Static ↠ Stranger Things

introduction

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S⠀T⠀A⠀T⠀I⠀C
❝Are you receiving me?❞
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❛To care is to heal and be healed, and you are an open wound that never stops giving.❜

— The 'Static' Series,
Book One

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⠀⠀⠀⠀Eyes swollen, heart heavy; standing at the foot of his parents' bed. In that fateful moment, Thorn Dillon was forced to remember it as their last. Blood-stained shirt, hands red, breath hitched; no older than ten years of age, and yet, suspected and trialed of murder in the second degree.

⠀⠀⠀⠀Rumours back in Thorn's childhood city of New York say he's seventeen now and nothing has changed aside from his place of residence and his surname. Taken in at twelve by a godmother who doesn't love him and an adoptive older sister he can never seem to see eye-to-eye with, Thorn—now Thorn Dillon-Holman—knows all about bad luck and baggage. Though he was acquitted of any involvement all those years ago, the unsolved case of his parents' murder still feels fresh and very heavy—eternal, like the invisible remnants of their blood he can never truly wash out.

⠀⠀⠀⠀The small town of Hawkins, Indiana, might be one of the only places left on Earth where Thorn isn't tagged as an irredeemable criminal aside from on the books and word of mouth. He was a new mystery solve; a new face to avoid in fear of touching so much as his shadow. The whispers followed. So did the eyes.

⠀⠀⠀⠀Blend in—that was his motto. Shut up, keep your head down, and don't do anything you shouldn't be doing (And if you breach step three—which he usually did—at least don't get caught). Eventually, the "new kid" novelty began to wear off—everyone had their own problems to turn back to now. The girl that sits alone during lunch is now depressed, the woman who tells fortunes on the corner of Eldwhich went bankrupt, and the town's very own Sheriff is a drunk. Thorn has become just another face around town—he's the "head case" who sits at the back of the class, keeps too many handwritten notes in his locker, and excels in astrophysics and mathematics. The only thing that puts him out of reach from 'ordinary' is his clinically ill adoptive mother who uses violence over rationality (...And maybe his very real juvenile record, but that's neither here nor there).

⠀⠀⠀⠀ Thorn Dillon-Holman has done his time in the dark—he looks now to the stars, silently wondering when it will be his turn to burn vast and bright instead of continuing to fizzle out. Then suddenly, as if to test him or play a very cruel trick upon the town, on a cold November night of 1983, the universe answers. Around the same time a young Will Byers goes missing, Thorn's radio starts speaking to him in static frequencies—frequencies that begin to morph and talk and growl.