Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter Eighty

Chapter Eighty: Back to December

Annie worked through all the happy memories she could as she ran down and away from the attic. When she finally got to the bottom, she nearly face planted into the door trying to get to it. When she threw it open, however, the exit was covered up with boards.

"Where are you going, Annie?" She turned around and saw Vecna at the top of the stairs.

She didn't wait around, and ran for a different door. When she got to one, throwing it open once again just revealed more boards. "Damn it!" she cried, pulling on the boards to see if that would work.

It didn't work, so she moved on to finding yet another door. "Such a big house, not enough doors," Annie muttered as she found a third. It yielded the same, awful results.

The fourth revealed not boards, but what looked like a hospital door with a window. "Annie!" someone shrieked, and Holly's face came into view on the other side of the window, her fist slamming on the glass.

Annie stumbled back and turned to look for another way out, but was met with boards all around.

Another bang on the door caught her attention, and now Meghan was next to Holly, slamming her fist down on the glass. "You freak! You sad excuse for a friend! Let us out!" she yelled.

As they slammed into the door more and more, Annie shut her eyes tight and thought of her happy memory. Max told her to hide in the light, since Vecna finds the darkness. All she had to do was think of something happy enough to keep Vecna away long enough.

She scoured her memories, starting to tune out the pounding on the door. So many things came to mind, so many people. But her mind landed on one place.

New Years Eve of 1985. When her and Max shared their first New Year's kiss outside in her backyard. Where it was just them and the stars millions of miles away. That night, she felt so calm and so happy with Max. Because it was just them against the world.

And she was okay with that.

Despite the fact that Holly and Meghan hd broken through the door and would be rushing Annie any second, she kept her eyes shut and focused on her thoughts. Her happy, wonderful thoughts.

Air rushed past her and she opened her eyes with a gasp. But she was no longer surrounded by the dark, decaying Creel home. She was surrounded by trees- her trees. And there was a covered pool in front of her. When she turned she saw the house behind her.

"I did it," she whispered to herself. She was hiding in the light.

Looking in the house, there were no people, but she saw the setup was the exact same as that night, with the game in the middle of the coffee table, snacks surrounding it, and the television set was on, but Annie couldn't see it well enough from where she was.

"Okay," Annie whispered. She figured she'd wait around inside the house for a bit.

Annie sat on the kitchen counter and listened to the chatter of the TV in the background. It was some part of Dick's New Years Eve special. She wasn't paying a lot of attention to it at the time, though.

Annie smiled as she thought about the Party sitting around the coffee table playing games. She could even hear laughter from that night, echoing distantly.

She remembered the older teens hanging out in the kitchen and talking, pretending to be too cool for games, even though they joined in after midnight came and went. They had stayed down there playing until about one or two in the morning.

By that time, everyone was pretty much on the verge of crashing. Annie let out an actual laugh as she remembered Lucas and Dustin collapsing back and just sleeping on the living room floor.