PRETTY SICK!
— holy fucking shit: 40,000 ☆

tw: gore (blood, tissue, death.), mentions of suicide
[if you're super squeamish, i'll attach a tdlr at
the bottom of the a/n. gore starts a bit after
the scene change.]

"I can't do it."

Seven-year-old Angelica Bell stood at the edge of Morrow Lake, feet clad in figure skates as her widened blue eyes overlooked the cloudy frozen water. December air nipped at her nose and the chubby apples of her cheeks, eyebrows furrowed and mitten-clad hands gripping meekly at her jacket, which hung too largely over her body. Her parents said she wouldn't have to buy a new one for a long time because it would last years and years before she had to buy another.

Pete, who, at fourteen years old, drove them outside of the city with their mother's stolen car keys, smiled down at her and tightened his own hockey skates, stick in hand. "Yeah you can, c'mon," he beckoned her and stepped onto the ice. Unlike Angie, he only wore a maroon knitted sweater, which was also too big for him, it hid the ridges of his bones that stuck out oddly under his skin. He waved his hand for her to ease her way onto the ice, but she shook her head, curls bouncing around her face from underneath her hat.

"I'm scared... Vincent said I was gonna fall in and a fish was gonna eat me," Angie frowned, leaning over the ice to look into the lake. Her muddied reflection stared back, unblinking.

"Vince... he—" Pete looked over his shoulder at the twelve-year-old boy in question, who busied himself with hitting hockey pucks into their nets almost immediately when they arrived, then sighed and glanced back at Angie. "He's just trying to scare you, the ice isn't gonna break, and the fish are all sleeping. I come here all the time."

Small for a lake, but the biggest thing she'd ever seen right after Lake Michigan and Sears Tower, a thick sheet of ice covered what she once knew of the basin. Black water loomed under the translucent ice, covered in a thin layer of snow, and cooler than the water at home, surely. Cold enough that she would freeze right up if she fell in.

Angie frowned again in a way that seemed uncharacteristic for a young girl. She didn't understand how her brother could want to purposely upset her.

She reached down and grabbed a rock, tossing it onto the ice as hard as she could, and watched as it bounced once and slid across the surface.

Pete nodded, smiling slightly, "See? Nice deductive reasoning." He liked to use big words for her.

"Thanks," she replied and stuck her hands out for him to grab and help her onto the slippery substance. Angie looked at her skates, which her dad bought her for her birthday the month prior, but he gave them to her late because he forgot about it. "Do you think French people skate?"

She wished she was French, then she'd be able to climb the Eiffel Tower and eat fresh bread whenever she wanted to. Chicago was home, but maybe home could follow her wherever she went with the right people.

Pete held her mitten-covered hands and skated backwards to pull her onto the ice, making a feigned noise of conviction out of the corner of his mouth. "Nah, they're too busy making bread and wine."

"That's not all they do. They paint and dance, and they built the Notre Dame — you can't eat bread and build the Notre Dame," she reasoned, struggling to stay up as her knees and legs wobbled from the new, slippery surface under her feet.

Pete chuckled in the way that everyone did when Angelica said something charmingly childlike (think: when a lovable sitcom child says chocolate milk comes from brown cows.), entertaining her strange remarks for "her development" or something; she was smarter than he was at her age, or he thought she was.

He shrugged, continuing to skate backwards with her hands in his so Angie could get her own footing, "You can't skate and build the Notre Dame."

(He said it like "No-ter-dam." And Angie frowned every time.)

"I guess..." Her attention drew towards Vincent, who threw his stick down onto the ice in frustration for some reason unknown to them. His anger never ceased. Angie looked around them and checked for cracks in the black surface, brows knitted in worry. "I dunno how you guys are so brave, you're never scared of anything."

Pete shook his head. "That's not true."

"I don't believe you."

"Nope, not for me anyway," he said, letting go of her hands so he could orbit around her slowly, "Being brave... it's not... being brave isn't about not being scared, it's about doing things even though you're scared. I get scared a lot, I mean, a lot more than you think. But I just — I keep on trucking, I guess."

There was a sadness in his voice that Angie didn't quite pick up on, the kind of sadness that you notice when it's far too late to do anything about it, and the kind of enervated sadness that passed on from person to person.

A few months later he got hooked on cocaine.

Pete made others happy despite his own miserable disposition, he fought past his fear and stayed brave. Brave for a little while longer. Even when the jaws of death opened wide for him and he climbed right in without a word; the maw of the end.

𓆩♡𓆪

Sweaty palms; widened eyes; bare-foot. A child frolicing over the remnants of the dead in hopes of a bittersweet reunion with the outside world.

Each breath that tore from Angie's throat made a quiet high-pitched squeal, her overworked lungs grew tired, only pushing forward from the pure adrenaline that pumped through her veins. Whatever that thing that roared at her was, wanted to kill her, and she didn't give it a chance before she peeled both of her heels from her feet and took off running. She kept one as a weapon, or at the very least a blunt object to ward anything that tried to attack her away. Once she was sure she'd gotten it off of her tail, though, she realized the predicament she put herself into as the lights went out.

Bodies lined the hallways of Hawkins lab, their skin dull, and looked cool to the touch in contrast to the incarnadine pools and streaks that surrounded them. They fought back, most of them. Evidence of struggle. She tried to keep her eyes trained forward down the hallway, away from the slit throats and limbs chewed beyond a mound of flesh and cracked bone.

Through the appearance of the floor (clear windows, less oppressive architecture), she reasoned that she had to be back on the ground level, which felt like a good start. Angie's fingers grazed along the wall, eyes darted to her right and behind her every few seconds, if she kept her hand on the furthest outside wall available, she would have to find the exit eventually.

She knew a few things.

They were silent when they wanted to be.

They were faster than her, but could be outrun if you were far enough away and close enough to safety.

Bullets did little to nothing. She needed blunt force trauma, or something to set them alight.

They killed for sport.

The last thing scared her the most. Not only were they more enhanced than any other animal she'd ever seen, they all had an insatiable appetite for catching prey; whether for a meal or simply just to kill, it didn't matter to them. Angie had to get a better weapon quickly, or find the gracious double doors she entered from before that — she worried the lockdown would have locked all of the doors, though, and the sound of smashing glass would surely alert them to her location. She already made too much noise when she stepped in some blood and gagged.

Pat, pat, pat, a slick slapping noise came from her feet as they moved rhythmically with her heartbeat.

She listened to their croaks that echoed throughout the building. They were on every floor. Every turn, every step. Angie had no time to think about their existence logically, or even what species they were and how they got there before her body kicked into survival mode, doing everything in her power to think of where a weapon or exit may be. She searched for things that looked familiar, and attempted to retrace her trek inside, how she entered through the lobby and glanced upwards for signs that didn't exist. This time, though, everything looked the same, clouded in darkness while her eyes struggled to make out what each hallway looked like.

Angie remembered one thing though, finally. Where she could find a weapon.

Her pace quickened, bare feet tiptoed down each stretch of floor with haste in search of one of the bright red boxes that were fastened to the wall. She relied on touch more than sight, because the only lightsource she had was the light from the dull yellow emergency alarms; they went on and off in a rhythmic pattern. The fingers curled around her shiny black heel restrained her hand from shaking wildly, though the one that hung limply by her side didn't get the same luck. She almost cracked a smile at the sight of the fire extinguisher box with the axe beside it, the latter of which needed a key to open.

Unsurely, she pursed her lips and looked around for a way to unlock it; the sound of her heel colliding with the glass would draw attention to her, even if she ran for cover into one of the rooms. Plus, she could slip and fall in one of the thick puddles of blood that covered the linoleum; blood belonging to the guards and doctors that held various keys to various doors and windows, boxes too. Angie swallowed and glanced down at the floor, a few meters next to her feet.

The striking amber eyes of a guard stared back at her, or behind her, or simply into dead space. His mouth looked slightly agape in fear, and the skin around his throat and jugular looked torn open, like paper or another flimsy material. Not skin. She bent down and felt his waistband for a set of keys, or a key that looked like it'd fit into the padlock. His body moved like hardened clay, like concrete had been poured in his joints and Angie was left huffing and puffing trying to roll him onto his side. It felt like she was pushing around a mannequin or CPR doll, so stiff, not a man that had been living a mere half hour prior.

She felt nothing and everything all the same. Maybe her brain tried to tune it out for the sake of dealing with it when she wasn't in risk of being killed.

Angie's fingers skimmed the feeling of cool metal, and she backtracked, then unlooped the keyring from the carabiner it hung from. She set down her heel and went through the keys, begging her hands to move faster while she tried them all out on the padlock. There was no time for this, however, the solid weapon could be detrimental to her survival. Her heart pounded in her ribs, and when she found the key that looked like it fit into the hole, her hands trembled too much, making it scrape next to the hole or onto her palm and fingers.

Please, she begged to no one in her head, please leave some mercy for me.

After a few more failed attempts, the lock finally popped open, and she took no time removing it from the case and jogging away from the scene until she found a spot in the hallway that looked safer.

There was a thud from the basement and a loud clicking noise sounded throughout the floor, the lights in the hallway flickered on. Her retinas burned.

Her back hit the wall gently in surprise, and she caught her breath as her eyes readjusted to her surroundings. Everything looked so much worse lit up. Now she couldn't ignore the blank stares of corpses, and deep red wounds that looked almost black, so fatal, ivory bone peeked through; they stared at her like they wanted her to do something; say something. Save them. But they were long gone, far past the very concept of death and being saved. Angie shut her eyes and forced herself to focus on something other than them.

If she wanted to survive, she needed to push the rising bile down her throat and get the hell out of there. The blonde corrected her grip on the axe, which felt too long and heavy for her (a sprained wrist seemed better than dying), and started to walk again. From the few creatures she'd seen (and avoided), it looked like they had a similar bone structure and nervous system to most land mammals, and they had no exterior shell. Only fleshy meat. So, in theory, if one were to attack, she would aim for the spine.

Killing wasn't a necessity, if she could paralyze it entirely, then that would save her just as much as its death would. Angie chewed her lip in thought, what if she wanted bloodshed? To drench them in their own blood and watch them die? She wanted to hurt one of these things so badly; to avenge her brother, Barbara, and anyone else who happened to fall victim to the Demogorgon... or... baby Demogorgons. She listened for their cries and screeches whenever she hugged a corner, and watched for any kind of elusive movement in the distance. Bloodlust swirled around her head, in and out of her ears like a daunting apparition; but maybe she was in the clear, for now.

She crept down another stretch of hallway and almost collapsed to her knees in a moment of pure, raw joy. Never would she have imagined to feel as good as she did when she saw the wooden double doors, the ones she entered the lab through, and the ones that guaranteed her freedom. Angie felt tears of relief prick in the corners of her dry and bloodshot eyes, it burned pleasantly when she reached out to push the doors open. Arms outstretched, ready to embrace the carte blanche handed to her and bolt as far as she could, as quickly as she could to the comfort of her home. Into the arms of someone.

Angie thought she could just forget it all once she got out. Unscathed and alive. No reminders of her time there besides word of mouth and memories.

There was a beat of pure silence, then white noise as her body collided against the wall to the right of her, her head striking it with enough force to knock her over on her rear and leave her dazed. The perpetrator of her attack roared in her face, its cool breath fanned her face, alongside the saliva that shot out with it — rows and rows of teeth lined the inside of the creature's mouth and throat, ready to tear through the flesh of the teenager in front of it. The pointed claws at the end of each of its fingers dug into her waist and shoulder, it was a sharp pain and she bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood before she cried out.

Her body reacted before her brain could: she ignored the burning in her forearms from the weight of the axe, swinging it blindly at the monster that tackled her to the floor. She raised it over her, the steel blade shone like a beacon, and brought it down onto its head, it stunned it enough that she pushed herself into a standing position behind it and took aim for the spine. Meanwhile, it struggled to come back from the first attack, croaking meekly and shaking its head; much like an animal. Thankfully, Angie felt no remorse as she reered her arms above her, letting the force of gravity help her cleave the sharp end of the weapon into the baby Demogorgon's vertebrae.

The noise it let out branded itself in her memory, the sound of impending death while its throat gargled with liquid — blood, maybe mucus, or a mixture of the two. She could merely stare in shock at the creature, eyes bulged and mouth slightly agape; the head convulsed and cried, a hopeless attempt at survival as it realized it couldn't move. Blood pooled around her bare feet. Watching it suffer didn't feel as good as she'd hoped, the thing was much more human-like than Angie had assumed, but she wouldn't give it the privilege of feeling the sweet release of death, no, it had to suffer for a little while longer. She wasn't that gracious.

She waited until the shrieking turned into a death rattle.

Hair plastered to her face with crimson splatter and sweat, the blonde kicked its body to the side and stumbled through the first set of doors, careful to not slip on the slick liquid that coated her feet. Then she pushed the second, and last set of doors open into the lobby. First she noticed Raymond outside of the building: his hands were cupped against his eyes and pressed against the glass of the door to get a better look. He stood up straight, waving to her and smiling out of what she guessed was relief; Angie couldn't return a smile, but managed to muster up something that resembled satisfaction with the outcome of the situation.

She shuffled over to the front doors, vision double, derived from her collision in the hallway a few moments prior, with blood dripping from her lips. The smooth glass felt cool on her fingertips and she fell into Raymond out of pure exhaustion and a need for someone to be there for her, someone alive, who, when she pressed her ear to their chest, could listen to their heart pump blood through their veins.

That's how it should have gone.

Some kind of lapse of judgment, or reckoning from a higher power made Angie's luck run short. She shuffled over to the front doors, vision phasing and weaving through itself. She heard it croak, gutturally and from deep in its chest, and she heard the pitter-patter of the talons on the tiles beneath their feet. But her reaction time became sluggish, and her head barely whipped around when a creature pounced from behind the front desk, onto the surface, and then at her. Her back slammed against the cool tile a second time and the axe, slippery with blood, fell from her hands, gliding across the floor away from the altercation.

It gripped her with its claws, tearing the flesh it grabbed onto, and she shoved her right arm at it in an attempt to deter it from giving her a fatal injury. Angie heard Raymond's muffled shouts while she struggled to wrestle it off of her, she cried out in pain each time the claws shifted underneath her skin. The pointed weapons prodded through her flesh, and she only prayed it wouldn't hit anything important, like an artery or organ (if they were long enough to, they felt like they stabbed a gaping hole into her).

The little Demogorgon, seemingly fueled with a vengeance and fed up with her unwavered thrashing, took the bend of her arm into its mouth and bit down as hard as its jaw was capable of.

For a moment, her vision clouded with a pure white light, her body anticipated the feeling of what just happened and it tried its damndest to protect her from it. Time slowed in the bright vision; she had the awareness that everything happened in real time, but her brain gave her a few moments to relive her life for a second time; a final time.

Bulbs of ghostly golden rays danced around her head; a halo of firefly-like patio lights hazed through the corner of her eye. Fourteen year old Steve Harrington stood in front of her, lips pointed into an awkward grin — their first encounter replayed once he outstretched his finger towards her Blondie t-shirt and choked out a question, Steve clearly attempted to make his voice steamier, with more gravel than he had as an eighteen year old. Angie entertained the situation and he took one too many steps backwards and tumbled into the pool, dragging her in with him.

Unable to swim, she flailed towards the surface; pumping her arms wildly, unskillfully. Her retinas, virginal of chemicals, burned from the chlorine that pumped through the water, and when her head broke through the surface and she took her first clear breath, Angie found herself in the driver's seat of Pete's ugly, red Monte Carlo. Her fingers wrapped around the rubber wheel until her knuckles went white, and she was nearly sixteen years old again, learning to drive. In the passenger seat, her brother guided her calmly, a warm smile plastered on his face in a pursuit of reassurance, bright blue eyes trained carefully between his little sister and the road.

Clouds of dust billowed into the open windows of his car every time she picked up the speed, he knew the blaze of the August heat would dry the roads out and make a mess, but Pete didn't care. Angie was months away from meeting a major milestone, receiving her license, and he needed to help her reach it in any way he could. When she blinked, her vision hazed with darkness and Angelica Bell knew that the best memories would come to an end soon, far too soon for her.

Pain flooded her senses, searing through her body like hot coals had stemmed from her arm across each nerve in her system. The bones and cartilage in her forearm and elbow were decimated with the force of the bite, nothing but pieces for the creature to work around as it tore her flesh. Endless rows of teeth made quick work of anything in its way, especially when it pulled its head back and shook it, like a simple dog chewing away at a T-bone steak.

It didn't really register with her. Something so gorey wasn't meant to happen to her; Angie was supposed to live a little bit longer for Pete's legacy, just until she was able to play Giselle.

Just that long.

She screamed out and kicked her feet at the monster. It wasn't to scare it away, or a battle cry used to intimidate the enemy into submission — it'd already won. Angie wanted it to listen to each of her vocal chords give in and fade out while it killed her, it had to listen to her last-ditch sounds of life that ripped from her throat until it became raw. The pain subsided into a dull all-over-throb in beat with her rapid heart rate, and in the back of her mind, she saw herself in a bird's eye view. Right arm completely butchered, seen through her ugly and torn clothing, covered head to toe in blood that came from herself, the Demogorgon, and the bodies that lined the lab, gut-wrenching screams being forced out of her through pure effort.

She'd die the same way she came into existence. Screaming and drenched in blood.

When the blonde imagined herself dying, it always ended at the age of 25, maybe 30, as she floored her stupid Pinto off of a Californian cliff into the ocean. The rapidly dropping altitude would knock her out, and she'd die peacefully and painlessly; Angelica had always wanted to see the beach anyway, it made sense for it to be the last thing she'd lay her gaze on. Life had to be so cruel to her. She never got to say goodbye to anyone: Pete, Vincent, her aunt, old friends at school and Steve, even her mother and father deserved something. A big "Fuck you" to them would suffice.

But God, through his throne in the sky, perched in the clouds alongside his baby angels and prophets, raised both of his hands. He turned them around and theatrically flipped Angelica Bell the bird. She wouldn't get the satisfaction of being rid of her pain, not yet.

——— AUTHOR'S NOTE
—— hey ya'll... heyyy....

—— literally no words for this chapter, i hope you liked it?? im kind of bad with scenes like this and ive never really fully committed to writing gore before so i apologize if this is a little much 😓 still trying to find my footinf and shit

—— tdlr: angie is trying to get out of the lab, and she gets ambushed at the first set of double doors leading into the lobby, but uses an axe she got from the fire extinguisher boxes to KILL THAT MF. then she waddles on over into the lobby, but womp womp, there's a demodog in there too and its HUNGRY AF, she's getting chomped on and her arm is mangled as hell and she's like wahh... wahhh... im going to DIE. but... she's not dead yet 😏

—— btw thats exactly what my chapter jotes look like while i'm planning 😭 except 10x worse

PRETTY SICK!
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