party members only

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

School, as usual, dragged on, but Alina almost didn't mind today. In science class, when Mr. Clarke spoke about the psychology behind fear, something resonated inside of her, and she remembered all of the times she'd been put in danger in the past year. From nearly getting run over by a car to almost being killed by the Demogorgon to being held hostage at the quarry, Alina had had too many experiences with danger in her short life, and as she gazed around at her fellow classmates, all of whom were zoned out as usual, she realized most of them had never experienced the trauma she had. Perhaps it was why they seemed so young in her mind—they were really acting their age, but what Alina and her friends had gone through had aged them.

She felt a surge of pity for herself, for not being able to experience the childhood that they did. And as she was sitting there, retraining her eyes back on Mr. Clarke, something happened. It wasn't True Sight. It wasn't the headaches or heat flashes she'd been getting recently. No, this was something else. Her mind split, and suddenly she was everywhere at once: burrowing under the ground, standing in a bathroom, looking apprehensively at the steam curling out of a bathtub, scurrying around in a cage shrouded in darkness, and floating in a dark, secluded place, watching. Waiting.

And then Alina Fairgrieves shot back into one mind, and blinked, looking around the class. Her heart was pounding so hard her surroundings were becoming a little fuzzy. She thought for a moment she might be having a stroke or something. But then the fog cleared, and Alina Fairgrieves shakily refocused on class, unaware of the boy back at home now sitting on the edge of his bed, the window open, because the creature that now lived inside him liked it cold. And she was unaware of the fact that this boy knew exactly what was happening to her.

At lunch, Alina sat on the stairs with Max and Dustin, watching from afar as Mike tried to dial her house number. He seemed to understand that Will's sickness was not what it seemed, and that something else was happening. And he seemed concerned, concerned enough that he'd decided to phone him instead of just waiting until the end of the school day. Which made Alina concerned as well. Concerned that maybe Lucas was wrong, and this wasn't over. Concerned that this was just beginning.

Lucas, who was hanging over the railing, waiting for news, stood up straight as Mike came jogging back. "Anything?" he called.

"We need to talk," said Mike, his face flushed, and the panic in his voice made Alina's stomach squeeze. "AV Room. Right now." He climbed up the stairs, and Alina, Lucas and Dustin followed, but when Max and Gabe, who was leaning against the wall, tried to as well, Mike stopped them. "Party members only."

"Come on, Mike," Dustin protested, but Mike would take no arguments.

"No!" he cried. "This is non-negotiable." And then he pushed his way inside, oblivious to the look of hurt that had crossed over Max and Gabe's faces.

"Sorry, Max," said Dustin, as he and Lucas began to make their way inside. "Sorry, Gabe."

"Sorry," added Lucas.

Alina stayed outside with her new friends. Gabe was looking downcast, but Max looked more angry now than anything. She felt bad for both of them.

"I'm so, so sorry, guys," she said. "I know that sounds like such a bullshit thing to say, but I really am. This isn't us being garbage humans and excluding you because we want to, it's just... things are happening right now. With Will. With me. Things that you don't want to be a part of, I promise. But I do promise to tell you two everything after it's all over. I don't care what Mike says."

"Whatever." Max blew a strand of red hair out of her face, crossing her arms as Alina finally went inside to join her friends. Then she turned to Gabe. "What the hell does she mean by that? Of course we want to be a part of whatever they're talking about! It beats sitting out here being excluded yet again!"

Gabe was chewing on the inside of his cheek. He didn't know if he should voice his theory to Max or not, but by the way she was fuming, he concluded that he didn't want her to think of him as crazy. So he didn't. Instead he said, "Maybe they have a reason for kicking us out all the time."

Max scoffed. "Yeah, the 'reason' is that they don't want us around! I mean, Alina is okay, but she still goes along with all of this! They're treating us like trash, Gabe."

"Will was nice," said Gabe quietly, thinking about the boy who hadn't shown up today. More theories whirled around in his mind the longer he thought about it, ranging from everything from 'he got infected by Dart, who's actually a toxic slug' to 'he can see into Dart's brain and it makes him sick whenever he does so' to the most outlandish one 'Alina was telling the truth when she spoke about Dart being from another dimension, and Will somehow managed to go there last year and didn't get lost in the woods.' But he didn't know. Maybe he was just overthinking everything. He had a tendency for that.

Max just rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

Meanwhile, inside the AV Room the two were forbidden to join the others in, the four of them sat down, and Mike cleared his throat before beginning. "Will didn't want us to tell anyone," he said, gesturing to himself and Alina, "but on Halloween night he saw a sort of shadow in the sky."

"A shadow?" Lucas repeated. "What... what kind of shadow?"

"I don't know," said Mike. "But it scared him. And if Will really has True Sight, I mean, if he can really see into the Upside Down, maybe he saw that shadow again yesterday."

"He did," Alina piped up. "He said he saw it on the field. He said it was coming for him. He said... he said he could feel it."

"So that's why he was frozen like that?" Dustin asked.

Mike shrugged. "Maybe."

"Can it hurt him?" asked Lucas. "I mean, if this shadow thing isn't from our world..."

"I'm not sure. Dustin?" Mike automatically looked to Dustin, who Alina figured probably read the Dungeons and Dragons manual every night before bed and slept with it under his pillow. It was safe to say he probably knew it off by heart.

"Well," Dustin started, "if you're in another plane, you can't interact with the material plane, so theoretically no, the shadow can't hurt him."

"Yeah, if that's even what's happening." Mike narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "This isn't D&D. This is real life."

"So what do we do?" Lucas asked.

Mike sat up. "We acquire more knowledge. Al and I will go to her house after school. See what's going on. You guys stay here and find Dart."

Alina nodded. She was getting more and more worried about Will as this meeting progressed. What if the shadow had done something to him when he was on the field? She'd heard his muffled whimpers, but she'd assumed it was because he was frightened. But what if it wasn't that? What if it was something else entirely?

"Dart?" Dustin's eyebrows knitted together. "What's he gotta do with this?"

"Will heard him in the Upside Down," Mike explained. "I don't know how yet, but he's got to be connected to all this. He's gotta be." He took a deep breath. "If we find Dart, maybe we can solve this thing. Maybe we can help Will."

The party nodded resolutely, the plan clear in their minds. Even though it had been a year ago that Mike hadn't wanted her to be involved in all of this, Alina had still felt that pleasant surprise inside of her when he'd mentioned her name. Perhaps it had to deal with the fact that this whole situation was beginning to remind her of the incident from last year (although she hoped it wouldn't go to that extreme), or maybe it was because of how Mike was treating Max and Gabe. Either way, Alina was glad she was being included, although she did have to someway make it up to her new friends. They'd understand eventually, but now, she realized, they had no idea what was going on. They must've thought they were some elite club or something.

Alina wished she could tell them. It would be nice to talk about her worries to someone who wasn't in the party. Mike and her didn't speak a lot one-on-one lately, as they ended up clashing in opinions, Dustin would vehemently be against anything that slandered his precious Dart, and Lucas... well, Alina would end up blurting what she really felt for him. She let out a sigh now, wishing she would just know if he liked her back. Wishing she could know, so she could let go.

"So, Al," Lucas said finally, and Alina gave a jolt at hearing her name, "what did Will say last night?"

The rest of the party's eyes turned to her expectantly, and she shifted in her seat. "Well, he did say it was coming for him, but I told you that already. He was acting so weird... he pretended he didn't remember what had happened, but Joyce and I knew he did. He said he saw the shadow at the arcade too. But—"

"He saw the shadow at the arcade?" Mike interrupted, and Alina's lips pressed back together. "When he was having his episode?"

"They're getting worse," said Dustin. "He didn't seem all to bothered by it then, did he?"

Both Alina and Mike shook their heads. "We have to talk to him," Mike concluded. "That's the only way we'll be able to figure out what's happening."

At that, the meeting was adjourned, and Alina immediately made her way outside to find Max and Gabe. She wasn't very good at making excuses, but she needed to make sure they were okay. So she headed back into the fall air, her hair blowing behind her as she walked, and found them sitting against a wall. Gabe was immersed back into his newspaper, doing a crossword, and Max was chewing gum and watching the people go by. She looked up at the sound of footsteps, and her jaw tightened when she noticed who it was.

Alina sat beside her. "Hey."

Max popped her gum. "What do you want?"

Alina flinched, taken aback by her sharp tone. "What?"

"So, one minute, we're like, at the arcade and whatever, eating pretzels and beating Dustin at Dig Dug, and then we go trick-or-treating together and I think, 'wow, Alina Fairgrieves is actually kind of cool', and then the next minute, you're locking yourself up in the AV Room with your friends and excluding Gabe and I? What is with you guys?"

"I told you what was happening," Alina said with gritted teeth. "I told you Mike didn't want us to tell you—"

"Oh, does Mike make all of your decisions for you? Why can't you just act for yourself?"

"I was going to say I agreed with him. I told you, it might not make sense right now, but there are bigger things happening in Hawkins, things you won't even believe. It's not the shitty little town you both think it is. My dad died last year, and he wasn't the only one. Hawkins isn't what you think. And we're trying to protect you two."

"We don't need protection." Max turned away from Alina, unzipping her bag and pulling out a book. Cracking open the cover, Max turned back to her one last time. "Leave us alone, Alina. Go hang out with your garbage friends and exclude us again."

Alina stood on shaky legs, her face suddenly hot. At first, she just thought it was the embarrassment of what Max had said, but after the heat didn't subside, Alina realized she was having one of her hot flashes again. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and suddenly she couldn't see. Suddenly her surroundings were fuzzy, suddenly there was a strange, stinging feeling in her chest, and suddenly she was on the ground.

"Alina?" Gabe hovered over her. He hadn't said a word during her whole encounter with Max, but now he was speaking up. "Alina, are you okay? You just stood up and looked around and you didn't look very good, and then you just collapsed! Are you alright? Does that usually happen?"

Alina sat up. She was feeling fine now—her vision was clear, her body was at an average temperature, and her chest no longer hurt, but she couldn't help but feel like something had just happened.

For a brief, brief, moment, she heard the shrieks of something, saw a blue flame, but then that feeling was gone, and Alina was left sitting on the blacktop wondering what, exactly, was happening to her.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: i told you there was going to be drama between alina and max!! i honestly really wanted them to just be friends, but it's also really unrealistic for max not to get mad at alina, even though they're close. also, a few new things happened, and whatever alina's condition is is worsening! i feel like i've made it pretty obvious by now lmaoo but that's okay. i have other twists and turns approaching.

i hope you enjoyed this chapter! i honestly don't even remember when mad'ouk week started, and i'm considering extending it, because i really like uploading every day lol, and it also brings us closer to the end, which i'm excited for! the only bad thing about pre-writing is that you have to hold all of these spoilers inside, and it's literally driving me insane like i want to talk about book three moments so badly, but book two hasn't even finished yet. oops.

'till next time!