teddy bellworth is no stranger to nightmares. the effect of them has dulled through the years, leaving her numb each time she wakes from one—rather than leaving her shaking, fearful of every shadow in her room. they still follow closely each time she lays in her bed, always lingering outside of her peripheral. remaining a looming presence, never drifting far, always ready to remind her of the past she can’t quite piece together. in the last week, they grew worse— different, vivid in a way that wakes her with a gasp. something is wrong. what begins with familiarity—dreams of that night at fort hemlock, the fragmented pieces of encountering that thing and glimpses at the strange, shining wall—quickly turns into something new. something darker. something wrong. 

she’s in a new place, drenched in a haze she can’t see through, like fog that won’t break. it pulls a fear out of her that is both foreign and familiar in the same breath. every morning she wakes with the same tense feeling in her chest, unable to catch her breath as she tries to remind herself that she’s awake now. the feeling fades when she’s awake, feeling distant, if not leaving her completely. details blur once more, but they leave her body tense, anticipating something horrible about to follow. it lingers throughout the day—the ache in her chest, the thump of a headache, the shake of her hands—creating a new wave of paranoia, one she hasn’t felt in years. something is wrong.

the nightmares grow more and more vivid, more creative, reminding her of a fucked up version of the wizard of oz, when dorthy’s life changes from black and white to technicolor as she arrives in oz. teddy wishes it was as simple as that; that she could walk through a door and have the clarity of something staring her in the face, a full spectrum of color waiting for her on the other side of a door. that she could somehow make the journey to a beautiful world, and not the dreary black and white one she’s been living in. but no, it’s as if real life and her nightmares were beginning to blend together, black and white mixing with color into something new and just as horrifying. something is wrong. every time she tries to write it down in the morning, or recall her dreams once the sun has risen, they turn into a foreign language, distorting again, only now it’s becoming more difficult to suss out what is real and what is a new fear her subconscious has conjured up. something is wrong. it reminds her of when she first returned home; of the time she spent in the hospital, of the doctors and police questioning her over and over again. answers are on the tip of her tongue, but they seem to die there. blank gaps still wedge themselves between each fleeting memory, each small piece she remembers becoming more fragmented the longer she tries to decipher it.

something tells her it has to do with the anniversary coming up, that something is wrong. there’s no real evidence for this, nor can she find the strength to voice any of it to the people around her. each time she tries, it’s like the words aren’t only caught in her throat, but like a hand is reaching up and pulling them back, keeping her from putting these puzzle pieces together. it coats her in a blanket of dread, paired with the unsettling knowledge that something is wrong. as preparation for the ‘memorial carnival’ begins, teddy begins her own: newspapers cover her windows, a new deadbolt is installed, anything to make it feel like she has a barricade between her and what’s to come. what she is bracing for, she’s not sure, but she knows it’s coming. it’s one of the few things she can say with complete and utter certainty. something is wrong, she can feel it. no carnival or memorial can cover up what’s rotting in bellworth crossing, what’s rotting inside of her.

unsurprisingly, they had tried to rope her into it. ten years is an easy mark for the time that has passed. enough to make dr. thornton into a ghost story, and her into a cautionary tale; enough to soften the blow, pretending to care is easier when the wound has scarred over. at least, it has for everyone else. teddy is no stranger to people knocking on her door, asking her for answers she can’t give or for the chance to sensationalize the trauma she’s experienced. newscasters and reporters used to sit on the sidewalk across from her home for hours, praying to get a shot of her or her parents leaving. as the years pass, they dwindled away, only a few brave enough to stand on the front porch of crazy teddy bellworth’s home and try to take more from her. 

originally, she had said no. some city council member had arrived at her doorstep uninvited, with a store bought pie and a long speech on how teddy’s participation in the memorial was paramount. the woman could barely get the speech out without stuttering, tensing any time teddy made eye contact with her. something is wrong. what followed had been silence and a door slamming in the woman’s face, making teddy’s answer clear: a loud, resounding no. it was a choice she found easy to remain steadfast in; saying no to ‘appearances’ was nothing new to her. crowds, questions, and bright lights were never her forte even before fort hemlock destroyed her life, leaving only jagged pieces behind. the idea of having to speak in front of the town as a whole made her stomach churn, especially when she pictured mayor donovan and his unnerving smile. she felt justified in denying them a show. they didn’t deserve it, not after the hell she and her friends had been put through, not after they manufactured a story and shoved it down everyone’s throats. there was no pretending that something wasn’t wrong.

in the days that followed, her nightmares worsened and her paranoia quickly took the reigns. sleep deprivation was nothing new, but it was never kind when it settled in. somewhere along the way, roughly around her third day without sleep, anger arrived. an unexpected, loud thing that had her throwing dishes in frustration, smashing them against the warped wooden floors of her kitchen. something is wrong. an inability to concentrate and the slamming of her heart against her rib cage sent her into a spiral—two things that hadn’t been out of the ordinary for her over the years, but at that moment, they prompted the pendulum to swing from fatigue to irritation. this isn’t fair. something is wrong, something is inching its way to them, to her. something she can’t name, something that keeps slipping through her fingers like sand. it’s what moves through the doorway just out of the corner of her eye, the shadow she keeps seeing floating across her front porch in the middle of the night, disappearing right when her eyes adjust; dark and familiar, biding its time. 

and everyone in this god forsaken town is deciding on what carnival prizes they want to win, and if the ferris wheel will be up to par this year. 

the night before the carnival, she reaches an odd breaking point. distinguishing reality from nightmare has become next to impossible, and she can no longer decipher what is just a shadow and what is something lurking in the darkness. but teddy makes a decision in the middle of her undoing, finding herself with a strange, sharp clarity about one thing. something is wrong, and she can fix it. she has to.

 she barely remembers the phone call, unclear about whether or not she made much sense talking to the woman on the other line. when the city councilwoman arrived at her door, she left behind a business card, playing off her obvious fear with an attempt to keep the metaphorical door from slamming in her face too. call me if you change your mind. teddy has no idea what motivates her sudden, definitive change of heart, other than the white hot rage threatening to boil over. it has her deciding that she cannot suffer like this anymore. no, the people of bellworth crossing will be forced to answer for what they’ve done, no matter the story the government concocted or the fact that she can’t provide any details or answers. something is wrong, and they will answer for it one way or another.

she’s determined, pacing through her mess of a home as she mutters to herself what to say: they’re lying to you. something is wrong. dr. thornton isn’t a murderer. something is wrong. he didn’t kidnap me. something is wrong. she pushes away the broken remnants of a ceramic mug with her foot, barely noticing the sting of a shard stabbing her. all she can focus on is what she’s going to say—not the way her home has fallen into further disarray, or that she hasn’t showered in a week. no, there is important work for her to do, the rest can wait. 

there’s bits and pieces of that night in ‘78 that she can think back to—the fear and adrenaline in her, the desire to reach for alice’s hand, holding her breath as she crossed the threshold and into the base, her gaze constantly drifting to her cousin as she wonders what he thinks of all of this. there’s a sharp cut off somewhere along the way, between the sight of a creature that looked like it stepped out of a horror movie and the soldiers storming in; then there is darkness, so much darkness, before reaching the cool night air in the preserve, leaves crunching under her feet as her arms wrap around herself in the hopes of holding her body heat in. 

no, teddy can’t provide the information she yearns so desperately for, but she can do something, anything. she can scream from the rooftops about what she does know, blow the lid off of a cover story ten years in the making. these people don’t deserve to keep profiting from bellworth crossing not knowing the truth, they don’t deserve to be able to hide behind a well curated story when she and so many others suffer from actually went on that night. as she paces through her living room, one that has become nearly unrecognizable with its messiness, teddy decides this is what will fix her, what will make up for everything. something is wrong. it will be what unravels the knot in her gut, what stops the shadows in the darkest corner of her home from whispering to her, what keeps the man on the news from trying to send her coded messages, telling her something is wrong, what will leave her feeling whole and safe and alive again. 

so in a short, and rather manic conversation—one where she slurs her words more than she’d care to admit, despite being fully sober, her focus wandering half way through each sentence—she tells the woman who arrived at her door that she’s changed her mind. she’d love— no, she’d be honored—to speak at the memorial, help assist the town in healing and give the past a proper burial. teddy doesn’t bother waiting for a response before she slams the phone down on the receiver, returning to her frantic pacing and muttering. 

agreeing to appear at the carnival is a choice she feels vindicated in, until sunset darkens the slivers of light that break through the hastily taped up newspaper covering her windows. something sinister begins to settle into teddy’s bones, abruptly bringing her back down like a weight strapped to her ankles. something is wrong. it doesn’t matter what plan she makes, if she shows up to the carnival tomorrow or not—something is still taking shape, waiting for her. the shadows dancing along her walls taunt her, just as they have done every evening for the last week, distorted by newspaper and peeling wallpaper. something is wrong. as the sun sets, she loses all bravado, convinced every creak and whistle of wind is something more. something wrong, something reaching in closer to—

maybe it’s the anniversary, or maybe it’s the days without sleep; either way, as the darkness of night replaces the brightness of daytime, the certainty she once felt falls apart. something is wrong. as the clock crawls closer to midnight, what she’s been bracing for closes in like a predator reaching its prey. something is wrong. teddy’s heart slams against her chest as she continues to move around her home absentmindedly, biting her nails raw and muttering to herself every single memory she can place. something is wrong. this goes on for hours, devolving quickly—her train of thought continues to derail, repetition turning into gibberish, words sounding foreign to her, stumbling and stuttering in a way she’s never encountered before. something is wrong. the only thing that pulls her from the vicious cycle is a rancid smell reaching her nostrils, followed by the sound of someone—some thing—knocking on her window. 

then from the door. 

from the other room. 

from within the wall. 

something is wrong. 

the sound stops her dead in her tracks, hands shaking as wide eyes refuse to leave the front door. something is out there, waiting for her to answer its call. bleary eyes blink rapidly, wrong, squeezing shut as teddy tries to tell herself that she’s just hallucinating, this is no different than any of the other things she has imagined over the years, over the last few days. something is wrong. her eyes open to see the dark outline of something through the window of her front door: wrong, jagged, humanoid. in that moment, she doesn’t remark how strange that is, that the darkness and newspaper covering the glass should make it impossible to see through. something is wrong. her blood runs cold, a fear she hasn’t felt since that night at fort hemlock takes hold of her, drowning her in something that feels familiar and distorted all at once. something is very, very wrong.

the door knob shakes. 

her body moves faster than her mind ever could, choosing flight rather than fight. teddy doesn’t stick around to find out what is at her front door taunting her. instead, shards of broken ceramic crunch under the weight of her feet as she pushes through the kitchen and out of the back door. something is wrong. her feet bleed, the backdoor falling shut with a loud thud behind her as she crosses through overgrown grass and narrowly misses tripping over a tree branch protruding from the ground. something is wrong. she doesn’t stop to look back, doesn’t pause to see what’s wrong—the loud creak of her back door being thrown open behind her is a tell-tale sign that whatever was *waiting* for her is now *hunting* her. something is wrong.

she runs and runs and runs as far as her feet will take her, propelled forward by the fear of something catching up to her. something is wrong. the darkness covering her hometown doesn’t deter her—there’s no specific destination in mind, purely moving on instinct, knowing something is wrong. it’s not until she finally stops, lungs screaming and chest heaving, that teddy finally realizes where she’s ended up: the preserve. something is wrong. the same place she found herself wandering nine years ago: dazed, confused, naked, terrified. something is wrong. if she hadn’t been so scared, it would be laughable to her. in some fucked up twist of fate, she’s wrong—now lost in the preserve in the middle of the night, barefoot and terror-stricken once more. something is wrong.

the sound of a loud growl drowns out her thoughts, pulling her from her own fears and back into the moment. something is wrong. what approaches is wrong, something she couldn’t name but something is wrong; all snarling teeth and wrong, wrong, wrong, wasting no time as it—something is wrong. blood blinds her vision, looking up at something wrong. the night sky doesn’t care that she’s trying to scream. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong. something is wrong.