Love Is A Battlefield (A Stranger Things/Steve Harrington Fanfiction)

Chapter Seventy-Six: What No One Else Can

"Who are you talking to?!" The boy exclaimed.

"Fred..." I froze, my heartrate spiking as I heard that same deep, gruesome voice that had spoken to Chrissy and I moments before her death. We both slowly turned around to see that the grave had opened up into a tunnel, and the creature was heading right for us.

"Fred, come here." I held my hands out, setting them up so that he could step into them and I could boost him out of the grave.

"What? I don't-"

"Now is not the time to argue with me, Fred! Do what I tell you if you want to live!" He nodded, putting his hands on my shoulders and his foot in my hands, stepping up into them. It wasn't like the kid was particularly heavy, but just as I began lifting him up to the edge of the grave, another one of those veiny tentacles from before wrapped around my ankle, pulling my legs out from beneath me. I dropped Fred and went sliding across the ground, kicking wildly as I tried to free myself from their grasp. "NO! FRED, DON'T LET IT TOUCH YOU! DON'T LET IT-"

The tentacles wrapped around my mouth, keeping me from talking as they pulled me to lay beside the dead, decaying body. I  strained my muscles, fighting against them as hard as I could, but the more I fought it seemed the tighter they became.

"That Night," Robin's voice floated in, "Did you see anything?"

"Dark particles, maybe?"

Fred backed up against the wall of the grave, and I kept trying to scream at him through the tentacle wrapped around my mouth. He looked at me with wide eyes and I shook my head as much as I could, moving my wrists around as I tried to signal to him again not to let this creature touch him.

"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. It was like she...she was in a trance or something."

"Or under a spell."

"A curse."

"Vecna's curse."

"What do you want?" Fred sobbed as the monster came to a slow, squelching stop in front of him. I screamed, jerking up against my bindings as tears streamed down my face.

"I want you," The creature answered, "To join me."

"Who's Vecna?"

"No, no, no, no..." The creature lifted his hands to Fred's face, and I started screaming.

"An undead creature of great power."

He dug his hands into Fred's face, jerking his head back and I let out a final sobbing cry, closing my eyes as images of his breaking bones filled my  mind.

"A spell caster."

"A dark wizard."

"Riley?"

"Oh gosh, is it happening again? Its happening again, isn't it?! Oh she's gonna die, all her bones are gonna snap-"

"No, guys, I think this...whatever's happening to Riley, I think its different. I mean, that creature she saw, the one she says killed Chrissy, didn't she mention it saying that she didn't belong there?"

"Yeah, but belong where?! We don't know where she's supposed to be or how she ended up there or-"

My eyes burst open, and I probably would've tumbled forward off of the table I was sitting on if Steve, who had been crouched on the floor in front of me, hadn't caught me with his hands on my arms.