When Yellow Meets Blue (in the West)| Jason Carver x Fem! OC

Prologue

In the beginning, there was darkness, in the end, there is blood. Burrowed underneath time which had forgotten him and preserved his absence so well, like grime stuck between teeth with locked jaw, and blood and bits like morsels beneath him. Fingers mangled; something inside him torn. This man, whose entire existence has been wiped away by a whisper, caught wind of something morbid on the 22nd of January. Jesse Lancaster was only 23. 

One of the dispatch officers commented that his last vision must have been the devil, that no living creature on this earth would leave him in that state in a crime scene so violent yet quiet, like a silent gunshot in the middle of a dark nowhere. But it's not like anyone cared for the man, anyway, except his wailing mother and half-decent, sympathetic townspeople who heard the news not too long after. What the people of Hawkins cared about more is the predator that tiptoes around Hawkins at night--whoever had done this thing--lurking somewhere in the seams of the quaint little town, or maybe amidst the silence where it seems to thrive.

Nothing good ever comes out of this town anymore.

Since mall fires and disappearances, children going missing, dead, and then somehow miraculously resurrected, the curse in this town settles like its dead, dry air, passing through people and passing through time.

Since the beginning of winter, death breathed upon them like a conniving god. Something about Hawkins felt phlegmatic and lonely as the coldest season passes by with dead animals surfacing on the snow as if hibernation were rudely interrupted by something more chthonic. A permanent sleep. It was morbidly innocent at first, as innocent as death could be, as nature takes in her lifeforms who could not sustain the harshness of winter, limp rabbits, rodents, birds, and fawns incinerated to be burned and forgotten.

But now, who will burn and forget Jesse Lancaster?

The damning tragedy of this whole case was not the grotesque incident, but whatever comes after death and murder. The grief was so little. A small, quiet funeral with empty seats and an emptier casket, whispers beneath discussions of trailer parks and darkened alleys--"keep an eye on your kids, and keep an eye on your bigger ones"--Make sure nobody touches a needle or a lighter. Despite the lack of prayers, what soon followed was anti-drug propaganda and a cult craze that screamed at parents to let their kids in to keep the devil out.

Like a forest fire in the middle of winter, the entire town is blazing in hysteria that made the cold streets quieter by sundown. Empty streets except for a cop car loitering by, all garage doors closed, bikes parked and locked inside. Doggy doors and bathroom windows haphazardly hammered shut by nails that ran out from the local stores. Routines are straightforward and kept sacred, headcounts in the morning, prayers by night.

This is what the devil has done to Hawkins. All it took was a whisper of his existence to kill the lights by 4 p.m. and keep shotguns beneath everyone's beds, waiting, anticipating. Would he burn down the primary school next? Who would he swipe from the face of the earth this time and resurrect like a sick trick? Who will be the next to be twisted and mangled and burn with those poor souls from Starcourt, or whatever ghost walks in the eerie halls of that abandoned laboratory at the edge of town? Whispers, gazes, prayers, quiet, a packed church, shaking people, mothers holding children tight. Until the devil is caught in a net, then would they begin to feel safe again.