Eddie?"

It was moments like these that the brunette wished for her friend to be with her most, she desired his body heat, his presence more than ever now.

"You finally let me in." a voice spoke from behind her. She shook up, turning her entire body to the figure in the shadows, "Took me long enough to get access."

The figure stepped out of the shadow, revealing a tall, blond man. In a way he seemed familiar to Juniper, but she couldn't figure out from where. He was wearing an all white outfit, his green eyes were piercing through her own brown ones.

"Who are you?" she wanted to know, looking around to find something to defend herself with, "Where am I?"

"You're in Hawkins, dear." the man informed, confusing the teenager in front of him even more, "My name is Henry Creel, but you might know me as number one." he lifted his right sleeve to reveal a small tattoo on his wrist saying '001'.

June narrowed her eyes, she did not trust the situation nor did she trust the man calling himself 001, "Stay there." she warned after the blond took a step closer.

The ticking of the grandfather clock became louder with every step the man took, "But we know each other. You can trust me." he only stopped moving when he was standing right in front of June, whom had tried to walk backwards, but was met with the wall, "I'm the only one who knows how to help you."

"I don't need help." she spat, "Especially not yours."

Henry gave her a dissapointed look, he roughly grabbed her right wrist only to do the same to it as he had done to his own, a small tattoo revealed itself under her green sleeve, '007', it said, "That's not mine."

"Yes, it is. Stop denying it." Henry chided, "Your unconsciousness wants to know about it, so it shows it to you sometimes. At times more vivid than others." he let go of June's wrist, after which she pulled it back immediately to hold it to her chest with her other hand.

Henry's eyes softened at the frightened girl, "Your mother lied to you, Juniper. You were never in a car crash."

"Who are you even to say that to me? Huh? You're some kind of, sick joke?" she demanded, "I don't know you, I don't know where I am, I want to get back to Eddie."

"I know, sweetheart, but you're gonna have to bear with me for a moment." Henry sympathized, he only needed her to the point where she didn't need him anymore, "I want you to get really angry with me, okay?"

June duck under his arm so she could get some more freedom, she felt like she was suffocating against the wall, "How do you know I'm not pissed yet?" she sneered, trying to tell the blond she was.

Henry sighed, "Because nothing's happened yet." he then realized he had no choice but to access the thing inside her for her. The only way of doing that was to get her emotions so strong, she'd lose control of the walls around it.

"Your mother's a liar." he started, "She pretended like nothing happened to protect the man who hurt you. Covered it all up by bribing everyone involved." at this point his only purpose was to break her, "And guess what, father dearest was too stoned to even notice any of it."

The tears started to prick in June's eyes, how dare he talk about her family like that? Who did he think he was? Yeah, they weren't always the perfect family and they had their flaws, but doesn't everyone?

"Knobhead.." she muttered bitterly, Henry noticed she was getting worked up, meaning he was almost at his goal.

"I'm sure you blocked out the rest too, right?" he reminded her, "What was it again? You pulling your old man out of the bath tub, because he blacked out? Must've been a terrible memory."

Juniper put her hands over her ears, not wanting to hear another word come out of his mouth, "Stop it!" she yelled.

"They don't care, Juniper!" Henry raised his voice so he knew for sure she'd hear him still, "She just wants control and he just wants to die!"

"I said stop it!!" with June's words the walls around her grew black, almost like they were burning up. The wood started rotting, just like the panels she stood on. June stopped her anger to look at the situation, afraid of what she'd caused.

But was it really her doing or was Henry just messing with her?

June sat up straight in the bed swiftly, she looked at her surroundings, letting out a sigh of relief once she saw the familiar bedroom in the lake house.

She smiled, seeing Eddie to her right peacefully asleep on his stomach. A hair was laying in his face, but for the rest he looked relaxed, more relaxed than he'd been since days. She moved the hair out of his face, but he didn't move.

June's smile died when she looked up, though. On the ceiling were the exact same black stains as she formed in her supposed nightmare. She started panicking at the sight of the black stains on the floor too, she jumped out of bed to sit in the corner of the room just panting and looking around at what she might've done. She felt something under her nose, with her hand June wiped the tiny bit of blood from it.

She was so confused, June'd never been able to do anything like this, so why was this suddenly happening? And just when Vecna started killing people? What did Henry have to do with all that? She had so many questions left unanswered.

She sat there with her knees up to her chest, waiting for Eddie to wake up. He'd told her Reefer Rick was in prison, so they didn't have to think about him. She cursed her father afterwards, but she didn't think he knew about it either.

Eddie woke up not long after, he slowly batted his eyes, June watched how he went to lay his hand on where she was supposed to be laying, but his eyes opened instantly after not feeling a girl next to him.

He sat up straight, his hair all messy, Juniper noticed he hadn't yet seen the black around him. His eyebrows furrowed when he saw the brunette on the floor, she smiled back, only this wasn't a 'smile' smile. Her eyes didn't smile with her.

"What's wrong?" Eddie asked, full of worry. He wanted her to be happy, like she usually was, "I didn't kick you in my sleep, did I?"

She let out a short chuckle, "No, you didn't." she reassured him, she gazed up to the ceiling, "I might've done something, though."

Eddie followed Juniper's gaze to the ceiling, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped the second he laid eyes on the burned off wood, "What the hell did you do?!"

"I don't know.." she mumbled slowly, "I think I'm going cuckoo.."

She received a sympathetic look from Eddie before he got up out of bed to slide down the wall next to her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, bringing her in for a side hug. June buried her head in his shirt, silently letting a few tears roll over her cheeks as she stared at the ceiling.

Eddie didn't know what was happening either, but he didn't most if the time. This wasn't a D&D game, this was the real world. And if there's one thing Eddie Munson is not good at, it's the real world. He did know the girl beside him needed him at that moment, he needed to be there for her like she had been there for him the past few days.

"Do you think I'm going cuckoo..?" she referred back to what she'd said earlier. She lifted her head to glance at the boy, finding him already having his eyes planted on her face.

He gave her a small smile, "I think you're cuckoo for using the word cuckoo at a moment like this."

"You're just bamboozled by my vocabulary." she chortled shortly, June thought she was so blessed to have someone like Eddie with her at a time like this. He had been there for her even after she ignored him, which was more than anyone had ever done for her.

"You hungry?" he proposed, "Might be something to raid in the house."

She was indeed starving, but she knew she was too anxious to eat now. So she lied rather than disappoint herself again, "Not really, but you look, though."

Eddie got up in one swift movement, stretching out his arm so the brunette could take his hand. She firmly grabbed it with a smile, their eyes lingering on the other's, "You're eating. Come on." Eddie pulled her up, June struggled against his grip, she didn't want him to see her struggling to eat, "You haven't eaten since we got here! You're eating!" he concluded.

"I'm okay!" she objected, then she ran forward, letting go of Eddie's hand doing so, "I'll show you where Rick keeps his food!" she called back to the boy left standing in the bedroom.

June sauntered into the kitchen, she waited for Eddie to show him the storage, until she heard music playing from the living room. She rolled her eyes, thinking of how stupid he was to put on music at that volume when he was in hiding.

Don't get her wrong, travelin' man was a good song, the volume just wasn't ideal. Eddie jogged into the kitchen, he came to a stop smiling like a madman, "I found a record player!"

"You're so stupid." June gave the brunet a sarcastic smile back. She stepped aside to show a casket behind her. Eddie came standing next to her, opening it roughly, it was near empty, but there was something.

He took out a can of spaghetti O's, "Yeah," he snorted, "you'll do."

Juniper snickered, "Did you just talk to a can, you idiot?" she laughed at him, but he knew she was just messing with him.

Eddie told June to sit down at the table while he cooked the food. He repeatedly came back to the table to chat about June's dream, she told him the entire story. About Henry, the number, which now showed completely on her arm, the house, the void, the whole pack.

After a few minutes he walked passed her and signaled for her to walk after him. In his hand was a walkie talkie while he had the pan in the other one.

"Hey, Dustin, this is Eddie the Banished and his companion Perry the newbie. You there?" he spoke in the walkie, June slapped his arm by the sound of the nickname he'd given her. Dustin didn't answer him, "Dustin, can you hear me?"

He glanced back at June with a helpless look on his face, "Just keep trying." she whispered.

"Dustin?" he spoke again, now in a singsongy voice, "Earth to Dustin."

Eddie practically shoved a spoon of spaghetti O's in June's mouth, she choked on it before turning around to spit it back out. Even after she tried swallowing it, it wouldn't budge. Luckily for her, Eddie hadn't seen as someone picked up.

"Hey, it's Nancy." her voice rang through the walkie talkie.

Eddie reacted immediately with his mouth still full, "Wheeler, hey! Um, I'm gonna need a food delivery, like, really soon, unless you want me going out into the world."

"No. No, no, no." Nancy stopped him, "Don't do that. Just stay where you are, and we'll be there as soon as we can."

Eddie responded, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, um.. can you pick me up a six-pack? I know, it's stupid as shit, drinking right now, but a cold beer would really calm my jangled nerves-"

"Hey, I'm gonna have to call you back." Nancy interrupted him before hanging up on him.

"No, don't you da-" he tried getting through to her, but she'd already hung up, "Wheeler? Wheeler?" he turned back to June, "She hung up on me."

She narrowed his eyes while grinning, "Yeah, you asked for beer, dude, why wouldn't she."

Eddie shrugged, "Why would she?" he handed her another full spoon of spaghetti O's, forcing her to take it, "Eat."

"I can't do that." she muttered. With what happened that morning, together with her father's situation, Chrissy and her fight with Luca the lump in her throat only got worse and worse. When the lump got too big, she couldn't eat anymore, "I can't eat."

Eddie narrowed his eyes slightly while tilting his head a little, "Right. I don't believe that."

"Well, believe it." she started pacing to the other side of the room, she turned back right before turning the corner, "Don't play music anymore, it's too loud." then she left him in the room to shut down the record player.

note:
i don't know why but
i loved writing this chapter
for no particular reason.