mercy ; peter ballard

15. glimpse of us

she looked up at him as he asked, "do you want to talk about it?"

"not really," she sighed. "it wasn't very pleasant."

"are you sure?" he said,

"yeah."

peter planted another kiss on her head. "okay, sleep well, dear."

beatrice's eyes began to close as they became heavy.

march 27, 1986

max leaned against kitchen doorframe as they all were scattered around the room. the group sat around beatrice's living room, processing the events of the previous night and the fact beatrice was like eleven. it wasn't that important to them anymore. what was important was analyzing vecna's plan and stopping him.

"he showed me things that haven't happened yet," nancy said, hoarsely. "the most awful things. i saw...a dark cloud spreading over hawkins. downtown on fire. dead soldiers. and this giant creature with...a gaping mouth. and this creature wasn't alone. there were so many monsters. an army. and they were coming into hawkins. into our neighbourhoods. our homes. and then...he showed me my mom. and holly. mike. and they...they were all..."

nancy began to cry, cutting her sentence off.

"okay, but...he's just trying to scare you, nance," steve tries to reason. "right? i mean...it's not real."

"not yet," she whispered. "but there...there was something else. he showed me gates. four gates. spreading across hawkins. and these gates looked like the one outside of eddie's trailer. but...they didn't stop growing. and this wasn't the upside-down hawkins. this was our hawkins. our home."

the room was quiet. it felt icy cold.

"four chimes," max broke the silence. "vecna's clock. it always chimes four times. four exactly."

"i heard them, too," nancy said, lowly.

"so did i," beatrice exhaled.

max shakes her head. "he's been telling us his plan this whole time."

"four kills," lucas connects. "four gates...end of the world."

"if that's true," dustin spoke. "he's only one kill away."

"oh, jesus! jesus christ!" eddie covers his face, stressed.

steve points max to the phone in the kitchen. "try 'em again. try 'em again."

max walks over to the kitchen and dials the number on the keypad. it rang for a moment before the busy signal sounded. max hung up the phone.

eleven stood in the dark void, on the watery floor. she could see her friends and a couple of pieces of furniture scattered around. she walked closer to them.

"anything?" dustin inquired.

max sighed. "no. rang a few times, then went to a busy signal."