Eva was crying. She didn’t know when she started crying, maybe she’d always been crying. Maybe it had been days, maybe hours, maybe minutes, maybe only seconds. But as she witnessed her parents death, the length of time she’d been crying didn’t matter.

Her mother was braver than she would’ve been. She’d gone out on her own terms. She knew fighting Quinn wouldn’t work, not when she’s been malnourished for over a year by this fucking cult.

Curse words. That’s one thing her dad taught her before he was dragged to his death. Before Eva had to watch as Quinn stabbed her father until all the blood had left his body, as his struggling slowed, as his screaming stopped. “Words are all you have left to fight, Eva,” he had said to her. “Use them.”

And when Quinn dragged her back to her cell after slaughtering his parents, she made sure to drench his shoes in her tears, made sure that his ears were filled with her curses, her screams, her agony. And when she reentered, there were no longer comforting arms to run back into to hold her tears.

Eva was only twelve. She wanted to be with her friends, she’d do anything to complain about homework again and come home after school to her living, loving, parents. Now they were gone. Now she was an orphan.

Now Zavier was all she had left. Zavier, her brother who she hadn’t seen in over a year, who the cult dragged away so they could use him to hurt people. She’d do anything to hug him again, to see him again. But now she was left alone, with no parents, a lost brother, in a cold, dark, and lonely cell.

She wanted to go home, but there was no longer a home to go back to.

:3

Eva as a little guy ⬇️

El knows that searching as she does now, with the static and water, is different from when she did for Papa.

She searches for herself now, herself and her friends.

But the numbness is still the same. The lack of feeling in her body, as she floats away in the dark-

The same as before.

She searches.

She looks.

Henry, Vecna, may be gone for now. But the holes he tore between the Upside Down and Hawkins leak more and more every day.

Monsters creep through. Monsters like the Demogorgon.

There's a monster right now, even, leaving dead dear all over the forest. She has to find it, so they can hunt it.

And find she does, eventually. In the snow, in the dark trees, is a long-limbed pale creature. One with a face. A human-like face, though furred.

Where the Demogorgon is not, and never was, human, this creature was. El can see it in its face, in the bareness of its exposed body. Human once, but human no longer.

Its head swings towards her, golden eyes gleaming under dark trees. She takes a step back, wary. Things in this in-between can be much more dangerous than outside it.

(As what happened to Max proves.)

It doesn't...speak. But El understands something from it.

notKin-notaKin-human?

"What are you?" El breathes. Readying herself to attack. To fight back.

"She's a Lycan," another voice says. From a girl shorter than El, dressed in red. Dark eyes gleam from under the red hood.

"Who are you?"

El wakes up.

-

Hm, that is an interesting concept there.

Now, if Eva is alone, she's kind of fucked, sad to say. Because her only big advantage (which really isn't one) is that she can't die.

She still has the strength of the usual ten year old girl, which is very little against super strength demons and slayers.

The odds are decent that she would wander around, try to figure out what to do, and somehow infect someone by accident. That, would then draw Muzen's attention because demon-like infestation that isn't burned to a crisp by sunlight? Yes please!

Of course that would end...poorly. Whether Eva's mold or Muzen's virus would win that match is up to the viewer.

If Eva shows up with Râs, that gives her a boost. Râs is sturdy enough to handle the vast majority of demons and slayers, exceptions being of course the Hashira and Upper Moons. (It's possible she could handle Lower Moons, depending on the number.)

However, Râs still has to eat. And tracking her meat intake from village to village might make it easier for slayers to find them.