𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝘾𝙃𝙄𝙀𝙁 𝙃𝙊𝙋𝙋𝙀𝙍                         

𝔻𝔼𝔸ℝ      𝔼𝔻𝔻𝕀𝔼      𝕄𝕌ℕ𝕊𝕆ℕ,                               (hellmartyr​)

𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐕𝐎𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐆𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐍 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍 bombarded the theater with rapacious glee. metallic barks followed gluttonous drops as they sniffed out every crevice, every surface, like foxhounds in pursuit of their eponymous prey. the accompanying winds were equally ruthless, tearing at the woods that outlined campus. roots moaned in an uncanny human chorus as they clung to clods of drowned soil. barks of thunder followed claws of fearsome light, incensed by the trees’ refusal to surrender their centennial roosts.

      eddie munson had given up on music as he labored by candlelight. layers of rebar and concrete couldn’t placate the stormy quarrel, and each time the most satisfying part of a song was about to assail his eardrums — a peal of thunder injected a riff of its own. thus he surrendered to the company of silence, interrupted only by the echoes of his own activity and nature’s bitchy roiling.

      but at least tonight’s premier bullshit worked in his favor. normally goblin’s three hundred sixty days of downpour lacked an inspiring ambiance for campaigns set in sandy tombs of reanimated kings or crystalline caverns carved deep within an ivory castle. this semester was different; four months of adventuring ( and a previous summer of planning ) brought the members of the hellfire club to a gothic crypt and its restless denizens. here, in the belly of a diabolical mansion torn between the material plane and an eldritch parallel, heroes would face their most dastardly foes yet while negating the sadistic twists their dungeon master had slithering in his sleeves.

      the wild-haired eccentric was always one to set a stage for the finale. what started as simple seasoning grew more and more elaborate over the past six years. eddie was determined to make this night of zenith revelry one to remember. his swan song before graduation. a didactic legacy for all dms who thought themselves worthy of his draconian lineage.

      last year’s after-halloween sales had given the youngest munson an idea. he raided what was left on the clean-picked shelves of pop-up shops and every discount store in the county. over the next several months, added to his growing stockpile via regular visits to every bargain dealer within reach of his cough-and-hack brick of a van.

      his uncle’s trailer became a slaughterhouse of creativity. cheap curtains shredded and stained by hand hung from the ceiling while sheets and shirts lingering long past their natural lifespans were cut-up on the floor. testing anything at school was too risky; the hellfire club was made up of a clever bunch. so, his uncle wayne was forced to endure several months of embellishing chaos as eddie turned their small home into a dollar store’s rendition of a haunted house.

      by mid-january the bulk of the backdrop was done. eddie packed it into two old moving boxes and stored them in the corner of his room where it silently teased him till the momentous day. the time between was spent on finishing touches: spray painted candelabras, disposable wine glasses transformed into jewel encrusted goblets, plastic skulls smeared in coffee and dirt, and a cathedrals worth of white candles.

      now those latter bastards had been his bane. eddie pre-burned half of the lot while he melted down the rest to be reforged in various shades of black and red. he trawled candle making books for how to do it, but fell back on good ol’ trial and error since he lacked just about every damn thing the instructions called for. but, after coating the trailer’s kitchenette in a waxy film for two weeks, the young man succeeded and gave rise to one of his favorite decorations: a skull with a black cherry candle burning through its head, twin flows oozing out its sockets like offerings of an unholy sacrament.

      wayne was visibly relieved when his nephew loaded everything into his van last night, yet still commented on how neat it was all going to be once eddie set it up. months of work, now lambasted all over the theater, looking just how its creator envisioned it … or at least a realistic interpretation. and in all fairness, the decorum looked a little less — thrifty — in the moody lighting.

      reaping what he’d sown at last, eddie glanced at his watch. done and with plenty of time to spare. if the storm kept up its scathing temper ( knowing goblin’s visceral hatred for all things breathing, it would ), then tonight, hellfire was really going to taste the truth of their namesake —

      eddie’s head jerked up as the weathered doors keened open. a pillar of dim light cut through the pitch of the theater’s innards. an elongated shadow stretched over the foyer as munson dropped low.

      shit — why were the guys so early? were they planning something too?

      fist balled tightly, teeth grinding his lower lip in a row of frustration. careful to avoid any unwanted sneaker squeaks, eddie crept around the table into recesses so opaque the candles’ sultry lighting wouldn’t dare breach it. if the boys hoped to get the drop on him, there was a price to pay for attempting to outplay the master.

@greenscrunchy, this is for you

goblin high school was haunted. at least, it was supposed to be.

there’s no proof besides stories, the customary churning water wheel of rumours that flowed ceaselessly through cracked linoleum-lined hallways. arteries from a heart in which children were flung loose, but goblin was so famous for its tall tales that every one of them might as well have been set in stone. perfectly preserved history. so wild they had to be true. repeated and repeated and repeated, religiously cradled in the minds of the peculiarly suburban city dwellers of goblin. when a small city operated like an even smaller town, there had to be something keeping everyone spinning.

of course it would be the ghosts.

among whom were the phantoms of the senior class royal couple that tracked chrissy cunningham down the corridor leading away from the basketball court, floating just behind the squeak of her sneakers all the way from the wood-paneled gymnasium to wherever it is she was trying to escape. a foxhole she needed to decide upon quickly before she ended up in a circle right where she started from, the place she wanted to be the least. 

at her back, raucous cheers rumbled still from throats packing the gym. goblin’s marauders had won the basketball championship game, thoroughly shocking all onlookers to the point of pure frenzy. even chrissy let the momentary thrill consume her, shaking wild pompoms along with her entire stunned squad. all it took was a foul, a timeout, and a benchwarmer launching his perfectly timed gamble into the air for a nail-biting three pointer no doubt already being carved in the annals of goblin legend. the basketball had swished through the net against a backdrop of a final buzzer. thunder to rival even goblin skies’ best and boomiest rattled the foundations of the gym until even the buried-upright dead in the graveyard miles away could feel so many joyous vibrations. 

an unlikely win from an unlikely source. no one present would ever forget it and wouldn’t keep it to themselves. it would make the goblin post before sunday. 

enthusiasm befitting of a true sportswoman buoyed chrissy until before the amoebic goblin high crowd could even begin to think of oozing off the court and into the downpour outside, washing slurries of the away team with them. an indoor tennis match would follow not long behind, somewhat of a downturn in excitement after such a triumph for the basketball team. but around here, the rain made the rules. initial celebrations could not last forever - and chrissy had to get out before anyone tried to pull her attention. particularly, especially, jason. his prior pep rally stunt was the only one of its kind she could bear after a week of heightened pda; all for show to hammer home goblin’s worth as the next district champions. goblin had the team, and the team captain had the girl. (until teenage throngs abandoned the couple for more riveting objects of affection and jason melted into the shadows to wrap his arm around lizzie miller.)

meanwhile chrissy ticked down seconds until she could bolt from the room he was in, with the additional bonus that no one should be able to ascertain the source of her disquiet lest her performance be revealed as just that: a performance and a sham.

the hallway ahead stretched longer and longer, calling to mind a frustratingly pliable piece of taffy on a summer afternoon. it kept going, and going, and going. a monstrous unfairness when all chrissy wanted was a simple getaway, tucked out of sight from swaths of paper banners drowned in every drop of purple and green paint goblin high school could wrap their wet, wrinkled hands around.

nothing but purple and green. chrissy hated purple and green. purple and green together. the fluttering rustle of pompoms clutched white-knuckled in both hands mocked her, their vomitous, plastine shine reflecting goblin high’s storm-lit passages. separated, she didn’t mind the colors too terribly much. even a rare violent in the grass was more pleasant. but in school all bets at their joint attractiveness were off. 

a metallic clang punctuated the now distant rumble of sports fanatics and thunder combined. chrissy stuffed her pompoms into the depths of her locker, out of sight at last, exchanging them for the soft pink corduroy of her backpack. its weight comfortably settled the pumping desire to take flight far, far away although not enough to quell her urge to hide. 

somewhere. there had to be somewhere quiet and dark she could wait out her tides of discontentment apart from the ghosts. maybe.....

there was one possibility. enough of one that chrissy’s feet took off again, chasing down the faint illusion of privacy. down the main hallway to the right, past the a.v. closet, past the principle’s office and the coachs’ offices, veering to the left toward the science lab, the school nurse, and just beyond....the theater. perfect. 

like a blessing from heaven, the enormous doors hung open juuuuust a sliver. 

in a flash chrissy bolted for the alluring dark ribbon of silent freedom. mere moments later she’d dragged one door open enough to slip inside. the answering darkness was almost dizzyingly relaxing in comparison to the shadowy high school corridors now echoing signs of life; students were emerging from the gym and she’d been just in time to miss all the action.

her forehead met the cool surface of the doors as she shut them decisively. heavy exhales gusted against the metal until she could wrangle her heartbeat back in check. only for it to halt completely when a rustle split the curtain of silence.

solitude rendered itself an illusion. 

trepidation tempered a one-eighty pivot to investigate the source and weighed down painfully on her heel. a strange terror built as her peripherals picked up on a flickering light that multiplied with each centimeter exposed. more, more, and  —

the full revelation of why lay behind resulted in startled howl.

as a cheerleader, most would imagine chrissy’s voice capable of projecting powerfully across any open space. reality was far less impressive. instead of a mighty, rousing shout, all chrissy was capable of was a high pitched, elongated squeak. nevertheless, it communicated the same thing.

                                            ❝ OHMYGOD! ❞

spread across the room was a rippling tableau of yawning skulls dripping in waxy blood, goblets filling unsettlingly with dark liquid, and scattered glimmers of who knew what all over a rich tablecloth in pitch hues. everywhere the dull, ghostly white of bone and insidious sparkle of metal sent candlelight ricocheting across the theater. among the instruments of death, almost randomly but not quite, were placed multiple kinds of dice and miniature figures looking frozen from battle.

not even the zombified goblin police could compare to the sensation of wrongness filling the room. whatever she’d stumbled upon, it couldn’t possibly be good. 

i need everyone to know that this is how chrissy reacts to hearing live metal for the first time.

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙈𝙐𝙍𝙍𝘼𝙔 𝘽𝘼𝙐𝙈𝘼𝙉                           ( congregaticn ​)

@greenscrunchy​​ asked: ❝ i don’t even know how to describe it. i’ve never seen anything like it. ❞    ( murray! )

    - from stranger things s4 starters ( x ). 

    “ Of course, you haven’t seen anything like it. It’s–” He had to stop himself from saying something too aggressive like he normally would. The poor girl looked shaken up as it was. And she was a kid. And the last thing he wanted to deal with was a crying teenager. “It doesn’t want to be seen. More importantly, it’s not even supposed to be here. Crazy how that works, huh?” Still, he leaned forward with his hands folded together, obviously intent on listening to everything the blonde had to say. “Give me as much of a description as you can, yeah? Can’t really help if I got nothing to go off of except ‘ never seen anything like it. ’”

he’s helping. he’s helping. talking to her like she’s made of porcelain and would shatter at a moment’s notice if he said the wrong thing, which chrissy previously thought she’d learned to tolerate but apparently had not after, well....coming back from the dead. new chrissy had vastly different preferences, now. but murray is helping, she repeated, and swallowed down all thoughts of clinical insanity and tried to begin someplace concrete.

                    ❝ imagine the biggest spider you’ve ever seen. ❞  nope, still insane. all the indecision between giving a full confession and sounding less like she had a thousand screws rattling loose inside her head made for too much internal competition, too big for her skull. chrissy shook her head almost violently trying to wipe the distraction away.  ❝ a huge spider, but with a head that could almost be human? except it was just wrong enough not to be human. and it didn’t have eight legs. i think it was five....or six. ❞  just the foggiest recollection made her shiver with dread again and curl into herself.  ❝ i thought i might see vecna again...but not this. ❞

a million years later but it never felt more right 🧡 the biggest, BIGGEST thank you to sky for this gorgeous piece with my favorite troubled trio!

A commissioned sketch for @greenscrunchy of Steve, Chrissy, and Eddie looking very concerned! I always love an opportunity to draw the babies- thank you so much for commissioning me!!

game day thrills came and faded all too quickly. sometimes it didn’t matter what rung of the championship ladder hawkins was on (or falling off), the whole school was filled with high voltage anticipation bordering on deadly. from the knife’s edge of the inner circle, chrissy watched as weeks leading up to important games spawn everything from handmade spirit shirts to garish posters on walls and on lockers, even culminating in creative little chants some students would come up with to shout during the game itself. never mind that there was an entire troupe of girls created for such a purpose. nevertheless something about their enthusiasm did rouse a consistent smile from chrissy — and assured her that her significantly softer cheers might go unnoticed.

when the day itself finally dawned, until the gym began filling “game day” mostly meant rushing to and from extra routine run-throughs and a day of wearing the uniform. the former was more enjoyable than annoying, and the latter was so non-negotiable that chrissy nearly abandoned feeling any way at all. she’d borderline coveted the sleek look all through middle school as if mere cloth had the power to change her life, the elegantly embroidered swoops of her name on a sweater heralding a new era of chrissy cunningham at her best and brightest. for the first few weeks of high school cheer, those dreams seemed almost corporeal. then she learned how often her bare legs would sprout goosebumps when someone’s eyes lingered too long. it took a year, but she’d successfully trained herself out of tugging at the hem after nearly pulling it off completely. 

almost worse than her self-consciousness was how jason seemed to earn his badge of “tiger” on those days, prowling around with narrowed eyes in chrissy’s wake just in case someone looked at her wrong. but there was a solution for that; sitting with jason at lunch eased his high hackles enough that he could be borderline pleasant in the hallways. in that regard the boys’ table, infinitely worse in its volleys of conversation than her squad’s, was a well-met sacrifice.

now the quarter final was upon the hawkins tigers and the high school buzzed like a provoked nest of hornets. the seniors were down one player in steve harrington, still recovering from a beating of comic book proportions, yet their “winner’s spirits” remained high and their thirst for the proverbial blood of their opponents was….interesting. the kind of make-it-or-break-it intense only high school basketball players were capable of, chrissy hoped.

the moment came at last for the levy to break and a stream of green and orange to joyously spill across the basketball court like a prairie sunset in summer. pompoms flew, legs kicked, and for the entirety of their opening routine chrissy let the blood in her veins scream to the beat of the hawkins band. gosh, was she proud of her squad. and in the middle of choreographed melee, proud of herself, too. her flier sequences were only getting tighter with each practice. while her timing had never been sloppy, the feeling of becoming one with the squad pulled her from the void of her self assurance for precious minutes at a time. 

but, as always, all that pep never lasted long enough and before chrissy knew it she was on her knees at the edge of court with the rest of the girls. normally she'd people watch while trying to keep a closely tracked eye on squeaky-shoed boys as they hopped from one end of the room to another. except her curiosity had pinned itself to a very bruised, very benched harrington. the hair was only a fraction less meticulous in its typical sculpt and his rainbow of wounds announced through a spectrum of purples and greens that they were at least healing. he just looked so tired. the kind of exhaustion that couldn’t be remedied, only pushed through. 

barely ten minutes had passed before chrissy could no longer stomach the sight. under cover of a set of free throws for the away team, she squirreled her way from the middle of the squad lineup toward the bench, only almost tripping over someone’s fingers and toes one time each. 

once at steve’s side she wasted enough time waffling over how firmly to tap him on the shoulder that the game had resumed in earnest. so, she gingerly poked him in the arm while trying to speak against the din. 

                            ❝ um, steve? are you sure you’re okay? you don’t look li — ❞  students erupted as hawkins snatched the ball and made a dash toward their hoop. chrissy dutifully wiggled her pompoms ‘til the action moved once more toward center court.  ❝ —  i mean i was just wondering, is it too loud? ❞

                                   a note for @starsinshadows​’ steve harrington

𝔹𝔸𝕐𝕆ℝ 𝕆ℂ𝔸𝕄ℙ𝕆'𝕊 𝕄𝕀𝕏𝕋𝔸ℙ𝔼  X  𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝒸𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓈𝓎     @athousandmilesandcounting​

time wants me around, give my word to the gravediggers ( middle of nowhere - vancouver sleep clinic )  /  i wanna be like the future shine high on a new horizon ( future shine - flor )  /  we made our beds and we'll make our own choices ( renegades - one ok rock )  /  we swore in autumn’s wake we carry ourselves out ( in autumn - greywind )

Susan Sontag, from “Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963″

[hoarsely] is everyone ok

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙈𝙎. 𝙎𝙐𝙈𝙈𝙀𝙍𝙎                         (blueminke​)

@greenscrunchy​​     /     chrissy   &   kacey   !

SHE’S THE LAST ONE IN THE CLASSROOM, which isn’t too far out of the norm, carefully placing her belongings into her purse - pencils, pens, wallet, car keys… she swings the bag’s strap over her shoulder as she’s preparing to head out for the day. It’s then that the door to the science classroom peeks open, causing her head to reel to the entryway. OH, CHRISSY… Painted lips curl into a pleasant smile as she stands up from her desk chair to approach the young woman. She knows that it’s been more than difficult for the poor girl to readjust to her life in Hawkins after everything that’s happened, but in the very least, she’s happy to be supportive. “Are you okay, honey?”

chrissy still heard the bats. no matter that she was in the right-side-up now, demobat screeches hid beneath the otherwise inoffensive chirping of nearby birds. the stratified sound grated against nerves in her spinal cord more frigidly than avian silhouettes on a powerline after watching the birds for the first time. hitchcock, for all his mangled and twisty brilliance, could never have fabricated a fear that clung close as breath itself.

rich sunlight washed into ms. summers’ classroom with all the syrupy golden ease of late afternoon, bouncing cheerfully against zeus’s terrarium. the corn snake lounged on a rock feature close to the glass wall, tongue tasting the air now and again. but suddenly the snake’s head turned toward chrissy still at her desk. creature and human locked eyes for a moment, transfixed, until the snake opened his mouth and hissed that time was up. 

the words seemed to come from miles away. chrissy still jumped and surrendered to a moment of spiky adrenaline which forcibly brought her wandering mind back to attention. it wasn’t zeus at all but ms. summers closing out class discussion. chrissy blinked wildly and organized her assignment folders, stuffed her backpack, and walked out like a zombie in a fog.

that was yesterday. 

today the smell of smoke follows her everywhere like it’s trapped in her nostrils. she waves at her friends with a weaker arm than last month even though graduation creeps ever closer. her grades are getting better by centimeters. except life, existence still doesn’t feel grounded when she keeps the truth of the upside down held so close. and it is the truth. but how real is the truth when almost no one knows?

                       ❝ trying. ❞  pathetic. chrissy can do so much better than whispering from the crack in the door.  ❝ today was okay. i’m going to my friend’s house later to help with cleaning up the last of the rubble on their street. ❞  one shoulder has ticked up as she tries to pour her discomfort somewhere else.  ❝  i just....i wondered if i could ask you something? about the earthquake. and....why i got lost. because there’s parts of what happened that scare me. ❞  please, her brain begs as chrissy finally dares to look her kind, pink-cheeked teacher straight in the eye. please don’t think i’m crazy.

well, it was a life worth saving.               /              @galaxycrxss​ (echo)

                          ❝ yours is too. ❞  

as if in deathly agreement - or disdain - a demobat screeched from somewhere far off. chrissy felt shivers wrack from her shoulders all the way down her spine like frigid minnows; one demobat close enough to hear was one too close, in her humble opinion. the hollow in which they huddled felt marginally warmer than the shadows outside and for that she was grateful, but warmth could not defend against dread in this dark underworld. 

                         ❝ you’ve done so well to stay alive down here. i don’t think i could have. it’s not life, though. you should be home with your brother. ❞  easier said than done, if still true. it solidified the roiling, everpresent discomfort roiling in chrissy’s gut to watch the bags stretch below echo’s eyes and track the aches of survival made physical across the poor boy’s frame. this form of him looked nothing like the echo she’d so often spotted supporting his exuberant twin on the sidelines just above and behind the cheer squad during games. a not-so-special edition of the real echo who needed to be anywhere else but here and could he please take her with him? him to his sibling and her to matty. 

                         ❝ there’s got to be a way out. right? ❞