CRAZY TRAIN
Ozzy Osbourne

The saying goes 'I am not a fighter. I'm a lover' is innocuous and mislabeling to the actual meaning of being a fighter. Because if you do not fight for the love you have, in your life, it will slip out of reach and once it goes it's hard to get it back after you lose it. To fight for love is to fight for the very thing which gives you reason.

Fighters are people who know the real meaning of their love and what they feel. That love is not conditional, it's nothing you have to compete for, and the best part of being a fighter is that they're willing to go lengths for the right reasons. For the people in their lives. To fight and protect them.

Melissa isn't out of the woods, yet. She might've escaped the prison, saved hopper, and avoided a death sentence in the prison itself, with Murray. But there is still one enemy left. Time.

They were running Out of time. They were enemies to all the Soviets, an enemy of the country, hidden in a ran down Soviet church in an abandoned village near the exact prison.

She sat, thinking, on one of the crates of peanut butter ripped opened thanks to hopper searching for clothes for the pair of them to wear. Thinking of El, Josie, Sarah, her mom, brothers. Hoping to anyone above in the sky, listening, they would be able to protect her family. She sighed, deep. That caught Antonov's ear, he turned his head to Milly stitching his curved eyebrows in one.

" That was a hefty, big, sigh. What is upsetting to you, Milly? I can call you Milly, right? Or do you need me to pick another name?" He asked, as he half expected her to snap at him for the casual use of a nickname her tight nit circle of family and friends use. It came as a nice surprise how it seemed to not bother her, she let him sit on the crate beside her. " What troubles you, and your mind, Fiery Milly? Maybe I can try my best to eh help. If you let me."

Melissa listened to Murray and Hopper talk on the subject of a previous phone call Jim had with a correspondent from Hawkins. The woman had her doubts of Hopper actually talking to her, he's meant to be dead to the 'good' people that live in the suburbs of the cursed town itself. It ended with her hanging up on the former chief of police. Not before revealing her identity to Hopper, as an acquaintance to Sam Owens.

Milly heard Antonov mumble something, it was in Russian but he was too quiet for her to really understand, and he grinned complicity at her.

Milly huffed. " Ever since I came here, on this.. on this rescue mission. I feel like..." She trails off, listening to the distant noises of Yuri tinkering around the old helicopter he had stored in a big storage unit, the soft null voices of Hopper and Murray providing a source of noise that drowned the thick, tension, riddled air. " There's this little nagging thing that I can't shake off. That.. there's something big about to happen the minute all of this is over. Waiting for the perfect moment for.. us to put our guards down and it will strike. It's.."

She shook her head, breathing heavier than she did previous. " There is true evil in this world, I have ran away from, Antonov. All my life I have." She admits, she blankly gazed at her open palms, swirls of her powers short fused like strikes of an arrow lightning bolt. But instead of yellow they're dreary and murky grey. " I've seen things nobody would ever desire seeing. Worlds that shouldn't.. worlds that shouldn't exist. Monsters that are in Hawkins, where I am from, both human and non. Because it's not just humans that are monster's, in our world." She squishes her palms closed. " I am one of those monsters. I'm a monster."

Dimitri tisked, he didn't have beliefs for a second Melissa is the monster she thinks of herself to be. She is a Hero. She saved Hopper, and himself, for that he is completely indebted to her. " Don't sell yourself short of the accomplishments you have achieved, Milly. You are the biggest of bad asses I have seen, much like American superhero movie. You have the powers too! I say you aren't the big, tough, villain in our story. You are the heroine." He pointed out, giving a good light shove on her shoulder using his arm, and she laughed lightly.

" So, American woman, will you tell me about the friend of yours? Amanda Sinclair. You say she is single? No?"

Hopper had wondered what he had done in the past life, he was given, to be the luckiest guy ever and have the most amazing woman in the entire world, to call his, make the trip across the globe to save his ass. He sure as shit didn't think he did deserved her. But he always knew that no matter the outcome, no matter the distance he was away from her, he'd always go crawling back to Milly. No thousands of miles in distance could keep the two parted.

His words were slightly distant, the longer he is staring at Enzo and Milly chatting naturally away like they were old friends catching up from lost years, he crookedly smiled at her gentle laugh. Murray's face softened, the wrinkles in his face stretching, as he turned to the odd pair of new friends.

" She loves you, Jimbo. You should have seen her, all those months we thought you were dead." He is fully facing Jim, taking in the way Hopper's face had a touch of contempt at the mention of being out of Melissa's life. " She would pretend all was well, and fine, in her life. Caring for those three, wonderful, girls you two have. I've been around her for a long time, Jim. She doesn't show much of her fears but that day.." His face turned grim.

" That day you were pronounced Dead, when the key exploded. I saw her live a nightmare that no one, not even something I'd wish on all of those I call my worst enemies which is quite a lot, should go through. Heartbreak."

Murray admits. " I saw for the first time an emotion, I didn't think I'd ever see again, in her. Hope. A hope we would see you. Alive. And we were right." He confesses, the quick adjust of his glasses to keep them from sliding. " She is more alive than ever when she is with you, Jimbo, She becomes someone different. A good difference it is, too."

Jim knew Murray is right in his analysis.

The mad conspiracist, he undoubtedly thanked for being an American pinocle poster child of anti government and military propaganda he had uncovered back in the fall of eighty four after Hawkins lab were exposed for the deaths of barb holland and many others in town, is true to his word about Milly and his relationship. She's not the same woman, he had seen three years ago in the office of Hawkins PD. She is more changed.

" I'm a fool, Murray." Hopper, admittedly, says.

" I'm a fool. I'm the biggest fool to ever think I deserve a good woman like Mils. The thing is I can't bring it in me to push her away. To push her to someone who doesn't continue to hurt her like I've been... like I've been doing whether it is unintentional, or it's on accident. Milly.."

Murray nodded, the unspoken words he couldn't find understood. He felt the exact same thing, he had those moments Jim described with Kathy, and is silent the entire time.

" She gets me. She's.. the only woman I could feel like I had a reason to be on this earth. After..." Jim, tired are his eyes from all the endless enduring of evil he's seen, ran a hand on his face. " Diane left. Sara's, our kid, death. I.. didn't think I would have any reason left to be on this planet. I drowned myself in work, the booze. Everything." He murmured his last breath of his words. Piercing his eyes on Melissa. " Then it was like a switch turned itself back on. The second my eyes landed on her sitting in that rickety chair, in my office, and I could fell it. That light. All 'cause of her. It came rushing back like a god damn flood."

Murray's cheek rose, and his moustache touched his nose while his lips creeped into a huge smile. That is the definition of true love.

" You're a fool, Jimbo. A fool in love. But it's honestly adorable."

" Shut it, Murray." Jim groaned. " What is taking that Moron so long with the helicopter?"

" I have a feeling our friend is taking every single second, and chance, he has to prolong this flight back. Cause of his bruised ego from the absolute brutal nature of the beating he got from Missy! I suggest sending Milly out there to persuade him. Again."

Milly, tension coming back into her neck from an all too familiar flutter, touches the base to the left of her shoulder to her neck and her eyes bore out to the howling wind.

Something tells her she's got unfinished business in Russia and won't be going back home, soon. If she knew how right she is. About all of it.

There comes a time in life where making a choice depicts an individual's ability to decide whether to be selfish or to put aside those choices, you've chosen to make, for the benefit of others. Milly's first choice was to put aside the possibility she'd have a normal life, normal as it gets, to chase an idea of bringing hopper back home from Russia. A choice she didn't regret. But now she is back at the same, very, place where it all began for him.

With an explanation from hopper, telling of Sam Owen's friend contacting him back thanks to her connection back in Hawkins, Milly was filled in.

How El, Will, and Jonathan were in a great deal of trouble on the run from the military wanting her daughter dead. Joyce in protective custody, with the help of the mystery woman getting to her first before the military could take her.

The thing that rang the alarm is how the woman described El as 'The girl who is off fighting evil'. It meant one thing. A gate had opened in Hawkins. Again. Or so she wanted to believe. Milly wanted to be ignorant to what is staring right before her face, that it never left. The upside down was never truly gone like it was meant to be.

Hawkins is in real danger, from being the next to fall victim to its own demise. Melissa feared it's only a matter of time before destruction comes in its wake. " That's strange."

Milly mustered out, breaking a comfortable silence created in the van on the ride back to the prison with the full intention of being the ones responsible for burning it down since it is harbouring one of the keys to the gates of the upside down within its horror labyrinth of prison walls, notably confused to the lack of security on site.

" You'd think the guards would be present to take us back in, and arrest us on site, but they're.. gone. Where do you think they are?" She quips. Murray, riding in the backseat of the van, poked his head out between the two taking in the bare section of the security post. " .. You have an idea? Of what's going on, Mar?"

" I'm no psychic, when it comes to knowing any bits of the future, Missy. But I have a feeling the least of our concerns are not on where the guards are but what happened to the guards."

Coming back to the man hole cover, which they escaped out of to secure their freedom of the hell that was the prison, Hopper dislodges the cover's heavy metal weighted lid free as headlights from the van beaned on the trio. Casting an eerie tinge of blue, the winters fierce winds blowing in an air of night as the sound of a acute whistle echoed in the sky, Milly— without help jumped down right into the dark of the manhole landing on her feet. Murray huffed. " You are a little show off, Missy."

" No. I'm just a pure, straight up, bad ass. Mar."

Nightmares. A nightmare is the result of a person whose mind overrides their conscious, while they sleep, and shows a fundamental life event which left them traumatised. A nightmare can be from a horror movie, a terrible experience in childhood, or a thing of the past that changed you. For Milly her worst fear was the day hopper died.

It trumps her life of suffering at the hand of her father and it trumps anything she endured in the last three years. But going back to the prison, they escaped barely with their lives from, is another nightmare she didn't want to relive.

Milly climbed back out of the secret escape hatch, her eyes scanning for threats in the experimental laboratory of the prison the Soviets conducted in order to maintain experimentations on the very beasts she had fought many of times, taking Jim by his hand automatically for her own comfort.

It is unsettling how quiet the space is, the previous occupants inside yellow fluoride preserved tanks vanquished out of the room she previously seen and now were replaced by broken glass, and she squeezed hoppers hand tighter. That cannot be a good sign.

Flamethrower backpack on his body hopper is the first to mutter 'Fucking hell' conceptualising a shared thought they all had. They're screwed.

" I hate to be the bearer of bad news, love birds, but I don't think we are in a good place." Murray stated the obvious, sarcasm dripping on his lips.

" I don't know maybe I'm just being dramatic."

A distant earthbound, bellowing, screech rings out from further into the prison mixed in with a loud echoing of bullets being fired and dropping to the floor as they fail to kill the demogorgon.

Hopper ignited the flamethrowers canister as the range of human screams, flesh squelching with a single chomp of the monsters flower head tearing into their faces creating a grim ambiance of pure terror, and Melissa opens her hands while she is following hopper below back to the watch tower. A dead scientist laid mauled to death, it's like the scene straight out of every Stephen king film you can think of where the main characters end up all deceased by the end credits. Usually Milly wasn't quick to be nauseous but the blood made her feel unsteady, scattered throughout the entire room's liminal area is nothing short of terrifying. Blood. So much blood. Milly did a soft gasp, the warden.

He is hanging on to the shreds of his life. Melissa would feel guilty but he is a horrible man who is spared the mercy of suffering a slow, agonising, end. Murray, pleased to at least see the warden is awake to be of use to him, goes on the man's level quick. " What happened here?" He questions, in Russian, the disfigured warden widened eyed and scarred by what monstrosity he had witnessed in his prison sickeningly gurgled a breath in as he'd wished to die already. His answer is incoherent.

" The Monster. He got in. The guards, they tried to stop it. The gunfire shattered the tanks. The others came alive."

" The particles. You've seen them, no?" Melissa asked, this time. " Small spore particles. I know you must've seen them while these monsters are around. They aren't hard to miss."

The warden's expression shifted to a look of dread, eyes landed on her face as his consciousness began fading but he choked out an answer. Murray translated, for the group, even with the knowledge of Milly well off in the topic of Russian as he craned his head to stare forebodingly to the lovebirds behind him.

" He says they call it The shadow. The shadow.. it went into them."

" Into who?"

Hopper asked, already on edge from being in the same position of fighting for his life in the dreaded place he escaped out of. Murray's voice carried as he repeated Jim's question back to the dying warden.

The life left the wardens eyes right before he could receive an explanation to his last words. Demogorgon and DemoDogs bellowed in synchronous fashion, announcing to the crowd of three survivors in the facility of their presence, to the absolute horror of Melissa and the two men at her sides as the sight of DemoDogs lurking the prison sections of cell blocks made her think back to the time Bob died saving her at the lab. Bob. He didn't deserve to die. He's meant to be alive.

" I think this answers your question, Jim. The shadow is in them." Murray stated, back to the previous chief of police in question. " That's what our dead friend meant when he referred to those particles. Those Things posses it, now."

Milly and hopper shared an expression of panic.

With the DemoDogs on the loose, and now added into the lineup of horror in the midst of it all, the one thing remained on their minds. What next?

The main power grid disconnected from the rest of the prison meant Milly, hopper and Murray's free range of the facility came with caution. They remain vigilant, sticking together, walking out in the courtyard hopper previously fought the other demogorgon alongside his prison cell mates. Her eyes take in the entire snowy concrete enclosure, the guards heard them in for their entertainment, the pit in her body didn't leave and grew more in intensity the more time she spent longer there.

" You shut off this fence, right?" Jim asked Milly, she nodded mumbling 'yes'. Her instincts were to head for the hills, never look back, and escape to the nearest exit with Murray and Jim but that is not on the list of things they needed to do. Jim, configuring a new set plan to destroy the entire system the Soviets built for their own purpose's, glanced at Milly. " Good. So you can turn it back on again."

The entire plan is to keep the monsters from coming back, not draw them right to where they were. That is suicide. Milly raised an eyebrow at Jim's thinking, Murray shared her thoughts.

" Uh Jim, you wanna clue us in on what you're thinking here, or are we supposed to just read your mind? I don't think Missy has the ability to do that unless she does and she's been hiding it."

Murray voiced, he peered at Milly curiously and she shook her head debunking his theory of her being able to magically read minds. She would've literally known if she could.

" This pit was designed to trap monsters. We get 'em in here, we lock it up, we rain fire from above, and we hop to hell that gives El and the kids an upper hand."

Melissa nodded slowly, the whole plan sounded good to her with a minor to moderate concerns of how it's gonna be possible, trusting Jim's plan and judgment.

Optimism isn't Murray's forte to begin with, obvious is his own confidence in Hoppers plan. She sighed inaudible at Murray speaking up, uncertainly in his voice.

" Okay. I'm going to bite the bullet here and say.. I'm with ya. Except the whole, uh.. getting them all in here part."

" Hive mind."

Jim and Murray looked at Melissa.

" Once a Demogorgon is hurt, the others will feel its pain. We kill it and they will collectively feel it dying."

Melissa explained, adding in knowledge of the past confrontation she faced with the Dogs after her fight in the halls of Hawkins lab, spaced out as she absentmindedly squinted her eyes as a round of unearthly screeches began.

" Once they are all drawn in together, in this pit, is when we strike. And we kill them permanently." Hopper nodded along, to his fiancé's words, unpacking the flamethrower off his back to hand it over to Murray placing responsibility of being the one to burn them all.

" Then will we be free of .. This."

" Mils is right. This hive mind means they'll move as one, follow the leader, basically. You're the grill master. And you..." Jim his voice lowered in a softer level once he locked on to Milly, whose's voice had changed to a distant, off track, whisper snaps herself out of the trance she is in. " You're the jailer. You are in charge of putting the power back on. Once they're all in here, lock that door behind 'em." Milly grew worried hearing the plan hopper made. Where would he be in all of it?

" Jim. Where .. will you be in that plan? What of you, Hop?" She asked, not liking the indication of the plan. " You'll be with me, right? Please tell me you will be, that you won't do anything stupid."

He faintly smiled, knowing the next words he'd say would probably be a mistake.

" I'm the Bait."

The surveillance cameras were still activated and the transmission is fuzzy, to an extent that Jim's eyes had to be squinting to figure out the layout of the laundry room footage, inside the security guard tower that covered the entire building. The camera captured a DemoDog in the laundry area, employees and union workers were lifeless in the filthy discarded station. Milly observed in silence. It's like Hawkins lab all over again. " That one there. See him? In the laundry room? It's not far from here. He's all alone." Jim stated, then quick to realise the far, spaced out, glaze in Milly's face.

" Hey." He said, comfortingly bringing Melissa in to his chest resting his chin on her red matching beanie she wore to copy Murray, closing his eyes. " I know. it's hard. It can't be easy to see these... well things and not think 'bout the lab." He used his thumb to clean off dirt, on her cheeks bone. " I'm gonna die someday." She flinches, hearing the words she didn't want to hear. " But not today. Not while I still have plenty to live for. For example marrying you, Baby. To be the father to our girls." She put her hand under the part of his ear, behind his neck, bringing his head down so they could connect their foreheads together.

" I can't afford to lose you, not when I just got you back, Hop." Her eyes, automatically, closed. " I want to have the man I love come home. Alive. I know you will be careful but.."

Jim silenced her using the chance to lean down, his rough pinkish tinted lips brushed on hers to give her a plaintive kiss. It wasn't rough, much like the previous ones they shared. It's needing, desperate. This plan of his could fail, and he'd die never to see her again. Her love carried his whole confidence.

Nothing in the world mattered to him except the thought of returning safe, intact, back to Melissa and those three girls who are waiting for their parents back home. They matter the most to hopper.

Because it's them, it's Milly, who saved him.

JASMINE SPEAKS;

This chapter was originally meant to be one big one but I couldn't physically write it much longer because I cannot do the entire almost two hours plus for one chapter. The last part will probably most likely be the last chapter I have planed.

What did you think of the moments Jim and our poor girl Melissa had?

Do you like her new forming friendship with the handsome Dimitri?