food poisoning

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Alina Fairgrieves-Byers was currently perched on the closed lid of the toilet at Max's house, scrutinizing the cookie in her hand. She hadn't wanted to come in here, not after the blood in the cabinet and the ice in the bathtub, but both of those things were gone now, probably Max's doing. She wanted to feel safe. She didn't want to think anything was wrong.

Despite those two things being scrubbed away, eradicated, there was still an eerie energy in the bathroom. It was like there were shadows where there shouldn't be. Like a face would pop up in the mirror, tongue sticking out grotesquely, eyes bulging, sticking one rotting hand through the glass to seize her. It was like a different reality.

But as Alina sat here anyway, wary of beginning her test, she thought back to the way Max had so easily brushed everything off, and she now knew why she had. It was because Max didn't like to believe scary things. She hadn't believed Lucas when he'd first told her everything about the Upside Down, had twisted the snarling Demodogs into rabid animals in her mind. And now, she just simply didn't want to think of the horrifying prospect of her stepbrother doing something horrible. Or of it somehow being connected to the Upside Down. Because she wanted to move on. Forget everything that had happened last year. Forget the Mind Flayer, and its army, and the way it had claimed two of her friends, nearly killing them.

Alina wanted that, too. But unlike Max, she knew that just ignoring a problem wouldn't make it go away. She'd tried to do that, before, with her dad's death and memories of Linda and the whole situation with Lucas. But for every single one of those scenarios, she'd ended up realizing that the only way to make a problem go away was to face it right on. She'd have to confront whatever dangers came now.

Which was why she was sitting here now. Because this was what she had to do.

Slowly, Alina unwrapped the cookie Heather had offered her. It was an average chocolate chip cookie, a little burnt around the edges, as Heather had said, but still overall looking tasty. It had cooled by now, with chocolate still smeared the wrapper. But looks could be deceiving, which was why Alina broke the cookie in two, looking for any signs of tampering. She didn't know what, exactly, she'd find (what did people put in food?) but she checked for signs of it being poisoned—pills, maybe, or discoloration, or mini razorblades (okay, maybe that third one wasn't likely, but she liked to be thorough). When she'd found neither of those things, Alina sniffed it, trying to detect a hint of anything that might've been added.

There was nothing. It was just a cookie, in all of its chocolatey goodness, begging Alina to be eaten. It was just a cookie, and maybe Alina was going crazy. Maybe the trauma from what had happened to her automatically caused her to jump to conclusions. Maybe she connected dots that weren't meant to be connected. Maybe Max was right, maybe this was a misunderstanding, maybe the only reason Heather had screamed was because she was so deep in fever. Maybe that was what she and El had seen.

Just to make sure, though, Alina took a tiny bite of the cookie, ready to spit it out if it tasted funny at all. Even a hint of something unnatural would make her theory as good as confirmed. But, yet again, there was nothing. It was just a plain old chocolate cookie.

It was like a weight had been lifted off her chest, and she could finally breathe again. A giddy happiness spread throughout her as she sat on the lid of the toilet, mingled with the slightest drop of humiliation. So she had been reading too far deep into things. But hey, at least everything was fine, right?

Alina took another bite of the cookie in her relief. It was delicious. It was fine.

Until the feeling struck her. A lightheadedness that probably had to do with the fact that she hadn't been able to fall asleep last night. Alina used one hand to clutch her head, and the other to wrap up the cookie, thinking she should really head back to Max's room, and that was when the lightheadedness bled her world into white, and Alina Fairgrieves-Byers slid off the toilet and onto the floor, out like a light.

Well, that wasn't normal. So maybe, just maybe, her theory had been right.

Between one breath and another, night turned to day. For the boys of the party, besides Dustin, this meant pedalling over to the Wheeler household, which was the unofficial meeting place of all things Upside Down related (it used to be the AV Room, but now that they were graduated from Hawkins Middle, this wasn't possible. So, they'd made this deal, hoping, praying, that they would never have to use it), so early that only a few birds had awoken from their slumber to serenade the town with their chirps. For Max and El, it meant to continue sleeping, bundled in their blankets, dreaming of pleasant things. Forgetting about Billy.

Until they were woken unceremoniously by the obnoxious squawking of Max's walkie-talkie.

"Do you copy?" it was Lucas's voice. "This is a code red. I repeat, this is a code red. Max. Do you copy? This is a code red."

Max reached out an arm, groping for the walkie-talkie on the floor. She picked it up with a snarl. She wasn't in the mood to hear from Lucas, who'd taken Mike's side instead of El, and who had said all of those sexist things about girls. Even if it wasn't this early in the morning.

"Shut up," she snapped, still half-asleep. Her usually wavy hair was tangled, her eyes gummed with sleep. Slamming the antenna down, Max turned off the walkie-talkie, ensuring that Lucas couldn't contact her again. God. She was so sick of those boys.

She turned back to snuggle into bed, and the four boys in Mike's basement faltered. Shit. This wasn't good. Now they'd have to go for plan B.

Which is how, three minutes later, the phone rang shrilly on its holder. Max sat up abruptly, her jaw clenched. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

Throwing off the covers, Max ran to the phone. Picking it up, and snapped, "I'm sleeping. Go away." She made to hang up the phone when another voice came out of it, a voice that wasn't Lucas's.

"This is Mike. Do not hang up." He sounded serious. "Something happened, something bad. Our very lives can be at stake."

Max's eyebrows knitted together. "What are you talking about?"

"Just come over to my house. We'll explain everything."

"What?"

"Hurry," Mike insisted, and then there was the shrill beep that meant he'd hung up. El, still snuggled under the covers, tilted her head.

"What did he say?"

Max blinked, trying to clear her head, and then she turned back to her friend. "Something's happened," she explained. "Mike wants us to come over. He said it was urgent. Like, life or death urgent. She chewed on her nail. "Do you think it has to do with..."

She didn't have to finish for El to understand. She was already throwing off the covers and rummaging for an outfit. Max did the same, and she was picking out a pair of shorts when she halted. Because she realized now the air mattress that had been housing Alina for the night was empty. "Where's Alina?"

"Bathroom?" El suggested.

"Yeah, that's probably it." Where else would she go, anyway? "We should go tell her the news. She's not going to be happy."

El nodded, and followed Max to the bathroom like a puppy. Sure enough, the lights were on—she could see them through the crack under the door. Alina was definitely in there.

Max knocked. "Al? Mike just called. We have to go over to his house, as soon as possible. Apparently it's urgent. Like, life or death urgent."

There was no response from inside the bathroom, even though it was small enough for Alina to have definitely heard her. Max swallowed, and then knocked again. "Alina? You in there? Are you okay?"

"What's wrong with her?" El asked. "Why isn't she responding?"

"Dunno." Max knocked again. "Alina? Seriously, is everything okay?" She tried the doorknob, but it didn't budge. It was locked.

"I can open it," said El. She looked as worried as Max felt, and also absurdly small. It was strange, when Max reminded herself that this girl had such immense power. "She's probably okay, but we should check."

Max knocked again. "Al, we're coming in!"

El concentrated, and after a moment, Max heard the telltale sounds of the locks in the door turning. As blood dripped down her friend's nose, the door opened, revealing Max's shell-patterned bathroom—and a girl on the floor. It was Alina, her eyes closed, her hair in her face, crumbs staining her lips. Beside her was a cookie, half-eaten and partially wrapped in saran wrap. Both girls immediately recognized it as the cookie she'd taken from Heather.

"Holy shit!" Max ran over to Alina, crouching beside her unconscious form. "Alina, are you okay?"

El dropped down as well. Her stomach did the faint lurch she was used to by now, and she grabbed Alina's hand. It was warm. "Al," she said softly. "Alina."

Alina stirred, and then her eyes fluttered open. Blinking against the sudden light attacking her eyes, Alina looked around, and found Max and El both hovering over her, worry written on their faces.

"Oh, hey, guys," she said groggily, still not processing this whole situation. Then she jolted up. "Wait. Why am I on the bathroom floor? What time is it? When did I..." slowly, her eyes drifted to the cookie, and everything came flooding back. The lightheadedness. The tiredness. And she realized what had happened.

Her insides went cold.

"Holy shit."

"Yeah," Max echoed. "Holy shit. What the hell happened, Alina?"

Alina bit her lip, looked down to the cookie again, and then explained how she'd tried to look for poison or anything wrong about it, to prove that something was indeed up with it. And ignoring Max's exasperated face when she said that, Alina plowed on. "And as you know, I didn't find shit, so I was thinking to myself 'hey, maybe Max was right. Maybe I'm going crazy and Billy really has changed.' So I ate the cookie, and... you know the rest." She swallowed. It was terrifying to be right. "It's not poison. It's a sedative."

"Are you sure?" Max still sounded skeptical, sitting on the lid of the toilet, while El perched on the edge of the bath. "I mean, maybe you were just super tired, and fell asleep? I mean, you told me you didn't get much sleep the night before. Maybe that was it."

"Yeah, Max, I was so tired I fell asleep in the middle of eating a cookie. Sounds logical." She buried her face in her hands. "I know you don't want to believe this, and I know this makes no sense, but there was something wrong, Max. El and I could sense it. What if Billy was trying to drug us or something? And he roped Heather into it?"

"Yeah, because that's totally something Billy would do—"

"Wait a second. Billy didn't expect us to come. Nobody at that dinner did. So that cookies couldn't be meant for us. They were meant for Heather's parents."

"What?" Max seemed utterly incredulous at this point. "Why would Billy drug Heather's parents?"

"I don't know! But I do know that this cookie knocked me out, which isn't something that normally happens, and I know that El and I saw Heather screaming on two separate occasions. I know we can't explain away that shit. Not after this."

"Al, Max." El finally decided to speak. "We have to go."

Max tensed. "Oh, right." At Alina's confused face, she elaborated. "Mike called. He said we have to go to his place. Urgently."

Alina's eyes widened. "Do you think it has to do with..."

"He was being very cryptic about it," said Max. "Let's just find out what he has to say."

"Right, okay." And after Max and El helped Alina to her feet (she was still a little shaky), they headed back to the bedroom to finish what they'd started. Alina's mind was whirling. The cookie. Heather. The blood. The ice. Now Mike's call. She just knew that they all fit together somehow, puzzle pieces that didn't have a picture on the box.

Perhaps Mike and the others could help her complete the puzzle.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: grammarly isn't working so i apologize if there are errors i didn't catch in this chapter lmfao. i actually really like this chapter, like i came up with the idea for alina to actually find out about the drugged cookies (at first i thought it was the wine, but it was definitely the cookies) after i first watched season three, and i haven't seen any other stranger things fic where that happens! and yes, i know alina was incredibly stupid here, but she literally does anything if it means she can solve whatever mystery she's obsessed with. if you recall, she literally fell out of a tree in book one when she tried to spy on the lab lmfaoo. so i don't think this is really out of character for her.

i also realized that this book still has forty-five chapters and an epilogue left, which is... a lot. i honestly forgot how absurdly long this book is lmfao. i'm thinking about doing a paroxysm week soon (maybe after the sauna test chapters), because i really like updating this book, and it's super fun to update every day (but i don't do it all the time, obviously, because i'm scared of finishing this book). but, yeah. we're in for a long one, folks.

'till next time!