Chapter Text
As finney stood in the snow, the weight of what had happened the past few days slowly lifting off his shoulders as well as the weight of the past few years. He watched as Gwen listened to the telephone box, her eyes slowly welling up with tears before she looked at him smiling bitter sweetly.
“They want to talk to you,” she said her voice shaking with emotion. He couldn’t tell if it was sadness or joy. Finney walked over as Gwen shakily held out the pay phone to him. His hand wrapped around the cold plastic before he pressed it to his ear.
“Hello?” He asked, the anger he had held towards pay phones over the years now faded away into a distant memory as he listened for a reply.
“Finney…” a sweet feminine voice whispered through the phone. A voice from a distant warm memory. “You have a strength inside of you, one that only you can use. Please use this knowledge to change what has happened,” the female voice said.
“Mom-“ finney started before he was cut off by the world going black.
The smell of faint smoke filled his nose as the feeling of a mattress slowly shifted to his senses. He sat up groaning and rubbing his eyes. His back shivered as he felt hair touching the back of his neck. His eyes shot open as he took in his surroundings.
His space pajamas, his middle school room, the discolored walls from years of his father smoking. His bangs fell infront of his eyes before he quickly pushed them aside. He shot to his feet and into the bathroom. He looked like himself from what felt like a long time ago. Before everything went wrong, before everyone went missing. He spun on his heel and rushed to the kitchen where the calendar hung above the table. His eyes widened. It was a month before the first kid went missing, Billy. His mind raced as he tried to piece it all together. He was… back? Like back in time? He could fix it? He tried to think back to what his mom said on the phone but the memory of that call was fading as fast as it was short. His mind was a maze as he tried to piece everything together.
He walked to his room and grabbed his spare notebook and started writing everything down. Dates, places, anything he could remember. His pencil moved across the pages in a frenzy. He even wrote down where he and everyone else had found the bodies at the camp. He needed to write it all down before it all faded away and it was fading fast. By the time he was done three pages were filled with information. Times the boys went missing and where they went missing. What happened to them. Anything he thought would be important. He stared at the page his mind racing with what to do.
Knock knock knock.
“Finney! Come on!” Gwen’s voice rang through the door, his eyes flicked to the door before he remembered he had school. He quickly threw on some jeans and a t shirt and grabbed his bag before rushing to the bathroom to brush his teeth and run his hands through his hair.
“Okay, let’s go.” Finney said as he hopped towards Gwen while he pulled his converse on. Gwen looked him up and down and suspicious look on her face before she shrugged and turned on her heel and started walking towards the front door.
“Hurry up, dad’s gonna have our asses if we’re late” Gwen said as she opened the door and grabbed finneys house keys from the key hook and tossed it at him. Finney nodded and caught the keys before falling into step beside her.
The walk was quiet. Gwen glancing around humming to herself. Finneys mind ran in circles. Was this a dream or was it real? Could he really do this? His mind was getting louder before a soft punch to his arm brought him back to his senses. He looked over and saw Gwen looking at him with one eyebrow raised.
“We’re at my school. See you after school.” Gwen said her tone not hiding the hint of concern for her brother.
“Okay, have a good day.” Finney said and slapped a hand on her shoulder then watched as she walked towards the school before he finished the walk to his school.
He walked into the school. It was loud and people kept bumping into him. They weren’t afraid of him, he felt anger start to build up in his chest at the perceived disrespect before he remembered. This was before, before everyone feared him for killing the grabber, before he would fight anyone who looked at him wrong. Finney took a deep breath before he found his old locker, it was dented and scratched. A few things scratched into it that he wasn’t proud to have on there. He opened the lock with practiced ease and tossed his bag into it, grabbing his text book for first block before slamming the locker shut and walking down the hall.
First block was like it always was, boring. Finney had no intrest in English, so instead what he did was look out the window. Looking at the daytime moon and the birds waking up in the trees. Eventually the class ended and finney looked at his schedule which he had taped to the inside of his binder, he had a free period now. He packed up and walked back to his locker tossing his thinks in there before digging around in his bag for some spare change and grabbing his notebook and a pen.
Finney walked down the hall towards the common area. A spot he didn’t dare to go to before everything went wrong, where his bullies usually hung out during this time. Finney shoved his hands into his pockets, holding onto the spare dollars he had found in his bag with an ironclad grip, the notebook folded in half and in his back pocket with the pen. He pushed through the double doors with his shoulders and b-lined for the vending machine.
He looked at the assortment of candies before deciding on a pack of M&M’s and a bottle of grape soda. He pressed the buttons and put a dollar bill into the machine. He stared at the glass, not watching the candy and soda drop but instead watching as buzz and his two friends snickered and laughed while pointing at him. Finneys eyes narrowed before he bent down and grabbed the candy and soda from the bin, not caring to grab the 25¢ that the machine spat out. He turned and walked to one of the single seats near a trash can and sat down, grabbing the notebook and pen. He ripped the corner of the bag of M&M’s and popped a few into his mouth and opening the soda.
He started to write down a game plan. A way to save everyone. Occasionally he would have to flip back to the pages he had written in earlier, his memory of what had- or was going to happen already disappearing. The only thing he could clearly remember was what it was like for him down there, and he refused to think of that. He didn’t want to.