dustin's storm cellar

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

Alina lay on the side of the road, sweat plastering her hair to her neck, a stinging sensation forming inside of her body. Grass tickled her face, and she was pretty sure her elbow was bleeding, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was the pain, pain that didn't come from her cut, and what she'd seen.

Another of those heat flashes had hit her as she was on her way to Dustin's, and she'd thought nothing of it until her vision split again. Suddenly, she was lying somewhere else, on another field of grass, the pain that had been building inside her amplified to agony, screaming her head off in a voice that didn't sound like hers. Her vision blurry, she could just make out the confused face of Mike swimming above her before she crashed her bike into a tree in real life, reality snapping back into place. She'd crawled off of it, confused, but her vision was still blurred, and she leaned over to throw up.

The vomit spread across the trees, and Alina finally mustered up the will to sit up. God. Her sickness—whatever it was—was getting worse. But she couldn't stop now. She had to get to Dustin's. And so Alina gripped the tree trunk, pulling herself into a sitting position. She felt like she was moving through a wall of flame. It was so hot she had to lean over to throw up again.

"J-Jesus Christ." Alina slowly stood up, her vision swimming, but after a couple of minutes, the pain faded. She took a deep breath, feeling the heat slowly ebb away, and raked her hair back into a ponytail. Something was seriously wrong with her. Seriously wrong.

She made her way to her bike, feeling a little better, but she made sure to pedal slower than normal. She had gashed her elbow open in the crash, but luckily the blood had clotted by now and she seemed alright. Mostly alright. Her veins bulged out of her arms, and although the stinging and heat slowly stopped, they left her with a strange, empty feeling. Like she'd just lost someone. Or a part of herself.

She arrived at Dustin's house to find him and Steve standing by Dustin's storm cellar. Steve clutched a bat in his hands, one that had previously had nails hammered into it, and looked nervously at the door. At the sound of footsteps, however, he turned, finding her walking up to them.

"Al!" Dustin immediately sprang forward, throwing his arms around his friend. "Thank God. Thank God you're here."

Alina put her arms around Dustin, too, feeling almost normal. "So," she said, once she'd finally detached from him. "What's the problem?"

Dustin blinked, and then reached out a trembling finger towards the storm cellar. "I kind of locked Dart in there because I, uh... I... I found him in my house, eating my cat. And also I think Dart might be a baby Demogorgon, because his face opened up when he did that. So... yeah."

Alina took a step back in her surprise. "What?"

"Yeah, I know, it's—"

"Dart ate Mews?!" Alina had loved Dustin's cat, although she always held the firm believe that she would never top Skywalker. But at the prospect of a baby Demogorgon on the loose, eating cats, made her worry. She grabbed at Dustin's shirt, pulling him closer to her. "Goddamn it, Dustin, you kept Dart, didn't you?"

Dustin started to shake his head, before realizing Alina had already figured it out. He let out a sigh. "You guys would've hurt him."

Alina brought her face even closer to his. "If your stupid Demogorgon pet gets anywhere near Skywalker, Dustin, I promise you, I'll murder you in your sleep. And then I'll dig up your corpse so I can kill you again. And maybe I'll do it for a third time, just because I can. Understand?"

Dustin nodded quickly, and Alina released him, turning to the older teenager who was standing awkwardly by the storm cellar door, watching this whole thing go down. She smiled at him. She knew Steve from Nancy, who she'd grown closer to during the past year. "Hey, Steve."

"Hi, Alina," said Steve, his eyes wide. Alina dusted off her hands and headed back to the storm cellar door. Now she was feeling better.

She just had the flu or something. But after this whole thing was over, Alina knew she would be okay. She'd get some rest, miss a couple days of school, and then everything would go back to normal. She curled her hands into fists. "So, what are we looking at, here?"

Steve shrugged, moving closer to the door of the cellar, and soon it was silent other than the distinct sounds of chirping crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl. He beamed his flashlight at the door before furrowing his brow. "I don't hear shit."

"He's in there," Dustin insisted. Steve took his bat and prodded at the locked door, but there was no response from inside. But at the sound of Dustin's fearful breathing—Dustin, the one who had pleaded for them to leave Dart alone, to not hurt him—Alina knew he was telling the truth, that Dart had eaten Mews.

Steve licked his lips before hitting his bat against the door. Again, there was no response from inside, and Alina shrugged. "Maybe Dart's sleeping."

Or maybe we're not there at all.

The voice came almost naturally, and Alina blinked in confusion, bringing a hand to her head. It was in that voice again, the voice Alina called her self-doubt, but this wasn't the same. It wasn't belittling her or anything. It was just making a suggestion.

"Don't you think that would've woken him up?" Dustin asked, as Steve hit the door again, louder this time. After a third time without response, Steve turned, shining the flashlight right at Dustin's face, the boy closing his eyes at the brightness.

"All right, listen kid. I swear, if this is some sort of Halloween prank, you're dead."

"It's not," said Dustin.

"All right?"

"It's not a prank!" repeated Dustin. "Why would I have brought Alina over? Now get it out of my face!"

Steve sighed. "You got a key for this thing?"

Dustin pulled the key out of his pocket. He tossed it to Steve, who twisted it open. Steve shone his flashlight into the darkness—Alina couldn't see a thing inside the stupid storm cellar, given that it was completely pitch black—but all the flashlight illuminated was a set of stairs. Looking completely normal.

"He must be further down there," said Dustin, and Alina rolled her eyes.

"You'd think after this thing ate your cat, you wouldn't be calling it a he," she said.

"Shut up."

Steve moved the beam of the flashlight around, but Dart did not show up. Dustin licked his lips nervously. "I'll stay up here in case he tries to escape."

Steve just looked at Dustin, before letting out a heavy sigh. "Come on, Alina, let's go. Unless you're going to be a chicken and stay back here with Dustin."

"No, I'm coming," said Alina, and the two of them made their way down the steps. The scent of mold met her nostrils and she resisted the urge to gag, instead pulling her shirt up so it was covering her nose. Steve, who, carrying the weapon, was the first line of defence, walked in front of her, the noise of his ragged breaths the only thing meeting her ears. He kept one arm out protectively in front of her, and Alina bit her lip to keep herself from pushing it away.

They reached the bottom of the storm cellar, but there was no Dart in sight. Steve huffed, clicking on the light and illuminating the room. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary—rations were stacked on the shelves, there was a couch and some water—but then Steve bent down, using his bat to pick up something. It looked to Alina like skin.

"What the hell?" she murmured, greatly disturbed by the sight.

"Steve? Al?" Dustin's faint call came from the top of the steps. There was a quiver in his voice. "Guys, what's going on down there?"

But Alina didn't respond, too busy staring at the hole in the wall that evidently hadn't been there before. It was a tunnel, stretching out who knew how long, roots growing from the top and bottom and a worm peeking its head through.

Steve, after a shocked moment, went back to tell Dustin, but Alina was transfixed with the tunnel. Dart had escaped. Dart was gone.

Come home, Alina.

In what seemed like seconds, Dustin and Steve reappeared beside her, the latter shining his flashlight through the tunnel. "No way," Dustin murmured, staring at the roots sticking through the roof of the tunnel. "No way."

That was one way to put it.

The sun was up, and Alina Fairgrieves was doing something she'd never expected to—her arms were deep in the trunk of Steve's car, grabbing gasoline so as to enact their plan to stop Dart. Three buckets of beef lay beside the cans, which would be used as bait to lure Dart to their chosen location of the junkyard, and rubber gloves were snapped onto the trio's hands. Alina looked like a complete and utter fool. But hey, at least she wasn't throwing up again.

She'd woken up this morning—she and Dustin had slept over at Steve's, which was as weird as an experience as you might think—feeling leagues better, and was beginning to put her strange sickness behind her. She was putting Lucas behind her, too, which meant that, of course, his voice had to crackle through Dustin's headset just then.

"Dustin! This is Lucas. Do you copy? Dustin?"

"Well, well, well." Dustin put his hands on his hips, a smirk on his face as he answered his friend. "Look who it is."

"Sorry, man. My stupid sister turned it off."

"Well, when you were having sister problems," said Dustin, "Dart grew again, he escaped, and I'm pretty sure he's a baby Demogorgon."

Alina pulled out another can of gasoline, seething as Lucas spoke again. Just the sound of his voice was enough to make her relive everything she'd heard at the arcade, what Keith had told her. "Wait, what?"

"I'll explain later," said Dustin. "Just meet me, Al, and Steve at the old junkyard."

"Steve?"

"And bring your binoculars and wrist rocket."

"Steve Harrington?"

The Steve Harrington in question helped Alina finish packing the rest of the supplies and closed the trunk. "All right, let's go."

Alina picked up a bucket of the pinkish meat, beginning to follow Steve as Dustin spoke. "Just be there, stat. Over and out."

"Wait! Tell Al I—" Lucas's voice faded, and Alina breathed out a sigh of relief before following Steve and Dustin into the woods.

Gabriel Burton had indeed decided to take a walk that morning after breakfast. He hadn't found Dart yesterday, and he assumed one of the others had found the little creature—they just weren't able to tell him. He wanted a little solitude, and given that it was the weekend, he had plenty of time for that. So he made his way out of the door, a new newspaper tucked under his arm, thinking about his old life yet again.

He missed the others. No, that wasn't quite right. He missed Will. He had been so nice to talk to on Thursday, before all of that shit had gone down with his episodes. Gabe wondered if Will was okay, if he had recovered from the mystery sickness. He hoped so. And as Gabriel Burton made his way through the neighborhood—eventually heading to the junkyard as his final destination—Will Byers himself lay on a hospital bed in Hawkins lab, breathing softly. His eyes were closed. Whatever they had injected him with had knocked him out good.

Luckily for Will, this was a good thing. For it was the relief of unconsciousness that allowed him to be himself again. For a brief, shining moment, he was just Will again. But he knew what he had to do. Who he had to communicate with. So before he would be thrust into another dream, Will Byers whispered. Four words that he hoped would reach the girl currently lugging buckets of meat to the junkyard where it all would go down.

It reached her too late.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: stranger things does this weird thing where it makes unexpected time jumps and expects you to just fill in the blanks, which is what happened here lmao. i didn't really want to put much detail into that, because it's boring and also i don't really care, so i just said that they slept over lmao. anyway, alina's condition is definitely worse, and i'd say it's pretty obvious now what is happening to her. do you think she'll get better? let anyone know? and do you think she and lucas will make up with each other? idk i guess we'll find out ;)

also, we're almost done with the gabriel burton end chapter pov thing, because, no spoilers, he's about to become more heavily involved in the plot!! i'm so excited for this!!

hope you enjoyed! 'till next time!