𝙈𝙖𝙭 𝙈𝙖𝙮𝙛𝙞𝙚𝙡𝙙

(𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐰/ @madxmayfield)

Ollie was in the music room all by herself, listening to records she had saved there. The music teacher let her keep her records in the room, along with her dad’s old music as well. On the stereo, Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” started to play—one of Ollie’s favorite guilty-pleasure songs, though she’d never admit it. The song helped her through tough times and reminded her how she wished she could take her dad’s place instead. But she knew better. That’s when the light flickered for a second. Sometimes it happened with Ollie’s emotions—when she was happy or upset, the lights would flicker. They stopped for a moment as Ollie took a deep breath, steadying herself so they wouldn’t flicker again. She started to sing along as the song reached the chorus. As she sang, she wasn’t paying attention to anyone or anything. Music was Ollie’s escape from the world and all the bad things. It was a way to reach her heart, a way to explain things without words. Her back was turned toward the door as she kept singing, flipping through more records. Outside, the halls were busy with students making their way to class or just hanging out before the bell rang. This song made Ollie feel powerful, like it expressed something her words couldn’t.

“I’d make a deal with God, and get him to swap our places…” Ollie sang again as the chorus hit once more. The clock ticked as the song ended, then started again. She didn’t even want to turn it off—it felt like the song was trying to tell her something, something she couldn’t quite name. She felt like someone was there, watching her, but she didn’t dare turn around—not even for a minute. Who would be in the music room this early anyway? Who would want to hear her sing? Ollie reached for her notebook and started to write. She always felt inspired like this, ideas storming through her head. She was trying to figure out how the echoes worked and what they meant. She only knew they were something fascinating, yet dangerous. Still, something about them made her want to dive deeper. Whatever she was about to discover, she knew she couldn’t do it alone. She wanted someone to help her understand it—her powers, the Upside Down, the echoes. Someone who had experienced it too. Someone she could relate to.

Her dreams were still weird. In fact, they'd only increased in strangeness since she'd woken from her coma, which she didn't think was possible. The slurry of her unconscious mind while she was comatose was bizarre and confusing, bombarding her with scenes and memories that felt familiar but we're objectively unrecognizable to her. Voices that felt real. Images of her step-brother dying and living a hundred different ways than it actually happened. It was all part of this echo bullshit that nobody could nail down, and it was beginning to frustrate her more and more each night.

Her converse squeaked against the linoleum floors, echoing out into the hallways as she turned to the music room. It was always a calm and empty enough place this time of morning. She made to turn the doorknob but stopped, seeing a figure through the rectangle of glass in the door. Shit. Not so empty, then.

Max almost turned around when a jolt of recognition struck her brain. She knew that girl. Ollie. She'd been hanging around the group lately, but Max knew next to nothing about her. Only that she was... odd. Not in a Dustin's-a-nerd and Lucas-is-adork kind of way. More in a way that tugs deeper, igniting Max's basal sense of curiosity.

Max opened the door slowly and walked in. She expected Ollie to look to see who was there, but she didn't. Then Max heard it– Ollie singing softly. An all too familiar song that nearly knocked the wind out of max: the song that had been her forcefield against Vecna.

She was sitting up against an extra pillow now, sore and weak but holding herself up as best she could. She had Lucas' hand in both of hers, resting on her lap. She knew she'd have a hard time letting go for a while.

Max was obviously still really weak, so Lucas’ first instinct was to call one of the doctors to come take care of her. But when Max stopped him, he immediately dropped the idea. There was no way he was gonna deny her anything in a moment like this. Lucas still had tears all over his face, and his whole body was shaking a little. But the way Max was holding his hand in both of hers felt so unbelievably good. It was honestly kind of incredible that he could finally talk to her again. He looked at her like she was some kind of miracle.

Of course Max immediately wanted to know what had happened that night. Lucas nodded and started telling her everything he knew. “He’s definitely gone for now,” he said about Vecna. “Our plan actually worked. You lured him out, and the others basically fried him. And El showed up from California to help too. She tried to help you inside Vecna’s mind. Did you… notice that?” Lucas studied Max’s face for a second, then placed his second hand gently over hers, lightly brushing his fingers across them while they kept talking. “Things were kinda quiet for a while after that,” he admitted, “but lately a lot of weird stuff has been happening again around here… something’s definitely going on in the Upside Down. Everything’s stranger than ever.”

She tried her best to squeeze Lucas' hand back, and she felt her muscles strain with the effort.

"What do you mean, strange stuff is still happening?" Max's heart quickened for a beat. "I thought– I thought Vecna was the whole... master of the Upside Down or something. Shouldn't all this shit be done with?" Her voice bordered on pleading, begging with whatever out there could hear for all of this to finally be over with. For them to just... win for once.

"No– no, Lucas." She weakly shook her head. There was no way she would let him blame himself for that night. Not when all she'd been doing up to that point was push him away. Him and everyone who'd dared to care about her. "It's not you, not your fault. It w-wasn't your fault that night." She sucked in a wet breath. Tears slipped down her pale cheeks, and she didn't have the strength to wipe them away.

He'd been here every day? By her side in the hospital, waiting. Just like before Vecna, when she'd dumped him for the umpteenth time and pushed him away this time, wanting to be left to wallow in her misery. He didn't give up on her then, how could she think he'd give up on her now? Of course Lucas would be the one to pull her out of this.

Somehow, through all her tears, Max managed to smile at him. How he’d missed that smile! It hit Lucas right in the chest, and another sob broke out of him. “It’s not okay…” he answered shakily. “But I’m gonna do everything I can to help you get better.” He couldn’t stop himself from leaning over her even more and pulling her into an awkward hug, pressing his cheek against hers. Her tears mixed with his as he held onto her shoulders and closed his eyes for a moment. Having her in his arms like that made him choke up all over again.

She was sitting up against an extra pillow now, sore and weak but holding herself up as best she could. She had Lucas' hand in both of hers, resting on her lap. She knew she'd have a hard time letting go for a while.

She could place it now. The Police. The song that played at the Snow Ball. The same scene she'd run to to hide in her memories from Vecna. But she didn't want to hear it now, not when it was crowding up against Lucas' pleading and exasperated voice. She only wanted to hear him.

She nodded as tears welled up in her eyes. "Y-yeah, s'loud." She wanted to laugh. After all that hell, here Lucas was with his strong yet gentle hands on her like she was seconds from falling away. Right there, inches away. Her head pounded and her throat was parched and scratchy, but none of it mattered.

She broke into a fit of dry coughing again. She had so many questions. Along with the bright light filtering into her freshly opened eyes were spiraling thoughts: what happened? How long had she been asleep? Was Vecna gone? Is everyone okay?

His eyes were still huge. His heart was slamming so hard against his ribs it actually hurt, and his whole body felt like it was vibrating from overload. He tightened his grip around Max's hand again, leaning closer so he wouldn’t miss a single word she said. When Max started coughing again, Lucas's expression crumpled with even more worry. His free hand moved to her cheek without him even thinking about it, brushing over it gently, like he could somehow soothe the damage away. “Do you want something to drink?” he asked, his voice shaking.

He couldn’t stop one of his tears from falling onto Max's face. “Yeah. I’m really here,” Lucas promised quickly, leaning even closer. Close enough that she could feel him there, real and solid. But he still couldn’t fully process this. “You’ve been in the hospital for weeks… I’ve been here every day", he mumbled.

“Can you see me?” he asked again, panic creeping back in. “Are you in pain?” He was so unbelievably grateful Max was awake. That she was talking to him. But the relief didn’t cancel out the fear, it just twisted into something sharper. Could she even see? Was she hurting? Was it bad? And just like that, the memories slammed into him again; Creel House. The sound of Max's bones breaking. How frightened she had been. Her eyes white and bleeding. How her heart had stopped beating...

"No– no, Lucas." She weakly shook her head. There was no way she would let him blame himself for that night. Not when all she'd been doing up to that point was push him away. Him and everyone who'd dared to care about her. "It's not you, not your fault. It w-wasn't your fault that night." She sucked in a wet breath. Tears slipped down her pale cheeks, and she didn't have the strength to wipe them away.

He'd been here every day? By her side in the hospital, waiting. Just like before Vecna, when she'd dumped him for the umpteenth time and pushed him away this time, wanting to be left to wallow in her misery. He didn't give up on her then, how could she think he'd give up on her now? Of course Lucas would be the one to pull her out of this.

As Lucas held Max’s hand, saying her name over and over, calling out to her, the monitor showed her heart rate and pulse rising. And then she let out a quiet cough. “Max!” Lucas called again, squeezing her hand and her shoulder even tighter. He couldn’t believe this was actually happening. Was this real, or was he just dreaming? Could it really be true that after all this time, Max was suddenly waking up—to his new tape of Every Breath You Take of all things?

After Max had coughed, she slowly and painfully started to open her eyes. Lucas watched as she blinked several times, clearly struggling just to keep them open. But in the end, they really were open. “Oh my God, Max!” Lucas breathed out, squeezing her hand again and leaning even closer over her. In their last shared memory, Max hadn’t been able to see at all. Her eyes had been white and bloody, and Lucas had spent all that time wondering if she maybe was blind now—if she’d never be able to see again. But now, as she blinked up at him, he could see the normal, beautiful blue of her eyes again. There was no sign left of Vecna’s attack in them, at least not on the outside. Lucas couldn’t stop tears from filling his own eyes, his whole body starting to shake. The moment was just too intense, too emotional. He felt so many different things at once: relief, hope, fear, guilt, compassion, concern,...

And then Max actually managed to say one word: His name.

Lucas let out an uncontrollable sob and clung to her hand. “Yeah, Max, I’m here!” he assured her again, his voice trembling. “Can you see me?” He tried to lock eyes with her. It was unreal—Max really had woken up. But at the same time, Lucas was scared by how pained her voice sounded. “Are you hurting?” he asked, still completely unable to process any of this. It had all happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly.

“I can’t believe you woke up…” he mumbled, his voice thick and overwhelmed with emotion. He brushed his hand shakily over her shoulder, still holding her fingers with the other hand—probably even a little too tightly. “Did you hear the song?” he asked, completely overwhelmed, hardly able to believe any of it, as tears streamed uncontrollably down his face. Maybe he should call the doctors now. But he wasn’t able to move away from Max’s side just now. /@madxmayfield

She could place it now. The Police. The song that played at the Snow Ball. The same scene she'd run to to hide in her memories from Vecna. But she didn't want to hear it now, not when it was crowding up against Lucas' pleading and exasperated voice. She only wanted to hear him.

She nodded as tears welled up in her eyes. "Y-yeah, s'loud." She wanted to laugh. After all that hell, here Lucas was with his strong yet gentle hands on her like she was seconds from falling away. Right there, inches away. Her head pounded and her throat was parched and scratchy, but none of it mattered.

She broke into a fit of dry coughing again. She had so many questions. Along with the bright light filtering into her freshly opened eyes were spiraling thoughts: what happened? How long had she been asleep? Was Vecna gone? Is everyone okay?

That dusty old attic. Hearing Lucas but not being able to see him or feel his hands cradling her. Only feeling the electric pulses of pain and the darkness pulling her under. Despite being her last sensations before drifting away, Max surprisingly didn't relive these memories much during her comatose dreams– if that’s what you could call them. Max supposed a word for what she experienced hadn’t quite been thought up yet. There wasn't a moment’s peace where she was. It was like watching a TV and listening to the radio at the same time, except all the signals kept getting jumbled up, switching channels and changing volume. She was repetitively flung through ever-changing scenes, sight and sound never matching, never making sense. She saw places she didn't recognize, people she'd never met. It was unnerving, but not as much as when she saw people she had met– people she did know, but not how she knew them. It was a hurricane of confusion and anarchy. None of it was tangible; nothing stayed long enough for her to grab it. The only moments she felt remotely at peace were when she could hear soft musical notes pushing through the static of her mind. A familiar voice came to her every now and then, soft and low and comforting.

She had no way of knowing how long it had been, but Lucas’ voice (if it was even real) had been giving her momentary reprieve from the hellscape of her mind. The longer it went on, the closer it seemed to get. The hum of his voice would become clearer. She could pick out words every now and then, and she always clung to them like they could pull her free from whatever this was.

One moment, she was flying through a cyclone of unidentifiable memories and voices, but then something began pulling at her. She could hear soft notes flowing down from somewhere unreachable. A familiar song, filtering through layers of voices Max had been trying so desperately to push away. Then, his voice. The clearest it had ever yet been. Something about Dustin's cousin. Max zeroed in on that voice, straining to latch onto it. Lucas. The music. Not Kate Bush this time, she realized.

Focus, she thought. She hadn't felt tethered to any physical body for ages it seemed, but she had to try. She took a deep breath and let the sound of the music ground her.

Then, in the real world, her hand twitched.

“And then we bought another cassette,” Lucas went on softly, a little laugh in his voice. “We actually found the NeverEnding Story soundtrack. And we were gonna give it to Dustin—” He stopped mid-sentence when he suddenly felt Max’s hand twitch in his. Startled, Lucas' gaze dropped from Max's face to their hands. Had he imagined that—or had it really just happened? Lucas’s eyes shot up to the monitor next to Max’s bed, the one showing her heartbeat. It had been low and steady the whole time. But now, the numbers were climbing.

Focus. Focus. She thought about Lucas, cradling her in the Creel attic, the last thing she heard before going under. She thought about El, saving her life from a couple thousand miles away. Her friends. The people she’d been pushing away were now her best lifeline. 

Waking up was like breaching the surface after diving under the murkiest lake. Sounds became clearer. Light filtered through her cracked eyelids, and the tormenting memories and echoes faded away. She took her first breath of fresh air after breaking the surface, and she coughed.

The room was so bright; the harsh fluorescents stung as she tried to open her eyes. Lucas was there. Lucas was real and palpable and there. And he was speaking. Max was overwhelmed with the bright light, the ringing in her ears coupled with the music, and the dry thickness clogging her throat.

Like pretty much every day since that horrible night, Lucas walked into the hospital room where Max was lying. “Hey, Max,” he said softly after closing the door behind him. He walked over to her bed and stopped for a moment, just looking down at Max. She always looked so peaceful, like she was just asleep. Lucas reached out and gently brushed his hand through her hair once. Then he pulled over the chair he sat on every day and carefully took Max’s left hand in his own hand. He laced his fingers through hers and softly ran his thumb over the back of her hand.

“So many crazy things have been happening in Hawkins again these past days,” Lucas told his unconscious ex-girlfriend. “I really wish I could talk to you about it…” He fell silent for a bit, just watching her.

Finally, he grabbed the cassette he’d bought with Mona at the record store with his free hand. A little awkwardly, he slid it into the cassette player on Max’s nightstand with one hand only and pressed play. “I’ll put Kate Bush on again in a minute,” he whispered, “but I went shopping with Dustin’s cousin and picked up a The Police tape.” The song Every Breath You Take started playing. “I don’t know if you even know this,” Lucas said quietly, “but this is the song that was playing when we kissed for the first time at the Snow Ball. I know—super cheesy, and you’d totally make fun of me for remembering that. But the song’s also about a stalker... So it's kind of a perfect song for us…” Lucas smiled, but at the same time he had to swallow hard. He wished more than anything that Max would wake up and laugh at him for being so cheesy. / @madxmayfield

That dusty old attic. Hearing Lucas but not being able to see him or feel his hands cradling her. Only feeling the electric pulses of pain and the darkness pulling her under. Despite being her last sensations before drifting away, Max surprisingly didn't relive these memories much during her comatose dreams– if that’s what you could call them. Max supposed a word for what she experienced hadn’t quite been thought up yet. There wasn't a moment’s peace where she was. It was like watching a TV and listening to the radio at the same time, except all the signals kept getting jumbled up, switching channels and changing volume. She was repetitively flung through ever-changing scenes, sight and sound never matching, never making sense. She saw places she didn't recognize, people she'd never met. It was unnerving, but not as much as when she saw people she had met– people she did know, but not how she knew them. It was a hurricane of confusion and anarchy. None of it was tangible; nothing stayed long enough for her to grab it. The only moments she felt remotely at peace were when she could hear soft musical notes pushing through the static of her mind. A familiar voice came to her every now and then, soft and low and comforting.

She had no way of knowing how long it had been, but Lucas’ voice (if it was even real) had been giving her momentary reprieve from the hellscape of her mind. The longer it went on, the closer it seemed to get. The hum of his voice would become clearer. She could pick out words every now and then, and she always clung to them like they could pull her free from whatever this was.

One moment, she was flying through a cyclone of unidentifiable memories and voices, but then something began pulling at her. She could hear soft notes flowing down from somewhere unreachable. A familiar song, filtering through layers of voices Max had been trying so desperately to push away. Then, his voice. The clearest it had ever yet been. Something about Dustin's cousin. Max zeroed in on that voice, straining to latch onto it. Lucas. The music. Not Kate Bush this time, she realized.

Focus, she thought. She hadn't felt tethered to any physical body for ages it seemed, but she had to try. She took a deep breath and let the sound of the music ground her.

Then, in the real world, her hand twitched.