002 - Steve Harrington

Long Time, No See

I gasp, horrified at the sight of Patrick. He now hangs on a spike exactly like Chrissy and Fred. 

"So very busy."

"What do you want?"I shout as I turn back to face him. However, he's gone when I do. 

"I want to show you the truth." He says, sinisterly.

All of the sudden, Vecna's lair disappears and I'm in the Creel House. I stand in the middle of the foyer just as the door opens and the Creel Family walks in the door. 

"What did I tell ya?" Victor says to his wife, Virginia, as they enter. 

"Wow." She gasps as two children, a boy and a girl, follow them inside. 

"This is amazing." The little girl says, excitedly. "It looks like a fairy tale. A dream." She smiles at her parents before she runs past me and up the stairs.

"Alice, no running." Virginia calls after her.

"It's so big!"

"This is nice." Victor says to Virginia with his arm wrapped around her. 

My attention is drawn to the little boy in the shadows with his head hung low. 

Henry Creel.

"Like you, I didn't fit in with the other children." Vecna says. "Something was wrong with me. All the teachers and the doctors said I was... "broken," they said." 

"My parents thought a change of scenery, a fresh start in Hawkins, might just cure me. It was absurd. As if the world would be any different here." 

Young Henry begins to walk around the house and I follow as Vecna tells me his story. He leads me down a corridor and a flickering light behind a cracked door, catches my attention.

"But then..." Vecna says as a young Henry walks in front of the door.

It's the bathroom where Steve and I found those bugs in the vent.  

  "To my surprise our new home provided a discovery." He says as Henry walks over to the vent, kneels down, and lifts the vent cover off. "A newfound sense of purpose. I found a nest of black widows living inside a vent. Most people fear spiders." Vecna says as Henry retracts his hand from the vent, a black widow now rests on his palm. "They detest them. And yet. I found them endlessly fascinating. More than that, I found a great comfort in them."

Something whooshes behind me, causing me to turn around. I catch a glimpse of Henry run into a different room and follow after him. 

"A kinship. Like me, they are solitary creatures. And deeply misunderstood." 

I follow Henry into the attic and find him sitting in a corner, surrounded by candles as I walk closer to get a better look. 

"They are gods of our world. The most important of all predators."

Henry holds a mason jar with a black widow inside, making my eyes widen with fear. He then places it carefully down on a chest, next to others and picks up a notepad.

"They immobilize and feed on the weak..." Vecna says as I look over Henry's shoulder. 

He's drawing a picture of a black widow. 

"... bringing balance and order to an unstable ecosystem. But the human world was disrupting this harmony." 

Henry stands and begins to walk back downstairs. I closely follow after him.

 "You see, humans, are a unique type of pest, multiplying and poisoning our world, all while enforcing a structure of their own. A deeply unnatural structure." Vecna says as Henry and I reach the bottom of the staircase.