the celestial

✧

BEFORE YOU READ )

this chapter has some gore. i am warning you before you read, because i realized that this book isn't marked as because most chapters don't contain gore like this one, (and future chapters to come which will likely be waayyyy worse than this one)

but i wanted to let you know in case some of you guys aren't big fans of gore. for anyone who's already read the extended version, you might already have an idea of what's coming (descriptive-wise, because of the emilia/trophy thing...)

okok last warning because i don't want anyone to report this book 😭😭 but honestly, it's really not that bad. it's like 2 or 3 paragraphs.

The nightmares won't end.

They torment her mind like an incurable, fucked up disease. The next nightmare was worse than the prior, but the elements remained the same. Faceless bodies with broken bones and mangled limbs lay lifeless on an old house's wooden floor. She can practically feel the crisp air between the trees of the woods that surround the house, and hence all of Hawkins. The breeze made her shudder, and her skin was stained with dark red blood.

Rue jolts awake, gasping for air as if her breath had been taken. A chilly sweat covers her body, and she struggles to see where she is in the darkness. The nightmare fades away like any other dream, and she tries to grasp part of it, to remember it, so she won't be as clueless as she was yesterday, but it all fades away like a shadow, creeping behind the depths of other memories.

The sound of running water is the first thing she recognizes, and she realizes she's rubbing her hands together under the stream. Rue opens her eyes to find her reflection staring back at her. It scared her for a moment, but as she looked down, panic settled in her gut. Her hands were stained crimson red. While it reminds her of the fists in Rink-O-Mania, and how they looked the same as they did now, bruised and bloodied, she can't help but think that this time, losing a fist fighting wasn't the reason for having blood-stained hands.

She turns off the faucet as though the water beneath it is burning her flesh. Rue's dripping hands tremble and twitch at her sides as she turns to face her reflection in the mirror.

Her body stutters when she notices the change of clothes on her body, just like yesterday. The gold necklace Mike had given her sits over a white Bella-top blouse that clings to her body. Her denim pants were replaced by green cargo pants, which she had packed at the last minute before leaving the house with Joyce and Murray for the airport. Her hair is lighter, the final remains of the pink dye were finally gone and washed away, and a dark green scrunchie keeps it up and out of her face.

Rue's feet throb with pain, and she moves out of the bathroom cautiously, attempting to be silent. The wood beneath her socks creaks quietly, as does the door as she closes it behind her.

The gold light from a little lamp sitting on the table between the couch and the small T.V illuminated every inch and corner of Nancy Wheeler's basement, which had the first rays of morning daylight peeking through its closed drapes. Steve was curled up in a ball on a chair, Robin was on the floor next to Max's sleeping couch, and Nancy slept on the floor next to Lucas.

Rue comes to a halt as she notices Dustin still awake, most likely on Max Duty, as Nancy nicknamed it, after giving everyone rotational hours to keep a watch on Max in case she falls into another trance while everyone is sleeping.

They catch each other's eyes and look at each other weirdly, mainly in disbelief. As Dustin scrambles to stand from his seat on the carpet, Rue feels as if nails have been hammered into her feet, keeping her still.

"Where have you been?" As he approaches the girl, he whispers and awkwardly steps over everyone. His eyes were droopy as if he'd been in and out of sleep the entire time. "You were supposed to be on Max, like, an hour ago. I covered for you, you know." He yawns, his yawn is loud, and he attempts to be quiet by cupping his hands over his lips, "When you came back you totally ignored me and locked yourself in the bathroom..."

Dustin's voice dies in his throat, and his eyes drop from Rue's face to her hands. He blinks, almost in disbelief. "Is that... is that blood?"

Rue doesn't hear him, her thoughts sliding away from his quiet words. She remembers her broken Walkman, her damaged sweater, the clothes, the blood, and the sound of bones snapping that makes her feel like a family of spiders are crawling up her spine. She shivers and tears well up in her eyes before summoning the courage to approach Dustin.

Even in his distraught state, he doesn't move away from her. Dustin steps closer, his gaze drawn to the blood-stained hands.

"I... I think something happened..." She utters in a hushed tone, her voice barely audible as the tears roll down her cheeks. It cracks when she speaks, and her lips tremble in despair, "I think I might've hurt some people."

Dustin's shoulders tensed up, "What? What are you talking about?"

Rue babbles like a child, and Dustin is unable to understand a single thing she says. He reaches for her, gently placing his hand on her back as he guides her to the table in the basement corner where they used to play D&D with The Party.

Dustin pulls out a chair and assists Rue in sitting before taking a seat in front of her. He waits for her to speak again and looks around to see if anyone else has woken up.

Rue cries quietly and scoffs, furious with herself, brushing her tears away with the back of her hands. Dustin turns to gaze at her again, and she feels pathetic. Rue attempts to push the emotion down a dark hole, "I've been having these dreams," she says, "and I didn't think anything of it at first. They were just nightmares."

Dustin sits up, his gaze flickering from Rue's hands to her face, "How... how long have you had them?"

"Not long, yesterday and today," She sighs, "But they feel so real," Rue frowns as she recalls her nightmares, her stomach twisting and flipping inside her. She remembers the buzz in her skin, how it burned at times and tingles at others, and the soreness in her feet, as if she had been walking on them for hours on end, "Like, everything I see actually happened."

"What did you see in your dreams?" Dustin's voice trembles. He moves anxiously in his seat but forces himself to remain seated.

Rue drops her gaze to her lap. Frustration and dread settle in her bones as she stares at her hands. She discovers her rings are missing, but she doesn't care and pushes her thumb into the centre of her hand, hoping to stop them from trembling.

Every time she blinks, she sees faceless corpses, their bodies disfigured, mutilated, and crumbled on the floor of an old house in the woods, and blood splattered on the walls and ceilings. Their shouts and screams linger in her ears, and their velvet bones, silked with blood, peek through the bloodied flesh; she feels like a murderer.

"I've hurt people, Dustin," Her voice cracks, "I've killed them, and I don't know why I did it."

"But it's just a dream, right?"

Rue looks up at him again, her eyes glossy with tears. She lets out a shaky breath and shakes her head, "Look at me, Dustin. This doesn't feel like it's just a nightmare anymore. I have blood on my hands, literally. And now... now that I think about it, everything starts to make more sense..."

"What do you mean?" Dustin whispers.

"Max said I disappeared yesterday," Rue rasps, "And... Now I know why I keep finding blood on my things... and the sweater, and my Walkman and... how they got to your house. It all connects. Yesterday, in my dream... I saw four bodies. A few hours later Nancy tells us the four people went missing. I don't think that was a coincidence, Dustin. And now.... now you tell me I disappeared again..." she shakes her head, "I just woke up from another nightmare. I was washing this blood off my hands in the bathroom. And the worst part is this feeling of wrong, guilt, and strength. It's not new."

Dustin furrowed his eyebrows, and he leaned closer. "You felt this before?"

"Once," Rue admits, her voice barely above a whisper. She thinks of last summer, "When I woke up after the battle of Starcourt. I felt a lot like this. Dustin, when I wake up from these nightmares, I don't remember much. When I woke up in that hospital room, I couldn't remember anything. I didn't even know I went into a coma until recently."

He frowns, "You don't remember what happened at Starcourt?"

Rue shifts in her seat, "I remember parts."

"Not even...?"

Dustin doesn't finish his sentence, as if he expects Rue to understand what he's saying. Rue furrowed her brows, waiting for him to say what he was about to say, but he never did. "Not even what?" she frowns, "what happened?"

"You don't remember? Anything? Anything at all?" He tries again.

Rue purses her lips and strains herself to remember what happened that night. "I remember Billy and Sky, and getting struck in the head," she says. She recalls Joyce telling her she had had a severe concussion, which is why Rue hasn't played baseball since the summer of 1985.

"After that, everything else is blurry," she continues, "It feels like it was all a dream. I know it happened. I can remember parts, but it's like... it's a dream, you know? The more you try to remember, the more you forget. It feels exactly like these nightmares, Dustin."

When they hear a disturbance coming from the sleeping bunch, the two tighten in their seats. They turn to face everyone and relax when they learn the shuffling sounds caused by Steve moving over in his sleep.

Rue returns her gaze to Dustin, expecting and waiting for an answer.

He pauses, his gaze drawn to Max Mayfield's sleeping frame before turning to Rue. Dustin takes a big breath and frowns profoundly "Rue, you killed Sky," he begins, his voice gentle as he delivers the news. " Billy, too." He watches her face fall in terror. "And it was really, really brutal. Like, from those movies we used to watch with the party in Mike's basement. We all knew we weren't supposed to watch it, but we did anyway, and we all had nightmares for two days."

"What?"

"Nightmare on Elm Street? Remember when we watched that? Lucas swore he wasn't scared, but then he wouldn't let any of us fall asleep for the whole night because he thought-"

"Dustin." Rue cuts him off and she shakes her head again, this time in disbelief. "I didn't kill Billy or Sky."

"But you did," He tells her the truth, "I saw you do it. Everyone did..."

Rue trembles in horror as her breath shudders. Her gaze moves away from Dustin and toward Max. Rue wonders if Max had drifted away from her because she had killed her brother and had no recollection of it. Rue closes her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Even Max?"

Dustin nods sorrowly, "Even Max."

Rue traps her lower lips between her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut until she sees stars. Guilt and terror stretched through her chest and entire body, and Rue can't help but swallow the thick lump in her throat that kept on growing. When she cries, she does it softly, hoping not to wake anyone else.

Rue gasps and pants, struggling to breathe. She murdered Billy and Sky in front of everyone. She wonders if they depicted her as a monster during the time she was gone or if they blamed her and referred to her as a maniac. Everything makes sense now. Rue is devastated, and she feels terrible, especially now since she knows Max has likely been thinking of her as the girl who murdered Billy Hargrove.

Rue lets out a breath of air, puffing her cheeks as she tries to stop Rue takes a deep breath, puffing her cheeks as she tries to stop crying and blink the tears away from her green eyes. She doesn't stop thinking about the battle at Starcourt, wanting to discover Dustin was mistaken and lying to her again.

Then she remembers, "I wasn't there."

Dustin raises her brows, "What do you mean?"

Rue opens her eyes, "I remember waking up in Starcourt," she pauses, and she hopes he doesn't think she's insane for saying this, "But it wasn't our Starcourt. Another one, it was ruined and dark and cold and-"

He gasps quietly, "Did you wake up in the Upside Down?"

"I... I'm not sure," Rue stammers because she's never seen the Upside Down; she's only heard about it from Will and El, and neither of them has a picture of it. As she tries to explain, her skin feels like it's on fire. "I thought it was just some nightmare. Or that I died. But I couldn't have killed Billy because I wasn't there. I was... I was..." she shudders, "I wasn't alone, Dustin."

"In the Upside Down?" He asks, and she nods, "Were there Demo-dogs?"

"No."

"The Demogorgon?"

"No..."

"The Mind Flayer?"

"No!" She freezes as she exclaims. Rue examines the sleeping pile, hoping she hasn't disturbed anyone. When she realizes they're all still sleeping, she turns back to Dustin, who stares at her skeptically with his brows raised to his forehead and hidden under his curly hair.

Rue scrunchies her face up, and the hairs on her skin stick up on their own accord, making her shiver. Her voice drops again, and it sounds weak when she speaks. "It was... me."

"You?"

"It doesn't make sense," Rue tells him quietly, "that's why I thought it was all in my head. But it felt so real. It felt like these nightmares. And sometimes it happened after I woke up from the coma. I didn't understand it, and I still don't."

"True sight," Dustin mumbles.

Rue stares at him helplessly, "I thought maybe you would understand."

"Did the other you say anything?" He asks.

The ominous buzz beneath her fingertips returns, as does the awareness of something pressing into her head. It spreads and reaches like shadows in the woods. It was frigid, dreary, and horrifically disturbing, and Rue frowns as she recalls the nightmarish memory of confronting herself in the Upside Down's ruins. "She said... she said they've been waiting for me, and she called me Celestial."

Dustin sits up. "Celestial?" Rue nods as he repeats. He pauses there, deep in contemplation, before getting up. Rue's gaze follows him as he walks around the table and towards a D&D-labeled box on the floor. He begins to take items from the box, such as books, folders, and sketches.

"When Sky was flayed, she also called me that. Billy, as well." She goes on, "They told me I should give them the Celestial... but I'm not sure what that is. And there's this man who keeps showing up, calling me his Celestial and telling me how I'll lead others to-" Rue holds her tongue and stops speaking when she realizes Dustin isn't paying attention. "What are you doing?"

Dustin returns to his seat with a D&D manual, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, in his arms as he places it on the table. Rue sits silently as he turns through the pages, watching him skim over information and text before he stops at a chapter.

Rue raises her brows and looks up at him, waiting for the boy to explain.

"The Celestial," He announces quietly, beckoning Rue to lean in closer for a better look. She gets up from her seat and looks at the book, their shoulders brushing together as she reads the words and looks at the illustrations.

Dustin begins to explain what a Celestial is. "In Dungeons and Dragons, the Celestials are a rare sight on the material plane, where most D&D campaigns take place. If Celestials do venture to the material plane. It's usually as divine messengers or agents. A Celestial might visit the material plane to deliver a message or complete a task and then return to the Upper Planes."

"...I'm not catching on." Rue admits.

Dustin turns to her, "They're like angels or gods. But they're mostly there to help guide the party to communicate. They're divine agents. Secret agents. From fantasy."

"Okay..." Rue returns her gaze to the open book, her gaze drawn to an illustration of what a Celestial is supposed to look like in the fantasy game. They appear to be warriors with wings of angels, and they enlighten battlefields with holy light. She can't help but sigh, feeling far from an angel. "Is it a good or bad thing?"

"Most of D&D's celestials are good-aligned, yes," Dustin nods, "and all Celestials were originally good," He pauses, perhaps even hesitating, before saying, "Some Celestials fall from grace and become evil, though... think of them as fallen angels. They're still messengers and guides, but they can also guide your party to a gruesome death."

Rue isn't sure how much more her heart can take. She felt it drop to the pit of her stomach, and a part of her thought it had fallen and landed between her feet. The buzz begins to burn her fingertips, making her wince.

My fist of vengeance, my fallen angel, you'll lead them all to their defeat.

My fallen angel.

The man's sentiments had stuck in her thoughts from the first time she heard them. They rang in her ears and left an imprint on her mind. She had been confused at first, but now she was alarmed. His words were not a note of caution but rather a promise.

Rue's mind is racing with possibilities, and she is unaware that Dustin is still speaking "We had a Celestial fall in our path during our previous campagne with Eddie, and she led us straight into the hands of Vecna and his cultist. Which was unfortunate because we were all injured, and the only reason we trusted the Celestial was because they are generally there to aid. Anyway, we won the tournament, but barely, thanks to Lady Applejack and-"

"Dustin," Rue cuts him off and waves her hand in the air before sliding back into her seat. She frowns as she glances at him, "You're getting off track."

"Sorry," He smiles apologetically and sits down, "It was just a really good champagne. "

She can feel her hands tremble on her lap again, "That's the game," Rue tells doesn't, as if to remind him that it was all fictional, or at least to remind herself. "What about in real life? Why do they think that I have this Celestial?"

"I think..." Dustin rubs his chin, "I think they think you are the Celestial."

Rue blinks, "What?"