I'd like to say that I remained calm and composed about the whole situation. However, in reality I sat on the bed for a while, crying my eyes out as memories from my subconscious spilled out. I lay in bed for a few days, only leaving to eat small amounts of food and use the bathroom.
I couldn't believe that after all my searching, this is where I'm from? A shady lab in an even shadier town. I knew the truth about my past wasn't going to be amazing, but some part of me always hoped the things I saw at the lab weren't real, and were just dreams or something.
A part of me had hoped that maybe there would've been people at the lab when I arrived, and they would've had a great explanation for why they were doing testing on me, where my parents were, what the blink was and why I'm the only one who can do it. Yet, the place is deserted and destroyed, riddled with bullet holes and bloodstains.
I wanted something, not all this nothing. But what did I really expect to find? I'd been denying so much and now it's all crashing over me. Hopes and dreams are far from reality, that's one of the first things Tom taught me, one of the most crucial, and somehow it seems I've forgotten it.
"Aw, fuck this." I let myself wallow for a minute and then I push the hurt away. I file the sadness into a drawer along with other things I don't want to look at, and I close it and lock it. I wipe my tears away and drink some water. I exhale deeply.
I need to get up and do something, not just lie around. I haven't made much of myself, but I've travelled the world and helped in my own little ways and that's enough for me. I try to figure out what I want to do now. I have a couple of options.
I could go somewhere new, somewhere exciting. Or maybe I could find out why I'm connected to this town. I could investigate to learn who experimented on me in the lab, and why. I could take their pictures and track them down and get my revenge. Because I could very well be the only one who survived the lab. I could try to find the others, see if they're alive. See if they survived the tests.
I flop down on the bed and cry into the pillow again. I don't want to stay in this stupid town and uncover the secrets of my past alone. I'm so, so, lonely. I wish I could blink back in time and fix all my mistakes.
I try not to regret much in this life, Tom used to tell me that someone as powerful as me with as troubled of a past should be able to live how they want, without any regrets.
But even though I try to live without regrets there's one thing I secretly regret more than anything else. I regret leaving Billy when we weren't on speaking terms, I regret not going to find him because of my stupid pride when I very well could have. I never truly moved on, even though I refused to let myself see him.
I've had many lovers since then, but none of them have ever meant as much to me as he did. None of them were ever as good as him, anyways. I wish I could be with him again.
I wish we could be back in high school in California: surfing and partying and getting into all kinds of trouble together. Those times were so much simpler.
I'm truly lonely. I miss having someone to hold me, to touch me, to talk to me, to kiss me and let me know everything will be alright. The truth is, even though going to high school was one of the most normal things I did, Billy wasn't normal in the slightest. He was aggressive, he was angry, he was all kinds of fucked up.
Maybe almost as fucked up as me.
Stop wishing, stop missing, stop whining.
I compose myself and I try to use my sense to feel for Billy out in the world, I used to be able to but I can't anymore. I've made up my mind. I don't care where he is, I don't care what he's doing, I'm going to him. And who cares if he has a new girl. To be honest I don't even care if they're fucking right now. I just want to see him. I want him to tell me everything will be okay like he used to, I want him to hold me.
Or if none of that, I at least want some closure so I can move on.
I lie all the pictures I have of him out. Pictures of us surfing, and him kissing me, and us laying out on the beach, at parties, his silly self portraits he wasted almost a full roll of film on. I lay them all out and smile slightly as I stare into them, remembering every detail of the circumstances where they were taken.
Using them, I feel for him. A whisper of the Billy I knew. He feels so distant, and faint, but he's there. So I see him in my mind. His golden curls and golden skin, and how they both felt under my fingers. His beautiful piercing blue eyes. His smile. His muscles. I remember his smell, of cigarettes and cologne. I remember the sound of his voice, the sound of his laugh, his yell and how he bellowed when we were fighting. I remember how he made me blush, with all his charm. I remember the feeling of his chest rising and falling when he was asleep, and the gentle pulses of his heartbeat. I remember how it felt to kiss him, how he'd push me up against a wall and give me everything he had. I remember him. I remember him so well, that he materializes in my mind.
And I blink to him.
▶️ The Four Horsemen by Metallica
Immediately I feel nauseous.
I haven't felt this sick in a blink in a long time.
I close my eyes and try to clear my head, my ears are ringing, there's black spots when I open my eyes, the world is spinning.
"Lavender and chamomile, lavender and chamomile, lavender and..." I mutter the short little phrase to myself in a rhythmic fashion to try to clear the nausea and the overwhelming sense of dread from my brain. I can't really hear myself talking but I can feel my mouth moving. It works, and I get up.
I look around, as best I can through the thick smoke that covers everything in sight, and it doesn't take long to know there's something wrong.
I'm in...a mall?
But that's not the weirdest part.
I recognize my surroundings from the newspaper articles I was perusing in the library.
I'm in the town mall that supposedly burned down and I've got company. There's this huge, disgusting, monster that looks like someone smushed a bunch of flesh and bones together. It's huge, it takes up almost the entire mall courtyard. This cannot be my world, this cannot be real. I must have made a mistake, I must have blinked somewhere where I shouldn't have blinked. I start to hyperventilate.
The monster makes a horrible sound that sounds like a mix between a scream and a roar. I get ahold of myself, look to see what it's lowing at and my heart seems to skip a beat.
I see a familiar silhouette, all muscle and bulk, with a curly mullet, and a white tank top.
It can't be.
But it has to be, after all, I did blink to him.
It's Billy.
He doesn't look good at all. There's a girl, a child in a yellow and black shirt next to him. He yells defiantly as the shadow monster extends a clawed tentacle towards him, and he holds it back. I watch as the gore monster sticks him with some more tentacles, ripping into him. It takes every fiber in my being not to scream, I cover my mouth. What a happening? Is this real? Is this a dream? Is this a sick joke my mind is playing on me?
I stand frozen, watching the bizarre spectacle unfold in front of me, my stomach churning at the cacophony of sound. It's like I'm five again, in the plaza in London as the people move around me. It's a sensory overload. The mall is destroyed, it's burning and there are chairs and clothes and glass thrown everywhere. This has to be a nightmare...
But something tells me it isn't. Once I realize I'm not going to wake up, snap myself out of my daze and decide that this is real, this is happening. I have powers for crying out loud, I can't be the only weird thing in the world.
I blink over to Billy and slow time. I reach out to him, and touch him so he's moving on the same plane I am.
"Hey, B." I say with tears in my eyes. I don't know what's going on but I know we don't have much time so I don't ask him the million questions I have for him.
"Seraphina... I'm so scared, I'm dying." He gasps. He doesn't question how I'm here. He knows too, that time is limited.
"I know we agreed not to talk about them but...my little sister...I was so bad to her." I've never seen Billy this defeated.
"What's happening?" I wail, tears appearing in my eyes.
"This thing has been controlling me Ser, I didn't do any of it! I've been trapped." Billy cries. "My sister, she's going to watch me die. I don't want to die Ser."
Just then I look behind Billy and see a girl standing in front of me with a frozen scream. It's Maxine, the skateboard girl I saved the other day, she's covered in cuts and bruises but the cut on her leg is not there. Neither is the black eye.
California, she said she was from California.
Time resumes and I'm still hidden in front of Billy, the monster in front of us knows something is up. It screeches loudly and I flinch.
I can't blink multiple people right now, it will kill me.
I blink away to the top levels of the mall and watch as Billy collapses and croaks out a "sorry" to the girl, then shuts his eyes. I know I don't have much time so I blink in and out as fast as I can, grabbing him and going to the hotel room that I rented. The tentacles that were attached to him do not come with him, and he lies gasping for air. I gasp as well, clutching my heart.
It probably followed us. It knows where we are, can it blink too? They're coming for me there is no escape. I'm going to die he's going to die, we're all going to die.
I start to hyperventilate again, flashbacks of Tom lying in a pool of blood in the hallway of our London apartment plague me as I see Billy in a similar pose.
"Come on Seraphina get a grip." I whisper to myself and shake my paranoid thoughts away. I look over to see Billy is passed out, he's losing blood so quickly.
It's coming out of his mouth, and from both of his sides, his chest, and his stomach.
I blink in and out of my storage unit to find supplies. I have this amazing, bring-you-back from the dead type solution I stole from a secret lab on a dare, so I inject him with that and hope for the best. Billy's body starts to convulse and he lies still. I sob as he bleeds everywhere, and try furiously to patch him up with the things I've collected over the years.
"Come on B, don't die on me." I can barely see through my tears, I don't know where I am or what's going on, or why that thing was in the mall, why Billy was in the mall. I don't even know if I'm in the right time, but I need to focus on the mission ahead of me and not what day it is. I slow time around us and I work furiously, but it's too late.
I was too late. Billy was dead from almost the moment I brought him in, I just was in denial about it. I let out a wail, not caring who hears me. I sob for an hour, my body and hands coated in Billy's blood. I cry until I don't think I have any more tears but then I find more. I wipe my tears away. I refuse to give up. Stepping back from Billy's body so I don't accidentally take it with me, I blink back in time again.
*
The nightmarish scene from before unfolds before me once more. I'm frozen for a lot less time as I orient myself towards Billy, and the adrenaline that rushes through me dispels all the negative effects of blinking again.
For now, at least.
The noise is deafening, of the monster, of the ringing in my ears, of the yelling, the fire raging and the collapsing of parts of the building.
Billy is facing the monster defiantly again and I let out a sigh of relief. He's alive, and I'm not letting him die this time. I'll have to save him earlier, and I can't be seen. I'll have to go fast. But I know his position from blinking over there earlier. The shadow monster lows, I can't look away from it's grotesque body. There are sharp objects poking out of it that look like teeth. The kids are still standing around the balcony of the mall. Why are there kids here? Why is Billy's sister here? Do they know what that thing is? Do they kill it, or does it just run away?
It never made the news.
My thoughts start to spiral and my blood chills as I remember back to my library hunt. There was nothing about a monster.
Now isn't the time to completely figure that out because I do not want Billy dying on me again. But, it's good to know that the monster won't survive the night, or will flee into the unknown, hopefully far away from here.
I need to be cleaner. I need to not be seen.
Also, I know Max doesn't die because I met her, so hopefully I can get away with just blinking Billy around.
Quickly, I slow time and blink to him, grabbing onto him, putting myself between him and the monster.
"Say what you need to say to your sister." I hiss.
"Seraphina?" Billy looks at me, with those haunted, terrified eyes, that are so uncharacteristic of him.
"Trust me. Say it now, yell it." I let go of him and blink away.
"I'm sorry Max!" yells Billy, loudly, once time resumes its speed.
I wait, buying seconds for the kids but they don't run, they just stand. I hope and pray they know what they're doing, that I'm right about the monster, because they're not coming with me. What was Billy thinking? Trying to fight this thing? Was he protecting his sister?
Right as the tentacles graze his sides, I blink back in and grab him, teleporting him away to the hotel room onto the bed.
Billy throws up violently and passes out when we get there, this thing crawls out of his mouth that looks very much like a smaller version of what the monster was made of. It's black and red and white, like some kind of strange flesh. It emerges with a squelching sound, squelches across the floor and slips under the cracks of the door. "Ew!" I exclaim, jumping back. What was that thing, and why was it in Billy? Did it follow us, or was it already in Billy when I blinked hum?
I open the door to the hotel room and look back and forth trying to find the thing, but it's gone.
It's a thing, it knows where we are, it's going to kill us. It's going to kill Billy and then me and I'm going to die because of this stupid idea that I had.
I have to push my thoughts away.
Or maybe, just get them all out at once.
Why couldn't I have just ignored the desire for companionship that is usually so easy for me to ignore? Why couldn't I have just chosen somewhere else to visit, like Switzerland or something?
My powers are more drained than they've ever been, but I know we have to get out of this town. There's something so wrong about it. Maybe it's cursed or something. It might just be from blinking too much, but I feel a terrible sense of dread. Whatever it is, I know I have to get Billy far, far, away from it if I want to protect him.
I walk back to where Billy is. He's lying in a pool of black liquid. I sit next to him, resting my hand on his chest.
I close my eyes, focus my hardest and I manage I blink both me and Billy into a safe house. A safe house I know no one from Hawkins will ever find us in. I blink us into the house I lived in when we were together, my safehouse in sunny California.