A life less ordinary ||~~Elax/Elmax~~||

The Greatest Show on Earth

A/N so, final chapter, its quite long...my apologies

Mike was right, virtually the whole town had turned out to celebrate Hawkins 150-year anniversary. Most of the towns shops were shut, many traders having stalls at the festival. There was a massive fairground set up, free food galore, entertainment, everything to make it an event to remember.

Two hours in and Dustin had already made himself feel ill from the amount of food he'd eaten, not helped as Will and Lucas kept wafting their cotton candy under his nose and asking if he wanted any.

"Hey Dustin, you want to go on the spinning cups?" joked Max, making everyone laugh at the color his face went.

"Come on guys, let's go over to the stands over there" said Mike, starting to walk off. As he did so El grabbed Max's forearm tightly.

"El, are you ok?" asked Max worriedly.

"Yeah" she said nodding, "I...I just feel a bit tired, I just need to sit down when we get there, ok?" While the rest of the gang were exploring the nearby stands and stall, El sat holding her throbbing head in her hands, surreptitiously wiping the blood coming from her nose.

Despite all the weather reports, and the glorious sunshine that started off the day, the sky was starting to turn an ominous color. Clouds in strange formations slowly rolled across the sky gradually dimming the light from the sun, and that's when people began to notice the strange redness of the light now reaching them, then the rumbling within the Earth began. People didn't panic, they had been feeling the small tremors and quakes for months, hence the arrival of the USGS team sent by the government, they were there to monitor the situation and ensure the townsfolk were safe, right? The fact that the tremors seemed stronger than ever and that the entire survey team were at the festival looking as nervous as everyone else was just a misunderstanding...right?

An eerie silence fell among the crowd, they had subconsciously all picked up on a shift in the atmosphere, the air becoming thick and heavy, suddenly a large shake of the Earth sent many of the Hawkins denizens sprawling to the ground. Distracted by the commotion, they all failed to notice the shadow looming on the horizon, just beyond the vision of the human eye, details hidden by the billowing clouds that now seemed to join the earth to the sky.

Only one person was unaffected by the commotion of people tumbling, ignoring the cries of children hurt and scared by falling down, people helping others to stand, ensuring they were uninjured. One person amongst all stood resolutely facing the horizon, knowing the inevitable path that must be taken.

"W...w...what the hell is that?!" shouted one of the traders, pointing to the clouds being parted by an enormous...something. Whatever it was started to slowly emerge from its cloud covered hiding place and made its way towards the crowd. It was still over half a mile away and moved awkwardly, like it had too many limbs, or it wasn't used to this environment, but everyone could see it was huge.

There was very little panic, people were almost too frightened to scream and run, all subconsciously knowing that it would only draw the thing's attention further. As it approached it paused and made a disturbing loud screeching noise. Everyone backed away slowly, but they were trapped, the whole town was trapped with nowhere to run.

The gang were all stood in a row open mouthed, not knowing what to think. A movement caught Mike's eye and he looked over to El who was looking right at him with a strange look on her face. She was trying to tell him something without words, trying to put an idea into his mind, so he concentrated, it was hard considering the circumstances, but when he realized what it was he shook his head vehemently 'no'. She nodded hers slowly in return, telling him again. He paused, not wanting to acknowledge her words, but he acquiesced and, closing his eyes and turning his head away slightly, nodded. He slowly started walking.