𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞
𝙊𝙣 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙍𝙪𝙣 . . .

There were no alarms this morning, only the bright rays of the spring sun that beamed through the thin curtains. Willow hummed in delight as she slowly woke up, rubbing her eyes and sitting up. She was finally free from the Hell they called school, today was the first day of spring break, and she was already thinking ahead to the best summer she was going to have.

Memories of last night brought her back down to earth as she smiled thinking about the sweet moment she had with Dustin, she was so grateful to have a brother like him. But as she continued down memory lane, she found herself staring at the lamp on her bedside table.

She rubbed the back of her neck as the hairs stood on end.

She felt nervous, like she had last night.

She slowly reached out to the lamp and pulled the string, turning it on. She pulled on the string a few more times, watching it turn on and off and on and off right on queue.

Huh.

She frowned.

It must have been a dream then.

She probably just fell asleep reading her book and had dreamt of the odd scenario. It didn't make it any less creepy though.

Willow got out of bed and headed to her closet, rummaging through it like she had done yesterday morning, and finding a nice outfit that was both her style and very comfortable.

She heard a soft meow from outside her door, and she opened it to step out, walking down the hall as Sunset followed close behind, his tail standing high in the air. Willow passed through the living room to head to the kitchen, calling out behind her at her family that was seated on the couch.

"Mornin' mom, mornin' Dusty!"

She yawned as she placed two pieces of bread in the toaster and stood there, waiting for it to spring. She didn't know what she was going to do today, but it had to be big, right? First day of break, she couldn't just spend it cooped up inside all day. She would have gone to the Mall, but.. well.. that was pretty self explanatory. Maybe she could go to the fields and pick some wild flowers for her room.. yeah, that sounded like a nice plan!

The toast sprung up and Willow headed to the table, passing by the fridge to get some orange juice. She sat down and monched on her toast, thinking ahead to what she would do this summer. And wouldn't you know, someone popped into her mind.

Eddie.

I mean he had suggested a possible DnD campaign with him this summer, and Willow certainly was not opposed to it. Sure, she wanted a normal summer, one that wasn't filled with the usual adventure, but this was just made up adventure, and like she told Dustin, she could protect herself.

She began to imagine her summer with Eddie Munson, and she choked on her toast.

Spluttering and coughing, she hit her chest as Mrs Henderson peeked over.

"You alright dear?"

"Yeah! Yeah, I'm fine..! Just.. toast, went down the wrong way."

Willow shook her head and cursed her imagination. Summer with Eddie or not, it was going to be normal. Normal summer, normal spring break, perfectly normal.

As she held that thought, she got up and walked over to the living room, holding her last piece of toast. She looked at what her mother and Dustin were watching on the news, and immediately lost her appetite.

"We'll be here the rest of the day right here on Channel Nine, where we'll keep you posted on all the latest developments. In the meantime, we recommend you keep your doors and windows locked tight."

A normal break, huh?

"My heart can't take it anymore, it just can't take it."

Mrs Henderson whimpered, cuddling her cat tight as the doorbell rang. Dustin and Willow looked at each other before walking over to open it, and they stood there stunned as an uncomfortable-looking Max gazed back at them.

They let the girl in and headed towards Dustin's room, where Max proceed to tell them everything she saw the other night.

"Chrissy Cunningham? You're sure it was Chrissy?"

Dustin asked in disbelief, pacing around the room as Max stood there. Willow was sat on Dustin's bed, listening to them converse and playing with a lock of her hair nervously.

"Yes, she was in her cheerleader outfit, it was thing same thing she was in when she was with Eddie."

"Did you tell all this to the cops?"

"No. No, but I... I can't be the only one who saw them together, I mean they stood out!"

"Eddie the Freak with Chrissy the Cheerleader?"

"It doesn't make any sense..."

Willow mumbled, staring at the floor. Chrissy, hanging out with Eddie and ending up dead in his trailer. It didn't make sense at all.

"Exactly. His name's not in the news or anything, but I guarantee you Eddie is suspect number one right now."

Max's words made Willow look up at her as if she was crazy, eyes wide with worry.

"What?"

"That's crazy. Eddie didn't do this. No way."

Dustin also looked at Max as if she had two heads, and she stared back at him in disbelief.

"No way!"

He repeated, and Max was starting to get frustrated.

"Well we can't rule it out!"

"Yes we can!"

"Dustin!"

"You don't know him like I do Max, okay?!"

Willow watched them with sad eyes as they argued, clutching the sheets of Dustin's bed in her fists.

"When we got to high school, Lucas made all his sports friends. Mike and me? I mean, no one was nice to us. No one except Eddie."

The blonde girl agreed with Dustin, even if she had only met Eddie the other night. She could feel his warm heart underneath the theatrical façade he liked to put up, they had only just met and yet he was kind enough to invite her to a DnD campaign because he saw just how interested she was in it. He was no murderer.

"Okay well, I mean, they said the same shit about Ted Bundy. Yeah he's like a super nice guy but then he's murdering women on the weekend."

"So you're saying that Eddie is like Ted Bundy?"

"No, I'm not saying-- I'm saying that-- we can't presume anything, okay?! But it doesn't look good for Eddie!"

Max concluded after stumbling over her words, and Dustin sighed as he sat down next to Willow in defeat. She was right. It didn't look good for Eddie. He was the last person that was seen with Chrissy, and she winds up dead in his trailer the next morning.

Willow rubbed her forehead and looked up at Max. Something wasn't right. There was something else, she was hiding something.

"Max?"

Willow looked at her expectantly, and Max knew that Willow felt she was hiding something. Dustin finally caught on and he looked up, furrowing his brows.

"Why haven't you told the cops this?"

"I... I don't know."

Max hesitated, crossing her arms, and Willow stood up, gently taking Max's shoulders and looking into her eyes. Max tried to look away, but she knew what Willow was like. She was stronger. She could sense everything. And after a few minutes of gazing into Max's eyes, her nose began to bleed.

"Max, tell Dustin what you saw."

Willow spoke gently, wiping the blood from her nose away with her sleeve. Max went over to sit beside Dustin, feeling a little light headed after Willow looked through her mind. She hesitated, before taking a deep breath and speaking.

"After I saw Eddie and Chrissy go in the trailer... something else happened. The TV started glitching, and then.. all the lights in the house.. they flickered, all at the same time. When they stopped I could hear Eddie screaming. He ran to his van and drove off. Nothing that weird or anything, Eddie always drives like a maniac and the power goes off at my place all the time, it's a piece of shit, but... this morning, I started to think back and... I dunno. The look on his face. He was scared. Really scared. Maybe he was scared because... y'know, he just killed someone or... maybe, um..."

Willow watched as Max hesitated. Chills ran down her spine as she recalled last night, her lamp flickering, the whisper... Maybe it wasn't a dream after all. But she didn't want to jump to any conclusions yet. She chose not to tell them about it.

"Something else killed her?"

Dustin finished Max's train of thought, and they looked at each other in worry, before looking at Willow. All three of their expressions were the same, a deep frown and fearful eyes.

"But that's impossible... right?"

Max tried to reason, but they were all thinking the same thing.

"I dunno.. it should be. There's only one person that actually knows what happened."

Dustin replied, and Willow nodded as she looked at them, speaking up.

"We need to find Eddie."

_________________________

Willow, Dustin and Max rode down the road on their bikes, speeding along as they were adamant on finding out where Eddie was. It wasn't often that Willow took her bike out for a spin, she preferred her car, her baby DeVille, but when Max and Dustin insisted on taking their bikes, Willow only felt safe being with them to watch over them and make sure they didn't get hurt.

The trio came up to Family Video and left their bikes strewn about outside, slamming through the doors and heading to the counter where Steve and Robin were working, and who were also very surprised to find their friends stomping about.

"Hey, Steve."

"You guys see this?"

Steve pointed back to the TV playing the news of the murder, but Dustin completely ignored his older friend, asking him a different question.

"How many phones do you have?"

"Someone was murdered."

Steve deadpanned, looking at them in disbelief, but Dustin just repeated the question.

"How many phones do you have?!"

"Two, why?"

"Technically three, if you count Keith's in the back."

Robin interjected, and the trio shared a look, nodding to each other. Three phones, that would work. Dustin threw his bag over the counter and started sliding across it, much to Robin and Steve's dismay who were yelling at him to stop. Willow rolled her eyes at her dumb brother and Max went around the counter, the normal way, but Willow was feeling just as adventurous as she hopped onto the counter and jumped over it like her brother, earning another round of complaints from her friends. She didn't care, she just stood there proudly with a grin.

Dustin sat at the computer and began typing away into the system, searching up the phone numbers of Eddie's friends as Steve continued to complain.

"What are you doing man?!"

"Setting up base of operations."

"Base of operations?"

Steve swatted at Dustin's hands as he tried to get him to stop, but Dustin continued. Willow grabbed the phones as Steve started to complain, rather jealously might I add, about "Dustin's new best friend Eddie", and Robin whined about how it was Saturday, the busiest day of the week for the small video store. Dustin turned to Willow and Max, tired of their complaints.

"Could you just fill them in while I do this?"

"Fill us in on what?"

Max and Willow shared a look, wondering who was going to break the news to them.

After Willow explained the whole situation to Steve and Robin, they set to work in the base of operations. Dustin looked up all the numbers and wrote them down, and they each grabbed a phone. Dustin, Robin and Max started off on the phones as Willow and Steve looked after the store, but Willow quickly took over for Dustin on the phone as he continued to do some research on the computer.

Willow was leaning against the counter, on the phone with Gareth the Great.

"Uh huh.. yeah.. ok, well thanks Gareth, if you find Eddie just let me know ok? Yeah I'm a little worried about him..."

Gareth must have said something odd to Willow, as her face turned completely red and she started stumbling over her words.

"W-What? No, no we just met. I just... forgot to tell him about an important assignment we have to do in biology this break... Yeah, that's all. Okay, well thanks again, and I'll see you after break, bye!"

Willow quickly hung up and sighed, trying to recollect herself. She pressed her cool hands to her hot cheeks, taking in a few deep breaths before turning back to the others.

"Hey guys, I might have a lead."

Max spoke up and we all turned to her, Robin putting down her phone and Dustin turning in his seat, looking excited at her. Willow smiled brightly, a glimmer of hope filling her as she completely forgot about what Gareth had asked her.

"Seriously?!"

Dustin had a hard time containing how thrilled he was.

"Yeah, apparently Eddie gets his drugs from some guy named Reefer Rick, and sometimes Eddie crashes there."

Max explained, and everyone shared a look as Robin spoke up.

"That sounds promising. Where does this Reefer Rick guy live?"

"See that's the thing, no one knows. He's more of a... a legend than someone that people actually know.

The group started to feel a little defeated, but they continued to question Max.

"Well what about a last name?"

"I don't know that either.."

"I bet the cops know a last name."

Everyone looked towards Steve as he finally spoke up, and Willow raised her brows in confusion.

"I mean listen, if this Reefer Rick is actually a drug dealer, I guarantee you he's been busted at some point, means he's in the system."

Steve leaned against the counter with a proud look, as if he thought he was some kind of genius, but the four of them just stared at him like the idiot he was. Willow was the first to speak up.

"The cops? What, we're just gonna waltz into the station and ask for some drug dealers address?"

Robin snorted at the blonde's words and Steve held his hands up in defence.

"I just think at this point they should be filled in on what we know, what's going on."

"You think Eddie's guilty don't you?"

Dustin accused him, and Steve immediately backed up.

"Woah woah, I believe in 'innocent until proven guilty', all that constitutional shit, I just, you know.. I just don't think we can rule it out."

"That's... precisely what we're tryna do here, Steve."

"And maybe we'd have a little bit more luck if you spent less time trying to find a girlfriend and more time trying to find Eddie!"

"Oh well somebody has to attend to the customers!"

"Especially if they're babes right?"

Robin winked at Steve and he pointed an accusing finger at her.

"Hey, not fair alright? I attend to all the customers equally, babes and non-babes alike. We've got a very big selection in here okay, it can be super overwhelming for these people."

As Steve tried to defend himself, Robin's eyes lit up as she made her way over to the computer, Willow following closely behind. Robin began typing away on the computer as Max asked her what she was doing.

"Maybe we don't need a last name. Twelve Ricks already have accounts here."

"That's a lot of Ricks.."

"So let's narrow it down."

Robin started going through the list of Ricks, looking at their latest purchases in the store. They chuckled at a few of the movies, but as Willow looked at the screen, her nose began to bleed and she pointed at a one Rick Lipton.

"Try him."

Robin clicked on it and as they chuckled at the selection, Steve handed Willow a tissue. She smiled at her friend and wiped her nose as the others wrote down Lipton's address. 2121 Holland Road, right down by Lovers Lake. They rushed out of the store and piled into Steve's car.

_________________________

As Steve drove them out to the location, the sun was slowly setting and Willow's eyes were fixated on the fiery colours of the sky. She smiled nostalgically at the sight, and she felt someone grip her hand beside her, turning to see it was Dustin. He smiled at her sadly, and she squeezed his hand in thanks at the reassurance. This didn't stop the flashbacks that came to her though.

A young 001 sat alone in a corner as she watched the other children play with toys in the rainbow room. They were moving the objects with their minds, and whilst 001 could do the same, she was still excluded from the other children. Not only was she older than most of them, her hair was not buzzed off, instead she had long locks of pale blonde hair down to her mid back. The others mocked her for this. It was fine, she preferred to be alone anyways.

"Number One?"

The voice startled the girl, and she turned to see a handsome blonde man smiling at her, holding out his hand. He was one of the men that looked after the children, an attendant, he was like an older brother to 001. He was a man, perhaps late 30s, but he looked younger than the other attendants, which reassured the young girl.

"You look lonely, all by yourself.. Do you want to play with me?"

001 smiled softly and nodded, taking his hand.

Willow was jolted back to reality as the car jerked to a stop. It was now dark outside, and the five of them got out of the car to walk up to the house. Dustin rang the doorbell insistently, over and over again, which made Willow snort, and he instead opted to bang on the door, shouting.

"Eddieeee?! It's Dustin!"

Steve wasn't too pleased with all the shouting as Dustin tried to convince Eddie to open the door, but Robin and Max looked in through the windows, frowning at how abandoned it looked. Willow started walking around the house, Max following not too far behind her, and she spotted a shed not too far from the house, a light lit outside it.

"Hey, guys?"

Max called back to them as Willow started walking towards the shed, catching their attention as they rounded the house and followed out after the adopted Henderson. They couldn't lie, they were pretty freaked out by the eerie boat shed, but with their psychic friend entering slowly first, they couldn't just leave her and her curiosity alone.

They all searched around the shed, calling out to see if anyone was there at first, but when no response came, they searched more thoroughly, Steve grabbing a boat oar and poking the shit out of the tarp on the boat.

"What are you doing?!"

"He might be in here."

"So take the tarp off!"

"If you're so brave, you take the tarp off."

Max lead Robin and Willow over to a table where a stray beer bottle and other knick knacks lay.

"Someone was here."

"Maybe he heard us. Got spooked and ran."

"Don't worry, Steve will get him with his oar."

Dustin chimed in sarcastically, and Steve huffed, starting to go off on a tangent about all the dangerous situations the group had gotten themselves into.

"I know you think you're being funny Henderson, but considering the fact that everyone in this room has nearly died a hundred times, personally, I don't find it funny in the slight--"

Steve was suddenly interrupted as a dark shadow came out from under the tarp and attacked him, pushing him up against the wall and holding a broken beer bottle to his neck.

Everyone screamed in surprise as they found it was Eddie pinning Steve dangerously to the wall, the latter holding his hands up in defence.

"Woah woah woah Eddie, Eddie stop! Eddie! It's me! It's Dustin!"

Dustin tried to calm him down, but Eddie seemed threatened by Steve's presence, clearly not trusting him. He seemed scared and erratic, something had clearly spooked him and Willow had a feeling it wasn't Steve.

Showing no signs of letting Harrington go, Dustin turned to his sister.

"Willow do something!"

Willow took slow steps towards Eddie, who only tensed up with each step she took closer, his eyes flicking back and forth between her and Steve.

"Eddie... Keep your eyes on me."

Willow spoke softly in her usual dreamy voice, it was almost like she was trying to lull Munson to sleep. When she got close to him, she placed one hand lightly on his shoulder and the other on his chin, forcing him to look into her eyes, like she had done with Max that morning. After a few seconds, Eddie's shoulders immediately relaxed as he felt a wave of calm wash over him, slowly letting go of Steve as he was completely focused on the blonde girl in front of him. Blood started to drip down her nose.

"Your nose..."

He mumbled as he brought his hand up and wiped it away, and Willow smiled at him, she had successfully calmed him down, but after using her powers for the third time already that day, she felt a little light headed. Nevertheless, she reassured him.

"I'm okay.. And you're okay too, Eddie, we're here to help you."

She slowly let go of his chin, but kept her hand on his shoulder as she turned to look at the group, nodding at them, signalling that he was okay, he was calm now. He was calm, but his eyes glossed over as he seemed to remember the night before, and he slowly slid down the wall to sit, taking everything in. Dustin came over beside Willow and they both crouched down in front of him.

"Eddie... We just want to talk."

"We want to know what happened."

Robin came over and tried to back up Dustin, but tears slowly started to rise in the club leader's eyes.

"You won't believe me.."

He whimpered, and Willow felt her heart break for the poor boy. Oh he had no idea. But she looked up at the others, and they all seemed to silently agree that the best thing to do was to tell him.

"Try us."

Max spoke up with a challenging stare, and Eddie looked at all of them, suddenly confused. Their consoling looks seemed to lead him to trust them, and when he looked towards Willow, who gave him a reassuring smile, he began to tell them what he saw that night.

Chrissy floating.

Her bones snapping into unnatural positions.

Her eyes popping. 

"I... I didn't know what to do, so I... I ran away. I left her there... You all think I'm crazy right?"

He scoffed as he turned away from them, and Willow shook her head, Dustin speaking up.

"No, we don't think you're craz--"

"Look don't bullshit me, man! I know how this sounds!"

"We're not bullshitting you."

"We believe you."

Eddie huffed, clearly not convinced, but Willow piped up.

"Eddie.. you have no idea how much we believe you right now."

He looked up, furrowing his brows in confusion, and Dustin scooted closer to his sister, holding her hand. He could tell she was upset at Eddie's state, and that his next words might affect her.

"Look.. What I'm about to tell you might be a little... difficult to take. You know how people say Hawkins is... cursed? They're not... way off. There's another world. A world hidden beneath Hawkins."

"A world where demons and nightmares come to life."

Willow spat out, gripping Dustin's hand tight as tears rose in her eyes. Dustin held his sister's hand with both of his now, continuing on.

"Sometimes it bleeds into ours."

"Like ghosts and shit...?"

"There are some things... worse than ghosts."

"These monsters from this other world... we thought they were gone. But they've come back before, and that's why we needed to find you."

"If they're back again, we need to know."

As Willow looked up to her friends, they begun their investigation, asking questions about last night.

"That night, did you see anything?"

"Dark particles maybe?"

Unfortunately, Eddie just shook his head.

"It would almost look like dust, swirling dust."

"No man, there was nothing you could see, or uh... or touch. You know I tried to wake her man. She couldn't move."

Willow looked up and furrowed her brows at Eddie.

"Like a trance?"

He looked over at her, wondering how she had guessed.

"Yeah, like a.. like a trance or something."

"Or under a spell."

Dustin concluded, and he and Eddie shared a look.

"A curse."

"Vecna's curse."

"Who's Vecna?"

Steve questioned, and Willow could see the fear growing in Dustin's eyes.

"An undead creature of great power."

"A spell caster.."

"A dark wizard."

—•—
author's note 。

It cracks me up because there are still people complaining about the fact she is 001 when I explained it so many times, it's not a mistake, it's on purpose, I swear I'm not dumb 😭

It makes me nervous that so many people commented on it even after I made the author's note and it made me plan to completely rethink the story, even almost made me stop writing it all together because I felt like people wouldn't like the plot idea I had in mind for Willow, but I gotta perseveeere, it'll all be worth it in the end I hope :')

But we finally got a look into Willow's powers! >:D And a small flashback with the original 001 ;)

I wasn't expecting to gain so much traction but I love all you so much, thank you for sticking around <3333

Lots of love,
𝔎𝔥𝔞𝔬𝔰 。