landslide

x.

「ten」

Daisy!

"How are you- you're- here- how- you- how are you here?" Eliza cried, grabbing onto her friend's arms. The other girl was real. Physical under her hands. Eliza let out a sob and brought one hand up to her mouth.

Daisy stepped over a vine. "How are you down here? Why are you-"

Eliza pulled Daisy in for a hug. The tightest, most eager hug she had given in a long time. The lost friend who had been considered dead by everyone in town; alive, well, and surviving in the Upside Down! Eliza would have thought it to be impossible.

"You're alive," she mumbled. She buried her face in Daisy's grown-out curls, giggling in hysterics. "You're alive! You're alive!"

Daisy rubbed her back. Eliza Harrington was here. "Why are you here?" Daisy whispered. She considered this for a moment and came to a harsh realization. Eliza Harrington was here. Her voice of relief soon turned into one of horror.

Daisy pushed Eliza away. "You can't be down here! He'll find you!"

"Vecna? I know about that," Eliza told her.

"What?"

Eliza didn't answer. "How did you survive this long? It's been a year, Daisy! How are you here? How are you not..." Eliza struggled to find the appropriate words, staring at Daisy's many fresh scars. Her once porcelain face was now adorned with two marks down her left cheek, and one across her lip. "What happened to you, D?"

"I can't explain. Lizzie, you need to get out of here! Now!" Daisy pulled her into the hallway. She commanded with force but kept her voice low. "He'll hear you! You need to get out while you can. And be quiet."

Eliza shook her head. Her eyes were growing sore, and her throat was bubbling with unreleased cries. "You're coming with me! How can I get out if you haven't- you've been-"

"He won't let me leave, Lizzie. But you still could!" Daisy sighed with impatience. "You found a way in, didn't you? Do that again!"

"Please! You need to come with me, Daisy!" Eliza cried.

She held onto her friend's bicep as if she may disappear once more if she dared to let go. Daisy gave her a small, bittersweet smile. "Liz, he won't let me leave. I've tried. I've been trying for a year."

Eliza shook her head and pulled her down the staircase. "I know I don't hear you losing hope, D! I'm not leaving-"

"I don't know how you got here, but he clearly doesn't know it yet. Use that!" Daisy wrenched her arm out of Eliza's grip. She had grown stronger over the past year. "I can't let you sit down here and wait for help to come as I did! He knows I'm here, Lizzie! He doesn't know about you, yet. So you are gonna find where you came in, and you're gonna go through. Please!"

"Daisy! The way I came in is guarded by those bat things!" Eliza shouted. "I can't!"

Her friend cursed and kicked the wall, narrowly missing a vine with her foot. A second passed, and her friend was silent. Thinking. Daisy held up a finger. It was good for Eliza to know that after all that time, at least Daisy's scheming face hadn't changed.

"Who the hell is Vecna?" Daisy asked after a minute of planning.

Eliza was taken aback. She gaped for a second. How did a year-long resident of the Upside Down not know Vecna?