the life of alina fairgrieves-byers

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

*this chapter contains a brief scene depicting child abuse.*

    The Mind Flayer had been chasing them for about fifteen minutes now, a constant shadow trailing them as the car got farther and farther away from Starcourt Mall. It seemed determined to follow them to the ends of the Earth or further, seemed determined not to stop until it got its tongues wrapped around them, which was why it was strange, to say the least, when it suddenly turned, whirling back around to the way it came. Alina, who had been gripping Lucas and Will's hands nervously, wondering about the fate of her other friends and trying to resist the urge to jump right out of the car to go back for them, raised her eyebrows, her eyes widening. What was happening? Was the Mind Flayer giving up? She hadn't thought that would be something it'd ever do.

Especially when it came to her.

"It's turning around!" Steve announced; he'd seemed to have seen it, too. Nancy whirled around in her seat, her eyes narrowed in confusion like Steve was lying, but he was right. It was crawling right back the way it came. It was leaving.

"What?" Nancy asked.

"It's turning around!" he repeated urgently. Lucas shifted from beside Alina, looking as confused as she felt.

"Maybe we wore it out," he suggested.

Jonathan's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "I don't think so. Hold on." And then he twisted the steering wheel so hard it sent the passengers flying about, their elbows knocking into windows and heads colliding. Alina cried out in pain as Will accidentally elbowed her right in her sore ribs, and a scream tore loose from her throat as the car spun around again, like a merry-go-round going way above the standard speed.

And then the car righted itself, and they were driving back the way they came. Alina gripped onto Lucas's hand, and that was when the magnet tugged in her stomach, aiming right back where they were driving. She put a hand to it in surprise, and her eyes widened even more. Shit. Shit. Shit. El was most definitely in danger. Just like El seemed to read her facial expressions somethings, Alina could just tell that there was an issue. That the Mind Flayer had its grubby paws on her. Which meant...

God. What had happened to Gabe, Mike, and Max?

"You don't think the others are still in the mall, are they?" asked Will, who seemed to be equally worried.

"I don't know," said Jonathan from up front, as they sped behind the Mind Flayer, the mice turning into the cat. "But I don't think it would just leave us. Especially not with Alina in the car. There has to be something more appetizing for it back in the mall, and I think that thing might just be El."

"Gabe..." Will breathed out a terrified gasp. "God, we just left them! We left them there! Alina, you were right, we should've gone back for them! Now they might be... they might be dead!"

Lucas sucked in a breath. His entire body was trembling, his eyes squeezed shut as he imagined the dark possibilities. "Al..." he began, after a moment, "do you think you could... do you think you could look for them? Just to make sure they're okay? It's gonna be a couple minutes before we get back to the mall."

"I-I don't know!" Alina cried, her hands shaking. "I've never... I've never really done it for that long by myself before."

"You should at least try," said Steve, looking similarly worried. "We believe in you, Al."

Robin looked from Steve to Alina. "What is she going to do? What do you mean, she's going to look for someone?"

Nobody answered her. They could tell her absolutely everything they'd missed when they were safe and alive, and when their friends weren't in danger. So instead, Alina tore off the bottom of her shirt to use as a blindfold and tied it around her eyes. As she'd learned before, she could do it just with her eyes closed, but she'd rather be extra about it to have a higher chance of actually finding El and the others.

"Okay, I need some sort of background noise," she instructed Jonathan, who immediately turned on the radio until it was just fuzzy music that was too quiet to really meet their ears. Her world in darkness, Alina nonetheless squeezed her eyes shut, her chest heaving with the pressure. Now it was she who needed to do something she wasn't sure she could do. Now she needed to find her friends.

She focused on El's face, because El was her magnet to Alina's scrap metal, after all, and they'd ventured into the void so many times together. She pictured every strand of El Hopper's hair, the curve of her face, the blood that so often dotted her upper lip, her brown eyes. Her body trembled, and for a minute, she wondered if this was even going to work. And then El's face bloomed to life, and Alina opened her eyes in the void.

The water sloshed over her feet, and Alina gave herself five seconds to take a breather. The void spread across in an infinite darkness, inky black, and she felt like the only girl left in the entire world, even though she knew she was really sitting in a car with her friends on what might be her last day alive. She could feel the blood dripping in real life, her real hand in Lucas's, and the pleasure of healed ribs and knee in this reality, and these things were what prompted her to take a step forward.

There was no leisurely walking this time, though. No, now Alina was running, sprinting across the endless room, straining her eyes in order to try and catch a glimpse of her friend. Her feet splashed through the water, her breathing grew heavier and heavier, and just as she was beginning to think she'd never find her, she caught a glimpse of a yellow and black shirt.

"El!" she said out loud, relieved. But that shining moment of hope didn't last long, because when Alina actually focused on the girl's face, she found that she was strewn over another body, her eyes closed. Her forehead and nose were bright red, and the skin was splitting, dripping with blood, telling Alina all she needed to know. El had been knocked out.

Shit. She said it out loud. "Shit."

Lucas's anxious voice came bustling through the darkness. "What is it?"

"She's knocked out. I don't see Max, Gabe, or Mike, either."

All she could see was El's pale face, her thin body draped over someone's shoulder. Billy's shoulder. It must've been him. He must've incapacitated the others (because she refused to think of the alternative) and dragged El away to transform her into Mind Flayer chow. Which meant that her feeling had been right, and El was completely and utterly screwed.

"She's in danger," she said. "El. That's why the Mind Flayer's going back. It's going to kill her."

Nancy's voice echoed across the void next. "Jonathan, drive faster!"

And that was when Billy turned around. His eyes were glittering with venom, his arms nearly completely covered with black streaks, blood running down from his shoulders as he kept a firm grip upon the unconscious El. Alina staggered back, her eyes wide, but, of course, Billy had seen them when they were in the void before. He could see her now.

His lip curled. "Well, well, well," he said. "If it isn't Alina Fairgrieves."

Fairgrieves. Not Fairgrieves-Byers. In fact, Alina realized that the Mind Flayer had not called her by her actual name once. Even though it said it knew everything about her—which it almost did; it had probably predicted she'd try and find El—it didn't know her name.

The thought gave her enough confidence to stand up straight, to ball her hands into fists instead of turning and running. "Leave her alone," she begged. "Just leave El alone. Please."

Billy didn't seem to be listening. Maybe he couldn't hear her at all. Maybe he was just ignoring her. "How about that? We got both of them at once."

And then his hand was on her throat.

"No!" Alina bucked and writhed under the pressure of his hand on her neck, desperately attempting to get him off. "No, no, no, get off of me!"

Billy squeezed harder, and the air was snatched out of her lungs. Alina gasped for breath, still struggling. Dimly, she could hear the others in the car, feel their worried touches, but it was like she was paralyzed, unable to move her arms to take off the blindfold. She attempted to scream, to call out for them to save her, but her voice had been ripped out of her as her air had been.

She would have to face this alone.

The dark streaks in Billy's muscled arms began to take form, wisping into shadow as Alina tried in vain to use her energy. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and, unable to speak, found herself pleading inside her mind for her powers to come. Oh, what she wouldn't have given for an itch in her palms. What she wouldn't have done to get rid of Billy Hargrove once and for all.

"Lucas—" she managed to get out. She'd never felt so helpless in her entire life. Not when Linda was abusing her, not when she was being thrown around by Billy, and not even when she'd been possessed by the Mind Flayer for the first time.

"Al!" she could hear his voice, echoing around her. "Al, stay with me, alright, everything's gonna be fine, you just have to keep—"

The shadows growing on Billy's arms finally finalized their shape, and begin to spread towards her with creeping fingers. Alina attempted to scream, but she was losing breath, and with it, her vision. It was spotting around her, making Billy's malicious face nothing more than a blur. A blur that was soon swallowed up by darkness.

Then the shadows bored into Alina's eyes, and everything slipped away.

It was that quick.

She was three years old, and she sat at the kitchen table, shifting uncomfortably in her new dress. Brandon kept his eyes on his food, but Linda glared at her daughter with each move she made. "Quit squirming, Alina," she snapped. "Jesus Christ, what do I have to do to keep you to sit still? This is a beautiful dress, and I had it made just for you."

"I don't like it," Alina whined from her highchair. Her hair sat on a poof on top of her head, and her cheeks were round and full. "It's itchy, Mommy."

Linda got to her feet. Brandon looked up. "Linda, darling—"

"You ungrateful whelp! All I do is try to make you happy, but nothing is ever enough for you, is it? Nothing! All you do is sit here and complain, and your father endorses it! What do I have to do to gain some respect in this household? Now—" Linda crossed over to Alina's highchair. The toddler shrunk away instinctively, but Linda grabbed her by the shoulders anyway. "Sit still. I don't want to see you fidget until you're done your meal."

She was falling.

She was six years old, and sitting alone in the grass. It was her first day at Hawkins Elementary, and none of the other kids wanted to play with her. They thought she was 'weird', mocked her for her strange clothing and her curly hair. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, attempting not to prevent the tears from falling through. After all, she was six now.

She was practically a grown-up, and bursting into tears now would make her a cry-baby.

Her eyes wandered over to a pair of boys who were linking arms near the front of the school. Bright, beaming smiles lit up their faces, and they playfully shoved each other, letting out loud shrieks of laughter. One of them had hand-me-down clothes and a brown bowl-cut, and the other's clothes were newer.

When they laughed, Alina's heart clenched. She'd never be like them.

Tumbling through open air.

She was eight, and Troy and James (the older kids) had pushed her around during recess, splattering her dress with mud. Her mother would kill her when she came home. She shuddered just thinking of it, and curled up into a ball in the courtyard.

Maybe she could just live here. Nobody would bother her here.

It felt like she was falling forever.

She was nine, and she was outside as buckets of rain emptied on her head. From inside, the screams of her parents rattled the house, and she shrank back, tears streaming down her face as the itch began to form in her palms.

Darkness spread around her; expansive, never-ending. It was tantalizing, and she knew that if she just gave in, all of this—the dark, the memories flashing by her one-by-one—would end.

She was twelve, and she stared right at the girl in the lab, the one with wide eyes, a shaved head, and a hospital gown hanging around her ankles. There was a lurch in her stomach, almost like a magnet pulling her forward, but before either of them could say anything, hands, rough and unyielding, dragged them away.

She put her hands over her ears. The images came faster.

She was twelve, and James held a lighter to her face.

She was twelve, and she was hunkering in an old bus in a junkyard, terrified out of her mind.

She was twelve, and her dad was dying in front of her.

She couldn't breathe.

She was thirteen, and she woke up every night, screaming from nightmares so grotesquely realistic.

She was thirteen, and she was watching Will be consumed from the inside-out.

She was thirteen, and she was pressed against the door of the bus as hundreds of Demodogs attempted to burst their way through.

She was thirteen, and she was dying, writhing in pain as the Mind Flayer died inside of her.

She was thirteen, and—

"Alina? Alina, can you hear me?"

She was—

"Alina! Are you okay?"

She was thirteen, and she was dancing with Lucas Sinclair at the Snow Ball. The gymnasium had turned into a winter wonderland, and, as she stared into the eyes of the most beautiful boy she'd ever seen, she knew she was safe. She knew she belonged.

"Al!"

She was thirteen, and she was watching a movie with Will, Jonathan, Bob and Joyce, trying not to think about her dad. She crammed popcorn into her mouth and listened to the sound of Bob's laughter, so bright and happy and full of life.

"Alina!"

She was fourteen, and was kissing Lucas. She had her arms slung around Max and El in Starcourt Mall. She hugging her mother. She was sitting outside with Gabe, listening to him as he poured out his life story. She was telling Dustin she missed him. She was hanging out with Will and Mike at the movie theater. She was dancing with Jonathan.

She was fourteen, and she was happy. She was alive. She knew that nothing, no Mind Flayers or Demogorgons or mad scientists could get to her. She knew that living each and every day was a big Screw You! To the ones that had tried, oh, desperately tried, to make her life as miserable as possible.

She was fourteen, and she was Alina Fairgrieves-Byers. She would not back down. Would never stop fighting.

She closed her eyes, and took a breath. And that was when she realized she wasn't falling—she was flying.

She was fourteen, and she was tearing off her blindfold back in the car, her chest heaving, tears burning her eyes and threatening to trickle down her cheeks. There was blood spilling from her nose and her head was aching like it had been plowed through by a bulldozer, but she was alive, and she was completely and utterly Alina.

She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the new lighting, and found that she was back at Starcourt Mall. Everyone was staring at her.

"What just happened?" Robin asked.

"Alina, are you okay?" Will asked. He looked stricken.

Alina reached up and swiped the blood off her nose. She didn't let herself cry.

"Lucas," she instead said. "Do you still have your fireworks?"

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: usually, when i upload chapters, i just do a read-through of them, edit any errors i find, then copy and paste it into here and post it. this time, however, when i was reading through, i found i really didn't like the scene depicting her life, so i decided to completely rewrite it. it was really cheesy and nonsensical last time, and i hope i've made a better reading experience now, haha. but that's why i updated a little bit later than normal!

next chapter, we're going to find out what happened to gabe 👀 i was really tempted to spoil it last time, but i managed to restrain myself ahaha.

'till next time!