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❝ I'LL BE THE F A C E THAT YOU SEE IN THE CROWD.
I'LL BE THE TIMES THAT YOU CRY OUT L O U D. ❞

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❝ You learn to run from what you feel, and that's why you have nightmares.
To deny is to invite madness.
To accept is to control. ❞
—MEGAN CHANCE

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S L E E P,
AS MELANIE HALL
had come to figure it, was more important than air.

Air kept you breathing, sure. It filled your lungs with precious life. It was integral to your very existence. Without it, you would die.

Melanie did not fail to recognize the importance of air to human life.

A death with no air would be agony.

It would white-out your eyes and turn your chest in on itself and steal your life like air from a leaking, whistling balloon.
None of those things are good.

But at the very least, they're real.

A sweet, merciful end that took mere minutes and left nothing to doubt. Suffocation was a certifiable end, one that put you to sleep quickly and snuffed out your life, sand on a smoldering campfire.

Lack of sleep wasn't quite so kind.

It drove you mad.
It made you forget things.
It made you see things.
It dangled sweet relief in your face, only to rip it out from underneath you, the floor gone, your sanity plummeting into the dark chasm of delirium.

A person dying of insomnia didn't get a fast death. They had to wait for relief, wait to hit the floor of insanity with a sickening crack as they fell in slow motion.

The world would whiz by you like the passing scenery through the windows of a train or a speeding car.

Too quick to pinpoint any one thing, your eyes wary and weak.
Leaving you lying in bed, your ceiling dancing over your head, taunting you with visions of the sugar plum fairies and forest nymphs that might greet you in your dreams, if you could only manage to grasp onto any.

For those unlucky enough to know, sleep knew just how to stay out of your reach, just on the tips of your fingers.

Melanie Hall was one of those people. Sleep eluded her like a wispy phantom, vanishing just as her fists wrap around it's wickedly enticing, beckoning hands. And it laughed as it did.

And those fateful nights when she managed to grab ahold of sleep like the wild, thrashing bull it was, she was met with the jarring ice bath of  night terrors.

The things of Hell, evil and sickeningly real. They flared behind her eyes, waking her after only an hour or two of rest.

Grades, friends, sanity.
All things that Insomnia happily marred and ripped from your aching, withered hands.

Malevolent, malignant, and unbelievably
C R U E L.

OR

The story of how one girl can turn herself inside out just to rest. Just to lay her weary head down, shut her eyes, and get some sleep.

She just has to be careful that sleep doesn't get her, first.

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MELANIE ROSE HALL
cool. sarcastic. tired.

portrayed by Christina Applegate

DIANE HALL
overbearing. neurotic. affectionate.

portrayed by Sally Field

KATIE "RABBIT" GWAN
energetic. kind. loyal.

portrayed by Keiko Agena

with

GEORGE HALL
irresponsible. absent. lost.

portrayed by Chevy Chase

MILES P. HALL
bright. happy. gone.

portrayed by Brendan Fraser

and

THE CAST OF STRANGER THINGS
as
THEMSELVES

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IN THE SUMMER OF '83,
when the city of Chicago, Illinois was sticky and hot and teeming with life, Miles P. Hall went out to a party with his friends and never came back.

It was just one month before he would be loading up a moving van and heading to the east coast for his first year of college. He was whip-smart and the kindest kid this side of the Mississippi river. And no one loved him more than his little sister, Mellie.

She was only sixteen years old, the need to rebel against her mom and dad just starting to lick at her heels. So young and ready to take on the world, so long as Miles didn't get to it first.

The city and surrounding towns and highways were scoured for days, by loved ones and strangers, alike. His disappearance had been so sudden that not even the police wanted to wait. This is no runaway, the Sergeant had said to his deputies, shaking his head, we have to find this kid... before it's too late.

Miles was a lot of things to a lot of people. The Golden Boy to his parents, the Merit Scholar to his teachers, the Prom King to his peers. But to Little Mellie, he was just Miles. Her big brother, her partner in crime, someone who would always be willing to stand by her side.
And when they found his body, naked and turned over in a ditch only two miles from their house, shot twice in the back, Mellie was sure she would die, too. A broken heart is just as lethal as anything else, and if you'd asked her back then, she would've said this is what it felt like to have your heart ripped from its cage.

She didn't sleep for two days after Miles was found, and on the third night, when she shut her puffy, tear-worn eyes, she saw Him for the first time.

Slumber, that relentless enemy, that harbinger of evils unknown, chased her all the way to Hawkins, Indiana, always just a step behind her, his maw unhinged and eager to devour her whole.

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❝ HEY, LORD, YOU KNOW
I'M T I R E D.
HEY, LORD, JUST CUT
ME LOOSE. ❞

❝ MISTER SANDMAN,
BRING ME A
D R E A M. ❞

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©️ELEVANSCAPSICLE || WATTPAD

DISCLAIMER:
I do not own Stranger Things or it's characters.
I do own this subplot and my OCs.
I got the idea for this plot after I started reading Stephen King's Insomnia,
so I guess he gets some inspiration credit, too.

❝ I'LL BE THE BILL YOU FORGOT TO PAY.
I'LL BE THE DREAM THAT KEEPS YOU A W A K E. ❞

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HORROR, MATURE THEMES, LANGUAGE, AND GORE AWAIT YOU.
PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.
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