Chapter Text
Holly Wheeler stood in the middle of a dark hallway; Something was calling her- Something hungry for blood. Suddenly, lights flickered above her. Christmas lights. She looked up then and noticed that they were strung up and down the hallway ceiling. One by one, they flickered, creating a path of reds and blues and greens. A voice in the back of her head told her that she should stay put, but she ignored it, her curiosity getting the best of her, she followed the flickering lights.
They lead her to a bedroom where lights continued to flicker off and on. This time, they weren’t Christmas lights, but simple household lights. All different types of lamps flickering one by one in a circular fashion kind of like a merry-go-round. They spun faster and faster and faster until suddenly, they stopped and all was quiet. All except for a low growl coming from the walls.
Holly stood in front of the bare wall; her heart pounding a mile a minute. It began to bubble. The wall. Holly peered closer to it, a shape beginning to form. It moved like a hand-like creature, wiggling to escape. Holly felt the sudden urge to help it. She moved closer to it, the thing from the wall almost bursting the seems of the wallpaper. She held up her trembling hand to touch it, fingertips inches away when suddenly-
“Holly! You’re going to be late for school!” Holly groaned at the sound of her mother’s voice. It was all just a dream. An extremely real dream that seemed more like a memory. Holly sighed heavily. It couldn’t be just a dream. It felt too much like it’s happened before.
“Holly!” Karen cried again. Holly rolled her eyes and threw her covers off of her body.
“I’m up! I’m up!” She shouted back. She then forced herself to get out of her warm and cozy bed to get ready for her first day of cold and dreary prison a.k.a Hawkins High School.
~O~
Once she got dressed, Holly headed downstairs for breakfast. The smell of fresh eggs and bacon perfumed the house and she was thankful that her older brother Mike wasn’t there to drizzle her eggs in syrup. She shuddered at the thought. She made the mistake of eating it once and It was totally disgusting.
She reached the kitchen table where her mom already sat and had placed a plate of pancakes, eggs, and bacon for Holly.
“Good morning, Holly. Ready for your big day?” She greeted with a smile.
“If you mean, ‘ready to die in prison’ then yes, yes I am,” Holly answered sitting down in her seat.
“Come on, Holly, It won’t be that bad. Nancy and Mike got through it” She explained. Holly rolled her eyes. She hated when her mom mention how easy high school seemed for Nancy and Mike. She’s heard stories and things certainly weren’t easy.
Nancy had boy troubles and grievances, Mike faced bullies. What would Holly be confronted with? Monstrous teachers?
“Barely,” Holly mumbled under her breath. Karen sighed heavily.
“Holly Wheeler stop being so negative. I promise you will make it through high school with flying colors. Now hurry up and finish your breakfast. You’re going to be late if you don’t leave soon”
~O~
After finishing her breakfast, Holly Wheeler grabbed her stupid bike out of the stupid garage and wheeled it out. She called her bike stupid because it used to be Mike’s and it’s completely old and rusted. She hated the thing with a burning passion, but it was much better than walking.
Not only was it better than walking, her two best friends had similar bikes as well. Rose Gallagher and Ben Stratford. If she didn’t ride her bike, she would be forced to trail behind them like a confused little duckling. Speaking of Rose.
“Still got Mike’s bike, Holls?” the brunette inquired, wheeling up her own bike to Holly’s driveway.
“Unfortunately, but not for long because I’ve been saving up!” Holly answered as the two of them began their route to Hawkins High School.
“You mean to say you’ve been ‘borrowing’ money from Nancy again” Rose stated.
“That too,” Holly replied. Not saying another word, Rose began to turn the corner onto Mirkwood and Holly suddenly felt something deep in her gut. Mike had always told her to stray away from Mirkwood when she could. He never explained why and though he was annoying as a brother could get, Holly would trust him more than anyone. Holly stopped pedaling.
“What’s up? Why did you stop?” Rose questioned as she pedaled towards Holly.
“This is Mirkwood,” Holly simply said. Rose raised an eyebrow signaling that she was clearly confused.
“Yeah, and?” She asked letting go of her handle bars.
“Well, it just that-Mike always told me to stay away from Mirkwood,” Holly explained reluctantly. She knew that Rose wouldn’t understand why. Holly didn’t even know why. She just had a feeling, one similar to how she felt in her dream, that really should listen to Mike and turn the other way.
“Well Mike’s not here, so he’ll never know that we used it to get to school,” Rose pointed out. She did have a point there. It’s not like Mike would ask her if she took Mirkwood to school. Plus, it was the fastest way to get to Hawkins High School and they were already running late.
“You’re right. We should probably get going anyway,” and with that, the two girls were on their way.
~O~
They made it to Hawkins High School with no trouble at all, much to Holly’s surprise. Maybe Mirkwood was just a road after all, she thought after parting ways with Rose. Unfortunately, their lockers were on opposite ends of the halls.
Reaching her locker in no time, Holly turned the dial on her lock and successfully opened her locker. Wasting no time, she reached down to grab her binders for her morning classes. Straightening her back to reach her pencil case on the top shelf, she noticed something moving in her locker mirror. She turned around then and what she saw was truly frightening.
“Ben! You idiot! You scared me,” Holly shouted as she hit him lightly in the chest. A gleam appeared in his green eyes as he let out a small chuckle.
“Well, hello to you too, Holls” Ben replied with a smirk on his lips. Holly rolled her eyes at him before turning back around to grab her pencil case.
“What’s got you so on edge today?” He asked her. She paused before closing her locker shut contemplating if she should tell him about her dream. He is her best friend after all, but the last time she told Ben about the dream, he just brushed it off as a simple nightmare and it was definitely much more than that.
“N-nothing just-I had that dream again and it’s kind of freaking me out. It just felt so…real,” Holly explained turning around to face him. Ben looked at her with sympathy and touched her shoulder gently.
“Look, Holls. I know that dreams can be scary and they can feel so real, but just remember that that’s all they are. Dreams. They can’t hurt you ” Ben said. Holly pursed her lips. She appreciated his effort in trying to comfort her, she really did, but she didn’t completely believe him.
“I guess. Thanks, Ben,” She simply responded.
“Anytime,” he answered with a smile. Though she wasn’t exactly comforted, she smiled back at him, and they probably looked a bit like idiots for staring just a bit too long, but then the bell rang telling them that they should get to class and broke their eye contact.
“We should get to class,” Holly said a little too quickly.
“Right. Off to our first class of hell. You ready?” Ben inquired. Holly shook her head.
“Not really, you?” She responded as they walked down the hallway, though she already knew the answer.
“Not in the slightest,” He stated immediatley. Holly smiled at the fact that her guess was right and that they thought so much alike. It really shouldn’t make her this happy anymore, they’ve been friends since they were small, but that didn’t seem to matter.
“Well, hey, at least my uncle is our teacher. That should make it a little less dull,” Holly reasoned as the two of them entered their first class of the day; biology.
“Let’s hope so,” Ben said taking a seat in the third row. Holly pursed her lips sliding into a seat in the row next to him when the bell rang and in walked a certain curly head teacher.
“Good morning, class! I’m Mr. Henderson and I’ll be your biology teacher this semester! Now who’s ready to cut open some frogs?” Holly looked around as she raised her hand confidently to find that only her and Ben were willing to dissect a frog. Other students had disgusted and confused looks on their faces.
“Well, I’m glad some people are ready. Always nice to see you, Holly,” Mr. Henderson states with a wide smile. Holly returned the action as she brought her hand down.
“You too Dustin-uh-Mr. Henderson,” she stuttered. Holly heard a couple soft laughs coming from throughout the room and her cheeks suddenly became warm. This was going to be a long year.
~O~
Holly was exhausted by the time school ended and all she wanted to do was go home and crawl onto the couch to take a nap. But, sadly, she couldn’t do that. No, because she had AV Club.
She wasn’t really into the stuff that happened during AV Club. Not particularly. But, her Uncle, Dustin Henderson, was the supervisor of the club and needed more members in order to keep it running. So, because she loved Dustin more than anything, Holly became a member of the AV Club alongside Ben Stratford.
Rose Gallagher had other obligations, she had claimed. Something about helping her older brother out with some photography project.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us, Rose? There’s still spots left,” Holly inquired as the three of them stood outside the door to the AV Club.
“I’d love to guys, but I promised i’d help Tyler after school. I’ll see you guys tomorrow!” Rose waved goodbye then and Holly and Ben made their way into the classroom.
~O~
It was 8 O’clock at night when Holly heard the doorbell ring. She was working on her unnecessarily frustrating algebra homework and the doorbell only made her more frustrated.
“Holly, can you come down here, please!” Her mom shouted up the stairs. Holly let out a heavy sigh.
“Just a minute, mom!” She called back before standing up from her desk chair. As she made her way down the stairs, Holly wondered what her mother could possibly want from her, neither of her conclusions coming to the idea that two policemen would be standing at her front door, which was what she found when she stepped on the last stair.
“I could assure you that my daughter has nothing to do with this” Karen argued with the police. Holly made her way next to her reluctantly before her mom placed a protective arm around her.
“We understand why you might feel that way, Mrs. Wheeler, but we still need to take her down to the station for questioning,” one of the policemen responded.
A million questions began to swarm in Holly’s head. She hadn’t done anything that would require the police to come after her. Mike, maybe, but not the police.
“What’s going on. What do you need me for?” She managed to ask.
“It’s your neighbor, Rose Gallagher. We believe she’s missing,”