Gwenny stood infront of the Blake family house, facing the road as a black van drives past at a extremely slow and unusual pace.
The atmosphere was off. The light the sun gave shone dimly over the town, as if someone had held a filter over her eyes.
These are the signs Gwen could tell she was in one of her special dreams.
Confused, the small girl slowly steps forward and follows the van. She had not the slightest of ideas on what this van was or where it was heading. She just knew that she had to follow it.
Stepping out onto the footpath she noticed the car begin to create more and more distance between them, speeding up.
In a fit of panic, Gwen's legs began to move faster, trying to keep up with the van. But every step she took just caused the van to speed up and eventually Gwen was sprinting.
Running down the streets, Gwenny follows the van. Making sure to keep her eyes forward so she doesn't loose sight of the unfamiliar vehicle. Luckily, the van was just slow enough for Gwen to see where it goes and she makes sure to take the turns it takes.
Gwen felt grateful when the van slowly came to a stop on the side of the road.
Looking around, she recognized the street. Its a street she's had to walk down many times to get to Marilyn's house whenever they had sleepovers.
Why would the van lead her here?
She looks at her surroundings, trying to spot any clues as to what this could have to do with anything.
There were a few missing persons posters of Casper Kate and Robin Arellano.
Then she spotted a third poster, one she'd never seen before.
Stepping forward, Gwen tries to recognize the photo and name, but it was as if her eyesight blurred out every time get gaze drifted to the poster.
No matter how many times she rubbed her eyes or waved a hand infront of her face, every time she looked at the name or picture it was blurred.
A bang was heard from behind Gwen and she jumps in fright, spinning around, her braids flick her in the face lightly.
Black balloons were oddly floating behind her. They were just still. Helium makes them float and never stop, oxygen keeps them on the ground.
These balloons weren't floating high into the sky nor were they on the ground.
It was as if there was an invisible person holding them, stopping the balloons from flying away.
Gwen recognized these balloons. She'd seen them before in her other dreams like this. She knew that they were connected to the kidnappings, the detectives told her that they'd found black balloons on the scenes of each disappearance.
Another balloon popped, causing the girl to flinch once again.
More bangs echoed through the streets as the other balloons began popping, causing Gwen to step back. One by one, each ballon popped, each bang sounding louder then the last until there was eventually one left.
Gwen watches the balloon slowly float towards her before stopping a mere few centimeters infront of her face. She watches in confusion as the balloon very slowly begins to spin around.
Gwens eyes squint slightly when she notices a small design on the ballon.
Staring at it harder she tries to figure out what it was.
A silver butterfly.
Gwens features contort in confusion, what does a silver butterfly have to do with the grabber?
The sound of paper being blown in the wind causes Gwen to break from her confused daze.
Looking down, she spots a photo of a girl. Gwen tried to see the girls face, but once again, the face was blurred out.
Bending down, Gwen takes the thin paper in her fingers, bringing it closer to her eyes in hope for a clearer picture.
Gwennys eyebrows furrow in confusion when she recognizes the girl in the photo.
Marilyn.
Butterfly? Marilyn? The Grabber?
What are all these different things? And how are they connected to anything?
Gwen takes a closer look at the photo in hopes to spot something she may have missed.
Thats when her eyes focuss in on the small chain around Marilyns neck, a little silver butterfly charm attached to the end to match.
Gwens eyes snap back to the balloon that still floated infront of her and a look of realization clouds over her features when it hits her.
"Wait-"
The balloon pops.
Gwenny's eyes snap open and she quickly raises from her pillow, panting lightly.
Looking around the room, her blue eyes scan for any sign of her dream. But everything was back to normal.
The memories of her dream flash through her mind and Gwen is quick to raise from her bed, scammering to her brothers room.
"Hey! What did I tell you? No running around in the house!" Gwenny hears her father scream from the kitchen, causing her to immediately stop running.
"Sorry daddy!" She yells back lightly, speed walking to her brothers room and opening the door.
Finney looked at her weirdly, wondering why she had come in so frantically.
"Its Marilyn." Gwen says.
Finneys confusion only deepens when Gwen says Marilyns name. "Whats Marilyn?"
"I think shes missing." Gwenny breaths out and Finney looks at her in shock before running past her and out of his room, towards the house phone.
+++
Marilyn's eyes open slightly, a fuzzy haze coulding over her vision as she does so.
Opening wider, her eyes fill with a small panic as she begins to focus on her unfamiliar surroundings.
She was in a dark room, lit up by one singular window on the top left side.
Cracks ran along the concrete walls, stains of dirt and God knows what to match.
Straight across from her was a metal door along with a small corridor to the right.
The room looked depressing and colorless. Everything was a moldy grey, making it look like all life was sucked out of the world.
She was currently on a very uncomfortable bed, there was no sheets and the mattress held a questionable amount of different colour stains, some being a bronze colour.
Dried blood.
She didn't know where she was, she didn't know what day it was, and she didn't know how long she was blacked out, but she did know one thing.
The Grabber had her.
Marilyn shifts lightly, wincing when her elbow lands on a hard spring that was poking through the barrier of the mattress.
A small click can be heard coming from the door causing the girl to flinch, her head snapping to the sound.
She watches the door open as a metallic whir echoes through the empty room.
"Oh good, you're awake." The man says.
He was wearing a horid mask with a creepy smile and horns. The mask looked stained, along with everything else in this room. But the teeth engraved on the mask were what scared Marilyn the most. It was a detailed design, a sharp menacing smile. It sent a chill down her spine.
The mans hair looked greasy and stringy. It was disgusting.
The man slowly steps toward the mattress Marilyn lay on, causing the girl to scammer back until her back his the cold concrete wall and the contact send a wave of goosbumps over her body as the cool touch of the wall sends a chill through her nervous system.
"Don't be scared." He says, his voice was still gravelly just like when he took her.
Marilyn sends him a 'really' look, narrowing her eyes slightly. Normally she would bite back and say something, but Marilyn was smarter than that. She didn't feel like dying right now.
So she kept her mouth shut.
"I'm not gonna hurt you," The Grabber moves forward, sitting down on the mattress next to her and raising a hand to move a stray piece of hair from her face. "Yet." He finished.
Moving his hand away, the grabber notices her glares before chuckling softly.
"Normally I'd take boys. But I felt like a challenge." He whispers but it still sounded like he was talking.
Marilyn gulps lightly, this is the man who took her brother and best friend.
"Welp-" The Grabber pats his thighs, Marilyn lightly flinching at the sudden movement. He goes to stand up before freezing half way and turning to her.
"Did you hear that?" He asks, looking around.
Marilyn sends him a slightly confused look but doesn't drop her sharp glare.
He's fucking crazy.
She watches him shake his head lightly, his shaggy hair flicking around grossly.
"That was the phone. I have to go answer that," He walks closer to her and she can spot a small crinkle in his eyes through the mask holes, showing her that he was smiling. "You be a dear and stay good for me," He says, turning to her before squatting down to her level.
"I dont like bad girls." He says and Marilyn notices his eyes darken, ghosting over as if his soul had left his body.
He stands up and walks towards the door, turning back to face her one last time before exiting and closing the door.
As soon as Marilyn hears the click of the lock, she rises to her feet and begins to look around in search for escape.
She looks towards the window, thinking about how she could maybe smash it to escape, but ends up shaking her head.
"No. Robin would've tried that." She mutters to herself before trying to think of something else.
Her mind immediately moved to the hall by the door.
Speed walking towards it, she follows the short path before reaching a small room.
Hope deflates her body when she spots an old toilet, rust and stains splattered along the once white stone.
"This is fucking great." Marilyn says sarcastically, looking up at the roof.
Why Jesus. Why.
Her gaze moves back towards the toilet before she notices colour in the corner of her eyes.
Turning her head, she spots some old rolled up carpets pushed into the edge of the room.
Shaking her head, Marilyn walks back into the room, scanning it once again, stopping when she notices something shit didn't before.
A black phone.
Marilyn doesn't waste any time before sprinting towards it, taking the phone off the hook before holding it to her ear. Usually you'd be able to hear the sound of buzzing if a phone worked.
Silence.
Her body, once again, deflates like a balloon before she angrily slams it onto the hook again.
"Fuck this." She mutters before looking at the window.
Might as well try.
She walks toward it and tries jumping to reach the metal bars that cover the glass.
Failing, she steps back a little to get a slight run up before jumping again, only getting as far as the tip of her fingers hanging onto the edge of the concrete before she drops with a thud.
"Fucking bitch." She mutters, walking to the furthest wall from the window.
She looks at the window, readying herself for the mission. Sucking in a deep breath, she leans down a bit before sprinting at the wall in full speed.
When she reaches the wall, she pushes her foot up in hopes she had enough speed to climb the wall slightly, but due to the softness of the concrete and her grip less converses, her foot slips and she runs right into the wall, landing on the floor with a light groan.
"Son of a fuck nugget." She mutters to herself.
A ring sounds throughout the room and Marilyns head snaps towards the phone.
Was she hearing things?
The phone continues to ring and she slowly raises from the ground, dusting herself off before slowly stepping toward the ringing phone.
+++
Vance Hopper steps out of the school grounds, towering over everyone as they duck and turn their heads away, making sure not to get in his path as he walks straight, not moving for any of them.
He didn't see her today, which was upsetting.
He looks forward to seeing her at school, he looks forward to the fights they get into.
Why? He doesn't know.
Finney and Gwen also didn't show at school, so he just assumed that the three were doing their own thing.
Walking down the street he begins taking the same route to the Grab 'n Go like he does every day.
The air was warm, the sun having finally kicked in. Summer started a few weeks ago, but there was still cloudy and rainy days in Denver. It was odd.
While he was walking down the path, he spots a man hanging up flyers- missing person posters no doubt.
Rolling his eyes, Vance scoffs and shakes his head before moving to walk straight past the man.
He takes one more look in the direction, he pauses when he recognizes the man.
"Mr. Kate?" Vance asks, looking at the father of his enemy.
Marilyn's dad turns around and Vance's eyebrows raise in shock when he gets a good look at his face.
His eyes were bloodshot and his lightly wrinkled cheeks had tear streaks running stained onto them. His skin was lightly pale and he looked like he had gone through war.
Vance immediately thought of Casper.
Vance had known Casper. Due to Marilyn and his bickering, Casper would often come and try and save Marilyn, even though everyone knew she didn't need it.
Vance points towards the posters. "Are those for Casper?" He asks.
Vance didn't know why he felt the need to ask. He didn't know why he felt the need to even care in the first place.
But he did.
Mr. Kate shakes his head lightly, causing confusion to flood through Vance's body.
If not for Casper, who were they for?
As if reading Vance's mind, Mr. Kate answers the question from his thoughts.
"They're for Marilyn."
Vance felt everything inside him freeze as his blood ran cold as the air in his lungs thinned.
Marilyn was missing? How had he not heard about this?
Vance didn't know what to think. He should be happy, ecstatic even. The person he hated most was gone.
But he felt neither of those things. He felt as if something was missing from inside of him.
Mr. Kate- Franklin, watched Vance's reaction to his words. The man knew how the two teenagers felt about eachother, even when they didn't know it themselves.
Franklin didn't feel much himself though, both of his children were gone.
His only family.
Vance cleared his throat lightly before holding his hand out.
"I'll help you."
Those three words alone could shock an entire town in seconds. Vance wouldn't be caught dead helping anyone. Ever.
So what changed his mind this time?
Frankin nods lightly, handing Vance half of the bunch of missing persons posters he had.
Vance took them and watched Franklin walk towards a bag that was laying on the ground by a fence, probably to get more tape for Vance.
Vance's blue eyes drift to the photo of Marilyn on the paper he held in his hand. She looked happy, smiling infront of a house. Vance could spot someone's shoulder in the corner of the photo, but shrugs it off thinking that the photo was cropped to be just Marilyn.
He looks down at the necklace that rests around her neck. Noticing it was the same necklace she'd been wearing almost everyday since they were ten. The only days she didn't wear it, Ms. Beckett would be fixing it up in the Grab 'n Go.
"Here you go son." Franklin says, breaking Vance from his thoughts and holding a roll of tape out for the boy to take.
Vance nods, taking the tape before moving to another area to place up posters.
The two spend almost two hours putting up posters, small talk in between here and there.
Vance couldn't help but feel an enormous amount of sympathy for the man. He'd lost both his children in the time span of a month.
Once the posters were all put up, Vance turns to Franklin. "Are you gonna be okay?"
"Probably not," Franklin shrugs lightly. "But I'm sure she'll make it out, she's strong. And hopefully her brother will be with her."
Vance feels an foreign feeling in his heart, almost like pain. But he had never felt this kind of pain before, no. This felt alot more painful than a punch to the face.
But, Vance being Vance, he pushes the feeling away, nodding towards the man before him, not muttering a word back before turning to walk away.
Vance felt terribly confused. He didn't know where his head was at. He was feeling things he never even knew existed.
+++
A familiar bell rings through the local Grab 'n Go as Vance walks through the door.
"Well look who showed up. I was beginning to get worried. Thought the grabber might've snatched you up." The woman Vance had known for most of his life teased.
Vance chuckled lightly before it falls when his mind drifted to a certain girl with a butterfly necklace.
"I was helping someone."
Ms. Beckett looked at him shocked, along with a few side glances from the eaves droppers in the store.
"Vance Hopper? Helping someone?" The woman asks, teasing him once again.
Vance rolls his eyes with a light smirk.
He was even shocked to say the words himself. He walks over to the counter where Ms. Beckett stood, sitting on a small stool and leaning on the table top.
"Mr. Kate was hanging up missing person posters."
Ms. Beckett's teasing gaze turned to sadness almost immediately.
She knew Franklin, the two had gone to high-school together, her obviously being a few years older than him, but she'd seen him around.
"For Casper?" She asks.
Vance slowly shakes his head.
"Marilyn." He corrects, getting off the stool and walking to the pinball machine, not bothering to continue on the conversation.
Ms. Beckett looked at him shocked, her eyes saddening more. Marilyn was a bright part of her life.
This was not good what so ever.
But the woman couldn't help but feel an extreme amount of sympathy for Vance, she knows he doesn't fully understand his feeling yet. But she understands them. And it only hurts her more.
-----
A/N:
I shit you not, 'Wheres My Love' by SYML just started playing when I was writing Vances reaction to Marilyn missing...NOT THE RIGHT TIME SPOTIFY, FUCK OFF.
AND THEN when I skipped the song to write about Marilyns dads part right after vances, Spotify had the AUDACITY to play 'I've Never Felt So Alone' by Labrinth.
LIKE- ILL BEAT YOU UP SPOTIFY.