Chapter Ninety-Two: We Are The Same

~~~CONTAINS VOL. 2 SPOILERS~~~

When the landing finally did arrive, there was nothing gentle about it. The back of my head collided with a hard surface, sending shock waves throughout my entire body. I winced, slowly sitting up and putting a hand on the back of my head to see that I was laying on the floor in the middle of a stairwell...an eerily familiar stairwell.

I stood up, moving towards the stairs, already knowing exactly what I would find. I had the route memorized, which allowed me to turn the corner of the closest hospital room towards the stairs, knowing exactly who would be waiting for me.

She was sitting up in her bed, as she often did, but her oxygen tube was gone. Her skin was gray and appeared to be rotting, while her eyes were sunken into her head and surrounded by dark circles. Her hair was still missing, making her appear that much more horrifying.

"Do you know who I am?" She asked in a high-pitched, insanely creepy voice. "Or have you forgotten that too? Was Eleven so good a replacement that you don't even remember what I look like?"

I sighed, rolling my eyes and crossing my arms over my chest.

"Its scary," I said dryly, "I mean really...showing me my dead little sister, playing on the guilt I feel over trying to move on with my life, its a good tactic, for sure, but in case you're forgetting, I'm inside your head. I know all of your tactics...Vecna."

"Is that what you're calling me?" He asked. I shook my head.

"Like you didn't know," I shot back, "I have a feeling you know just as much about me as I know about you."

"Perhaps," He replied, "But you don't know everything."

The room began to spin, and the flickering hospital lights faded, and were soon replaced with the murderous red glow of the lair that Max and I had infiltrated. Once it stopped, I wasn't surprised to see the crumbling house had replaced the hospital set, and I was standing at the top of the very same staircase that I had run down with Chrissy at the very beginning.

"I'm not afraid of you." I said defiantly, beginning to walk down the stairs, "But you want me to be, right? I think you get off of the idea that your victims are afraid before they die. I mean, assuming that's what this is. You showed me Sara so, I think its safe to assume that this is my nightmare and not someone else's."

"What do you know of nightmares?" He asked, still unseen to me. I shook my head.

"I know that you came after my friends...my family," I replied, "and that is going to make me your nightmare."

"What will you do? You know nothing of power. You couldn't even figure out my true identity when it was staring you right in the face."

"Then enlighten me," I said, as I reached the bottom of the stairs, "If you're so smart...if you truly believe that you are so many steps ahead of us then go ahead. Make a fool out of me and tell me what I missed...because I'd be willing to bet that I know more than you think...Henry."

A loud roar filled my ears, and the red ruins disappeared and transformed into the Creel house from the past in all of its vintage glory. I once again stood by and watched as young Victor Creel walked through the front door and took in their new home...only this time, I kept my eyes trained on the little boy that stood with them.

"I noticed something in Victor's story," I said, crossing my arms, "I didn't put the pieces together until this very moment, but I noticed that when he spoke of the demon terrorizing his family...he never once remembered any sort of nightmares for his son. He and his wife had hallucinations; his daughter woke up screaming...but not you. Not Henry."

The little boy stood at the back of the group while Alice ran up the stairs and their parents embraced and smiled joyfully at their new home. The boy lifted his cold, sunken eyes from the floor, his gaze coming to land on me.

He walked away from the entryway, and I followed after him.

"When I got my powers," I continued, "The more they grew, I was using more than my body was prepared to handle...so I passed out. And similarly, after the final attack on Victor's family, you didn't die like the others did. You slipped into a coma...all because your little body was exhausted from all the exertion your powers put on you."

Henry Creel walked into the bathroom that Steve and I had observed in the house, crouching down in front of the vent that had all the spider jars in it. He put his hand down inside of it, pulling it out and watching as a black widow climbed along his hand.

A figure moved behind me and I turned around to see another version of Henry run past me, rushing up the attic stairs. I followed after him to find him sitting on the floor surrounded by candles, observing the spiders that he'd now put in the jars.

He had a notebook in front of him and was sketching them with colored pencils.

"The spiders," I realized, "You always had spiders in the nightmares. As a child, it seems you were fascinated by them. It makes sense...they immobilize their prey before they kill them...like trapping them in nightmares and breaking their bones."

The room spun again, and placed me back in the main hall, once again showing me the only real picture of Henry I'd seen in Victor's memories. The one of him staring at the grandfather clock.

He closed his eyes, and suddenly the hands of the clock began spinning backwards. My eyes widened.

"Moving things with your mind," I said quietly, "Just like..."

A pained, animalistic screech filled my ears as I watched Henry Creel trap a rabbit in his yard and hold a hand over it, cracking and contorting its bones just like he did to the people.

"Your powers are more than that, though," I continued, "You can see into people's memories. Into their minds. I'm sure your parents were the people you practiced on first, which is how you discovered what your father had done in the war. You discovered the secrets parents tend to keep from their children, while they're young enough to believe that their parents are superheroes, and as a kid, you couldn't possibly comprehend that, so you decided to punish them."

The scene changed to the dinner table, where I once again watched Mrs. Creel fly above the table and die. But this time, I kept my eyes focused on Henry, who reached up to wipe the blood from his nose as his father rushed to pull him out of his chair.

"They were going to send you away," I theorized, "You're one of the kids...like Eleven and the others, and based on the timeline alone...I bet you're the first. I bet you were the one who made them realize these powers were possible."

The visions seemed to respond to my words, shifting to a sterile white room, with young Henry lying in a bed, strapped to machines, and standing above him, was a younger version of the very man that the kids and I had faced off against in the Middle school all those years ago...the man who was so desperate to locate Eleven that he was willing to kill anyone who got in his way.

"Brenner," I said aloud, "Dr. Martin Brenner, he took you. He took you, and he studied your powers, he used you as the example to create all of the other kids. It was all you...you started all of this! You created Eleven, You...you created me."

"We are the same." Vecna stated. "I've seen your pain, Riley. Your tears, your loneliness...the loss of a sister, the betrayal of your parents, I saw it all and I knew that you were like me. We're strong, Riley. We are stronger then all of them, and that is why I have allowed you to see what you've seen. Just imagine what we can do for others like us if we just embrace our power."

"What are you saying?!" I exclaimed. "You...you chose me?! You took me into the Upside Down, knowing what I would become?!"

"I saw your potential through your pain...and I gave you power to reach it. But you were different long before I ever discovered you...your body mutated...the very same conditions that killed your little sister are the ones that made you so strong...so susceptible to change. And all it took was the humans destroying the natural order! All it took was unnecessary, heedless wars, and for what?! Their right to continue in their meaningless, monotonous circles?! They have killed and harmed far more people than I ever have...so if it is blame you seek, then do not blame me for making you what you are. Blame your own father's carelessness...and the carelessness of those who oversaw him."

"I don't CARE who's FAULT IT IS!" I screamed. "YOU CAME AFTER MY FAMILY, AND YOU CAME AFTER MY HOME, AND I AM NOT GOING TO JUST SIT BY AND LET IT HAPPEN!"

"I don't want that for you, Riley. I don't want you to simply be a passive enabler...I want you to join me."

"I would rather die." I spat back.

"That can be arranged...but not now. Not yet."

I was suddenly surrounded by white, sterile tile, and bleeding, mutilated bodies. I recognized it as one of the hallways in Hawkins lab, but the bodies...they were foreign to me. This wasn't a Demogorgon attack...these bodies were like the others. The rest of Vecna's victims.

Standing at the end of the hallway, was Henry Creel himself, his childhood appearance gone and replaced with the grotesque, mutilated reality. I turned away from him to see an exit door covered with planks, just like the Creel house in Chrissy's nightmares. 

"Now that you've seen where I've been," He continued, "I would like very much to show you where I am going."

I nodded, slowly turning around to face him again, and rather than standing by the door and waiting for him to come to me, I walked towards him, meeting him halfway. 

"Fine," I shot back, coming to a stop in front of him, "Then show me!"

My hands jutted out, grabbing the sides of his face and a pain spit through my head that was more intense than anything I'd felt thus far. 

"I want you to tell Eleven. I want you to tell her...everything you see. Tell her...everything."

Images flashed through my mind at lightning-fast speeds, and yet I could easily comprehend everything that I saw. I giant crack ripping through Hawkins and a dark cloud spreading over it. Downtown was burning while dead soldiers littered the ground, and there was a giant creature...surrounded by an army of monsters. Hundreds of Monsters. 

The flashes ended there, and my eyes flew open as my legs gave out from under me. I was caught by a pair of arms, wrapping around my body and lowering me to the ground. I looked up to see that it was Steve, who dropped to the ground with me. My head fell back to lean against his knee, and he put a hand on my face.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, its ok," He said, pushing my hair out of my face, "Riley, its ok, I'm right here. I'm right here."