YOUR SONG | steve harrington

036

Carmen stood next to the receptionist's desk at Hawkins Memorial Hospital. She was going through some files that she was asked to check over to make sure everything was neatly organized — she had been doing that for a few days now, making her unable to see her best friends at Starcourt since she was forced to stay at the hospital.

But whenever she would finally be able to leave, she would call her best friends' homes and they wouldn't pick up. And if someone did pick up, it was their parents, and she would cover for them since their parents assumed they were with each other.

She knew something was up, but didn't know what. This had happened a few months ago, a little after Halloween, and the girls had told her that they got dragged into an elaborate D&D game with the group of kids and she guessed that maybe that was happening again...until she saw that same group of kids walk into the hospital right before her eyes.

Nancy and Jonathan were in the front as Mike, Lucas, Max, Will, and some girl she hadn't recognized followed behind. They were trying to make it past the receptionist, who was on the phone with one of her friends gossiping.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Excuse me!" the receptionist called out, setting the phone down and standing up. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Oh, um..." Nancy trailed off, noticing that Carmen was watching with furrowed brows. "I was just going to visit my grandma again."

Again? Carmen thought. I must have been in the bathroom or something for that.

"And — and this...this is my family," Nancy introduced awkwardly, making Carmen suspicious.

"Extended," Lucas added once he saw the receptionist eyeing him up.

"I don't care who they are. You know the rules. Two visitors at a time," the receptionist told them.

"Yeah, but—"

"Two!" she cut Nancy off before she grabbed the phone and sat back down again. "Girl, this child has lost her mind. She brought a whole zoo in here."

Carmen set down the files on the table and walked over to Nancy and Jonathan, crossing her arms. "What are you all doing here?" she whispered, tilting her head.

"Seeing my grandma," Nancy replied and Jonathan nodded, although he seemed uncomfortable.

"With all these kids? Yeah, okay," Carmen said, not convinced. Nancy and Jonathan glanced at each other worriedly, not knowing how to get out of this. "I mean, go see her, I don't care. I just find it weird, that's all."

"We care very deeply about each other," Max spoke up, giving Carmen a look. "We want to be here for Nancy and Mike."

"What about Chris?" Carmen questioned, arching a brow. "Where is he at?"

Nancy cleared her throat. "Working. At Starcourt." She then gestured over to the elevator. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd really like to see my grandma." She and Jonathan then quickly walked towards the elevator.

Carmen furrowed her brows once again. She knew that the mall was already closed down by now, so there was no way Chris would still be there. Unless he was cleaning up, but that didn't seem like a Chris thing to do.

She turned towards the children, who seemed to have all separated to their own places in the room. Lucas and Mike were walking towards the vending machine so she quickly followed them, wanting some answers.

"Hey," she said and they turned around, looking up at the Flores girl. "Lucas, right?"

"Uh, how do you know my name?" he slowly asked.