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liminalpebble · 3 months ago

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Eddie's Education, Chapter 33

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Still suspended in her limbo of dreams, Leia curled into that imaginary couch, in that imaginary room, snuggled into imaginary blankets. She sunk deeper, drifting farther away from her reality and memories. When she tried to recall any of it, when the notion would itch within her that there was somewhere she had to be and something crucial she had to do, an opaque wall of dread would shock her back like an electric fence. Whatever was on the other side of this, she was deeply, viscerally, afraid to go near it, like a dog zapped one too many times and conditioned into aversion.

What if I remember who I am, and wish I never had? What if I leave this place and something horrible happens? Or what if something terrible is on the other side?

She was about to doze off and fall a little further into oblivion when a small hand began caressing her arm. A kind young voice was calling her name.

Leia...

“Leia...”

Leia opened her eyes and sat up straight, surprised into wakefulness by the company of a teenage girl whom she was almost certain she'd never met.

The girl was very pretty in a stunning 'prom queen' sort of way. She had wide blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair pulled into a perfect ponytail with a green scrunchie. She wore a matching cheerleader uniform and sparkly blue eye shadow. When she smiled it was bright and beautiful but, somehow, bittersweet.

“Hi, Leia,” she said, stroking her arm, “how do you feel?”

The girl said it like this was casual and normal, like it was just two long-time school friends having a sleepover.

Then comprehension hit her like a bolt of lightning. Upon hearing her name she thought, Leia...of course...my name is Leia, though no other information was forthcoming.

“Hi...um...I'm so sorry, but I don't think I know you. Where am I? What's going on?” Leia mumbled. She gulped, afraid to ask, but compelled to speak the question. “Am I dead?”

The cheerleader shook her head and smiled faintly, head bowing ever so slightly. “No, honey, you're not dead. I am.”

Leia had always tended toward skepticism in her life, but the last few days had challenged that tenet pretty thoroughly.

Though she couldn't remember this about herself consciously, Leia still found herself about to scoff in disbelief. Then she considered that, right now, her grasp of what was and wasn't possible was tenuous at best.

“My name's Chrissy,” she chirped. “I'm here to help you find your way. I know you're tired, but you can't stay here. I'm gonna need you to be brave.”

Leia's sluggish mind began piecing it together. The name rung a bell. Something about old newspaper articles with her picture in them and tragic headlines. A tiny winking gleam caught the corner of Leia's vision and she noticed a delicate golden pendant around Chrissy's neck bearing the numbers '86.

86...1986...something horrendous happened in 1986 to someone I care about.

Leia's head began to ache as if an ice pick was being stabbed through her eye socket. The pain burned white-hot. Just as the ache receded, the urge to simply lay back down on the soft cushions and drift off again hit her with a nearly irresistible force.

As her vision blurred drowsily and her eyelids went heavy, the cheerleader began to fade into an impressionist painting of one instead of the real thing. Meanwhile, Chrissy held on even tighter. “No no no....Leia. You have to wake up. If you go any deeper, you won't be able to come back.

Leia almost asked “back where?”, but when she saw the bold letters on Chrissy's uniform spelling out “Hawkins” in green and gold she knew, somehow.

That was it. That was the “where”.

“I don't understand. I'm missing...something. Why do I have to go back? I don't remember. All I have is this feeling...this horrible overwhelming feeling...that awful things have happened wherever I was. Maybe even because of me. What if I go back and remember and something awful happens to me...or to..?”

To someone...to someone I love so much...

She tried to think past the ache. Chrissy touched her forehead and a warm glow fanned out from the point of contact, like when a child places their hand over a flashlight, illuminating the flesh into translucence.

Leia remembered a smell; cigarettes mingled with the clean warmth of cheap detergent.

A feeling...several; the feeling of warm skin, chapped in places, interrupted by cool metal. The silky sensation of her hand running through wild fleecy curls. The saline trickle of tears. The warm, wet, excited touch of kissing and sex and tender, careful, hands.

A feeling...several; grief, guilt and fear, but also sugary, honey-sweet arousal and infatuation, the rush of being alive; but beneath that shell, true, deep love. Selfless love; bravery exchanged at great cost to each other.

Chrissy took Leia's hand and reverently placed something small and rigid into it.

Leia opened her palm to see a worn out ball and chain necklace with a marbled plastic guitar pick; chipped to hell and attached with a paperclip. It had a trademark haphazard style...something so specific and familiar it made her heart ache.

When she saw it, her synapses lit up like Christmas lights, blinking away. In the medical facility, where her body lay motionless, her monitors lit up the same way, causing a flurry of activity around her.

“Eddie!,” Leia gasped out as if the word had been punched out of her lungs. Her eyes shot wide open where she was resting on the operating table. Although her eyes were open to the real world, they were still clouded over, unseeing.

While her awareness was still completely preoccupied with what was happening in her mind, small rivulets of bright blood trickled from her nose and tear ducts, painting the white hospital gown and steel table beneath her with sanguine blossoms.

She felt panic surge through her now, but Chrissy just held her cheek in her hand and nodded happily. “That's right! Eddie! You remember now? Yeah?”

Leia could only nod while the tears streamed down her face. “Oh god...how...how could I forget?”

“It's okay. This place can do that.”

Leia almost asked again where “this place” was...but she had the sense that words couldn't explain it anyway.

Leia looked around frantically for a moment as the room began to unravel and disintegrate around them. She held tighter to Chrissy's hand and blurted out, “What...what if I'm not supposed to go back? What if something terrible happens?”

Chrissy was silent for a long moment. She wasn't in a hurry, even as the furniture and walls dissolved and washed away like silt.

Finally, she sighed and said, “But what if something good...really good...happens? We can't know anything for sure. Most things we don't get to know or control in our lives, but that can't stop us from living them. I can tell you first-hand...life is unfair. But also, it's so short and so precious. There could be so many good years...good moments for you, for Eddie. Live them for me.”

Tears began to wet her mascara and eye shadow, drawing a little stream of glittery black and blue down the side of her perfect face. Leia wiped it away gently with her thumb, brows peaked in concern.

“I'm sorry...I'm so sorry you didn't get your time with him. You loved him, too. Didn't you?”

Chrissy smiled fondly, nostalgically, at that. She even blushed a little.

“Yeah...yeah, I did. He's hard not to love. But, do me a favor when you get back and love him as hard as you can. Love him for me too. Love him for all the people who weren't there or couldn't be there to love him like he deserved. Take care of him for me, okay?”

“I will. I promise.”

“And, Leia?”

“Take care of yourself. You deserve a good life.”

They embraced, eyes shut, and as their mutual dreamworld shimmered into nothingness around them, Leia found her courage and waited for the next great unknown to unfurl.

The cloudy cataracts cleared from her eyes and Leia finally woke up.

@sweetsigyn @veemoon @elegantkoalapaper @little-wormwood

#eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson #eddie munson x ofc

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recycledsurvivor77 · 2 years ago

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I almost tried to kill myself today. I wrote notes and prepared everything. I didn't even make it all the way down the porch steps before I pussied out.

There's this part of me that wants my life. I have this dream that I can eventually manage myself enough to do good for the people around me, enough to make things and work toward things I'm passionate about. It feels so unrealistic.

There was a time I was happy. Maybe I was drugged up and deluding myself, but I felt a love for life and determination to get better and do better. I relished the little things. I was doing so well. Then I let it all fall apart.

Even if I do take steps to improve, who's to say that it'll last? Why should I hope for anything when I have a pattern of utter failure?

I feel as though I'm being called. I imagine the force calling me as a corpse-like woman, beckoning me to her so she can wrap me in her sweet oblivion.

Why should I be happy, if it will only get ripped away? Why should I be miserable? Why should I continue to fail, hurting others in the process?

I can simply return from where I came. From energy to energy. This body needs to die. I need to see her. I need to end the cruel joke that is this life. I will be free. I will rest. My loved ones will be safe. I will be reborn when my soul and spirit are ready.

And yet, I'm a coward. The journey to my true mother is terrifying. And I am selfish and stubborn. I don't want to quit until I'm proud of myself. I don't want to bow out before I can look at my life and know I did everything I could.

I play games like Celeste, Rogue Company, and the Binding of Isaac. I love a challenge. I will throw my head against a brick wall until one of us cracks. So why am I so quick to give up my life? Game has rules. Losing the game is merely a setback rather than a devastating blow. Progress and improvement are noticeable even when the end result is still failure. Success is satisfying and builds to more success. I can take breaks when I need to.

Maybe life is less like a rigged game of poker, and more like Kaizo Mario. Nearly impossible, but I can do it if I learn the tricks I need to use.

I feel I have an impossible decision to make. On the one hand, I still want to make this life the best it can be. I'm not ready to give up yet. On the other hand, I want to see my mother. I want to rest. I want to be free from the physical world, even if it's only temporary. Neither option is entirely appealing.

S loves me. S wants me around. S believes in me. Maybe that'll be enough. Please, God, let it be enough. I gotta make it through. I gotta be there for S. I owe it to them.

I feel so worn-down. Bone tired. I'm twenty-five, and I feel ancient. Doing normal chores and making myself food feels like too much. I'm no good. I don't have the same amount of strength as everyone else. I wish I could live in a place where I could get prompts or help to do things. But doesn't that make me even more pathetic? Twenty-five and I still need help like a child. I can't understand what S sees in me. Or how whatever it is could possibly make up for the fact that I'm a retarded cripple. I'm useless. Their parents are right.

I don't know what I could possibly do about it, though. Leaving them isn't an option. I'm too cowardly to die. There's only so much I'll be able to do even if I do get better. Once again, no good choices.

I want to sleep forever. Just go to bed and not wake up. Get hit by a drunk driver. Get stabbed in an alley. I don't care. I want things to be better, but I have no faith that they can be. So I'm stuck in this awful limbo where I'm not moving forward, but not committing to dying, either.

I'm very sad, and all I want to do sleep.

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