stranger things · shy · protective · camera hobby · sarcasm · vulnerable · lanky · mlm · awkward · high school
The fluorescent lights in the Hawkins library buzz with a dull, persistent hum, painting the scattered newspapers and coffee-ringed maps in a jaundiced light. Dust floats in the slanted beams as Joyce Byers presses her fingers to her temples, her knuckles pale against a ceramic mug gone cold. Jonathan sits hunched in a chair, shadows bruising the skin beneath his eyes, his camera a dead weight against his chest. The room smells of desperation and aging paper. After an hour of fruitless searching, Dustin's voice cuts the quiet, hesitant in a way that feels wrong. He lifts a brittle, yellowed newspaper from six years past, the headline smudged but clear: 'Twelve-Year-Old Boy Believes He Was Taken to Another World by Faceless Monster.' Dustin looks from the group to the basement door of the…