CARDIGAN | SEASON III ; ACT II
.୧ ‧₊˚⋅☀️ chapter 14 ━━━━━━ ❛e pluribus unum❜
꒦꒷🎞️꒷꒦
"HE'S HERE." Will spoke softly as he shivered.
The kids went to the elevator to find Nancy and Johnathan and the secretary lady spoke.
"Hey, hey, hey! Two at a time!" She insisted.
Ara kept on hitting the button repeatedly but nothing.
"Stairs!" Mike blurted.
"Shit!" Mike muttered when they made it to where the older teens were.
"What the f-" Max blurted out.
A spider-like monster advanced towards them and El flinged it at the walls again and again.
She then threw it out the window and they raced out of the building to follow it.
It looked like some sort of goo and it began to seep through a drain in the ground...
----
Ara and El were now tasked to find the Holloway family. El needed all the help she could get and Ara volunteered. She had hope that she could enter the void once she could again.
Ara had now found a way to tap into the void on her own. It was a strange feeling.
It felt like she was having a horrible headache as she entered however she felt normal as she walked around in the darkness.
Pictures of the family were sprawled on the ground around them.
"It can't be good for them to be in there for this long." Mike stated.
"Mike, you need to relax." Max assured.
"What if they get brain damage or something?"
"Oh, shit. Is that, like, a real thing?" Lucas questioned. Matt had a confused look on his face, one that he had been wearing it since he got wrapped up into this mess.
"No, it's not. He made it up." Max answered. "Mike doesn't know what he's talking about."
"Oh and you do? Ara hasn't done anything like this before!"
"Ara is smart and responsible. I pretty sure she can handle this." Max argued.
The two continued to argue as Nancy, Johnathan and Will started to talk about the Mind Flayer.
"Okay, can you settle an argument for us?" Max asked. "Who do you think should decide Ara's limits? Mike or Ara?"
"The way that you frame that is such bullshit." Mike exclaimed in frustration.
"It's not bullshit, Mike. Ara's her own person, fully capable of making her own decisions." Max retorted in the same tone.
"She's risking her life for no reason. Both her and El."
"For no reason?" Nancy questioned. "Mike, the flayed are out there doing who knows what."
"Killing, flaying.." Lucas and Matt listed.
"Transforming into monsters." Will added.
"And Ara's not stupid. She's a smart girl and knows her limits."
"Exactly, thank you."
"And she's her own person."
"Exactly."
"With her own free will."
"Exactly! Ara helped us last year and Mike somehow doesn't trust her." Max said.
"Really! I'm just trying to say that now that we've figured out that Ara's got some kind of powers you're all being careless with them. I don't want her to die looking for the flayed when they've obviously vanished off the face of the earth. So can we please just come up with a new plan because I love her I don't wanna lose her."
The door creaked open. El and Ara walked out.
"What's going on?" Ara interrogated.
"Nothing. Nothing." Mike urged.
"Just a family discussion." Lucas added, smirking.
"Okay.." Ara said, not convinced.
"We found him." El stated.
"Found who?" Nancy questioned.
----
"And that's not normal right?" Nancy questioned.
"Billy staying in his room on the Fourth of July? No, that's not normal." Max replied. "Not at all." Ara added on.
"He wants us to find him." Lucas stated.
"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. If we go to Billy, then the rest of the flayed know where we are." Nancy said.
"It's a trap, I agree. We'll be ambushed." Mike agreed.
"We won't be surprised." Lucas argued. "We'll know that they're coming, and we'll kick their flayed butts."
"You mean El will kick their butts." Max corrected.
Ara and El were in the kitchen, El filling up a glass with water. Ara felt a ringing in her ear.
It slow got louder and louder and she felt like her head was pulsing. A voice rang through her ears. It was the same distorted one from before.
"Arabella. Time. Out." We're the only words she could make out from the slurred sentence he spoke. The ringing only got louder.
"It's too risky." Mike said.
"Yeah, and unnecessary." Nancy added. "Killing the flayed won't stop the Mind Flayer. We have to find out where it's spreading from. We have to find the source."
"Billy knows it." El stated. "Billy's been there. To the source."
"Yeah, but-"
"It's a trap. We know." Ara said. "We can't go to Billy but there might be another way."
"A way for us to see where he's been." El finished.
----
The two girls sat in front of the TV.
"If anything goes wrong," El started, "get out. I'll do the rest."
Ara nodded and tied the blindfold around her head.
Ara tried to focus. She slowed down her breathing and thought. She then felt her head ache. The ache began to grow until it stopped.
She walked around the void. Though she thought about finding Billy he wasn't there. It was all.. just nothing.
Her breath hitched as she walk further away from where she once was.
As Ara walked around she walk water against her feet. It then going up to her ankles. Then her shins. Then her knees.
Her anxiety grew as the water went higher up her body. She began to run. The water rising more and more..
Subsequently, she reached a point where something pulled her down. Just like it did a few nights before.
She shook her leg, trying to get it loose. Her head then went under and the waves became violent.
She gasped for air as she went back to the surface to be pulled down again.
She felt lightheaded as ever, trying to escape the grasp of this creature.
Water filled her lungs as she tried to shout for help. Nothing came out except for bubbles that floated back to the surface.
The flailed in the high pressure of the water and it's violent waves. Her movements slowed the longer she went. And soon.. she sunk to the bottom again.
Ara gasped as she removed the blindfold from around her head. She was breathing heavily, panting and looked around her.
Yes, she was in Hopper's cabin but she was all alone.
No Eleven. No Max. No Mike. No one.
"Max?" She spoke.
"Mike?"
"Guys?" She called out as she stood up.
"Max!" She yelled. "Mike! El!"
"They cant hear you." She heard a deep voice speak. She recognized it.
"Billy?" She muttered. She turned around and saw him.
"Time is running out, Ara." He said. Ara backed up in fear of what he was to say next. "You have to choose wisely."
Her breath hitched.
"Follow me and live or go down this road and perish." His voice soon became like the distorted one from earlier.
"Billy.." Ara croaked.
"I've warned you." He said before he disappeared.
Ara was left alone for a moment. She was confused.
"Please." A voice said, as if trying not to cry. She turned around. It was herself. But she looked a hundred times worse than she already was. Her eyes. Only the whites were visible. Blood dripped from them. Blood on the green shirt that was a copy of the one she wore now.
Ara backed away, horrified. She knocked into something. "It's not worth it." Another voice said. Max. She looked just as bad as her copy did. Eyes white, blood everywhere.
Ara tried to suppress the tears that formed in her eyes at the sight of her sister. Her friends started surrounding her, their states all being horrible with the same blank eyes and blood dripping from them. Ara started hyperventilating.
"Get out!" She shouted. They started crowding around her. 'It's not real' she tried telling herself. "Get out of my head!"
She saw Lucas, Will, Matt, Mike and Dustin. They were all bloodied up and telling her to follow the mind flayer.
"Let me go!" Ara tried not to cry.
"Choose." Her copy spoke softly to her.
"Please." She sobbed, backing up into a wall. "Get out of my head." She slid down the wall as she closed her eyes. Her hands covered her ears as she tried to tune out the voices around her.
"Please. Let me go." She yelled.
Ara's eyes opened as someone took off her blindfold. She was still hyperventilating through sobs and held on to the person closest to her, Mike.
Mike held her in his arms, soothingly as she tried to catch her breath. Max rushed over to her and joined the hug, holding Ara tightly in her arms.
"Ara. What happened."
I love characters getting traumatized
- Mary