tran·quil·i·ty

noun

the quality or state of being tranquil; calm.

Being in senior year had its perks; Emilia sat on a bench with her bag at the end of it, leaning her back against the alcove wall. With her knees propped up, her booted foot tapped methodically, fingers poised ready to turn to the next page of her book. Stephen King's Pet Sematary had a chilling premise that reminded her of what happened to Will. Fiction and non-fiction blurred these days, but now that it was September, Emilia was starting to think that the world had gone back to normal. Monsters could linger under the beds and the stairs, but they wouldn't come out.

Getting lost entirely in her book, Emilia tuned out the doors shutting, the scuffle of wet shoes squeaking along the shiny floors. People walked by, not paying any mind to her; she had gone back to being invisible, and she was more than happy with that outcome. Carol and Tommy never spoke another word to her over the last school year, and she knew they wouldn't this year either. Her and Jonathan were free to be invisible.

She had the feeling of pure tranquility knowing that everything was going back to normal. Even El would soon be able to enter society, at least that was Hopper's end goal. She couldn't wait to have that secret off of her chest, having held it from Jonathan for so long. All her late nights at the cabin made things complicated, but now that school was back in session, Jonathan and Emilia saw a lot more of each other.

Turning another page, Emilia felt the paper scrape along her finger, threatening to cut her but the page not being strong enough. When she'd flipped it, the whole world flipped with it. Lights turned out, the world had a blue hue to it, and the dust motes that were synonymous to the Upside Down floated before her eyes. Clutching the book tight in her hands, Emilia looked back and forth down the empty hallways.

"It's in your head," she told herself. She'd had nightmares for months, but every time she woke covered in a cold sweat she either had Jonathan next to her, or Hopper just down the hallway. She could ground herself, like wires in a house, to those two people.

But this was different; she was submerged in the Upside Down. She could taste the difference upon her tongue, she could smell the warped way the world smelled dead here. But it felt very much alive, there was an ambient pulsing like a heart beat. Upon sensing that this might not be a dream, a nightmare, or a hallucination, Emilia tucked her head down for a moment, to regain her senses. The hardcover book pressed against her, the pages smooth and soothing.

Her heart rate increased as she felt something resembling a panic attack sweep over her. She began to count backwards from thirty, to calm herself down. When she hit twenty, she couldn't stop herself from looking up. There were no creatures lurking except for the creature that was the Upside Down. Gaining some sort of courage, she shakily rose from the bench and looked down the hallway dead on.

"Nineteen..." she began counting again, the words numbly coming out of her mouth.

The feeling of being watched did not go unnoticed by Emilia, and the chill that ran down her spine froze her; paralyzed. The pulsing continued, and then a skittering like a rat in the distance. Her breathing wavered, then hitched entirely. The swelling up in her throat made it feel impossible to breathe, she was still getting air, but less and less with each frantic gasp.

"Eleven..." she said in her own head, "ten... nine... eight..."

"Emilia?" A grip upon her shoulder, tight and comforting, yanked her from the Upside Down.

Not caring who it was, and knowing deep down, Emilia spun around and wrapped her arms around the person's neck. Tucked into that embrace like a child who had a night terror, Emilia absorbed the scent and knew it was Jonathan. The way his arms wrapped around her just as tightly as she held onto him, this protective aura that Jonathan had about him, it told her who she was hugging. All that terror subsided and all that mattered was the now, that she was not in the Upside Down.

"Emilia, are you okay?" Jonathan released her from the hug, but held her shoulders, looking into her blue eyes.

"Something's wrong with me," she whispered so quietly that he did not hear her.

"What?"

"Can we get some air?"

"Yeah, of course," Jonathan nodded, then grabbed her bag from the bench. He had been coming down the hall to look for her, although they didn't have corresponding spare blocks. He'd simply snuck out with the intent to find her, maybe give her a kiss, then get back to class. He had not expected her to be standing in the middle of the hallway speaking nonsense. He'd always worried about her, since the moment he found her in the car accident all those years ago, that feeling never really ebbed.

With his hand just lightly upon her back, just to remind her that he was right there, the pair left the school and were hit with the cold October air. Immediately Emilia felt as though she could breathe again, but the fear of what she had just seen clung to her, like the mucus of the Upside Down. She could still taste it, it couldn't be a part of her mind if she could still feel the essence of it upon her person, could it?

"You want to talk about it?" Jonathan asked, then gestured to the door of the school. "What happened back there?"

"I just... the book, it..." she took a deep breath to compose herself, then tried again. "The book I'm reading just gave me a scare."

"That's bullshit," Jonathan stated. They had been together long enough, faced and survived enough that she didn't need to lie to him. Normally he would let her work everything out on her own, offering guidance when she asked for it, but she was hiding something from him. She'd been disappearing for the last few months, never coming over, always coming up with excuses to avoid him, and he'd had enough. His worry that she was drifting encouraged him to call her out.

"You've been different for months, Emilia. You haven't been going to the therapist like Will has... and I think you would really benefit from going..." he suggested, then took a deep breath. "I feel like you're not around anymore. What's on your mind? What's bothering you?"

Emilia felt guilt pang throughout her, like a ping pong ball hitting every part of her. She'd been spending so much time with El since she discovered she was alive, the girl was fragile in some ways, ways that Emilia hoped she was strengthening. When she looked up at Jonathan she saw sadness in his eyes, something she'd seen for a while now but had been ignoring.

She couldn't tell him about El, but she could tell him about what had just happened.

"I think I'm losing my mind," she looked away, embarrassed. "One moment I was here, in Hawkins High... the next I was..." she lowered her voice to a whisper, "I was in the Upside Down."

"Oh..."

"Am I going crazy?"

"No," he shook his head, "No I don't think so."

"But if I'm not... and this is real?"

"We'll beat this," he told her. Embracing her again, he planted his lips upon her forehead, holding them there as worry and fear found its way back in. 

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Question of the day: What is the most scared you have ever been?