Chapter Text
August 12th, 2025
It was a hot summer day in Montauk, New York and Emma Foster wanted to kill herself.
This wasn’t an unusual occurrence, nor was it the first time she’d stared up at the large lighthouse on the edge of town wondering if anyone would catch her when she fell.
The sharp New York wind blew against her bare legs, running shorts under a large t-shirt the only thing keeping her from overheating as the bright sun beat down through a blue sky.
Sweat dotted the top of her brow, ponytail doing nothing to keep her cool as she stretched out in front of the start of her route.
Usually when those kinds of thoughts started permeating the space inside her brain, she knew it was time to go for a run.
She hated running, but it was the only way she could truly get out of her head long enough to convince her mom and dad not to put her in a mental hospital. Again.
She’d barely survived the first time.
Her chucks took her through winding paths and endless roads, the crash of waves against the shore playing faintly in the back of her mind as Rilo Kiley blared through her headphones, loud enough to block out the chirps and sirens of the world around her.
If a car derailed or a fire broke out, the only thing she would hear is the soft synth in her ears and the chords of an electric guitar as the world collapsed.
Her route took her through the backroads, places and areas her parents had always warned her about when she was little, including a patch of woods that swallowed up all the sunlight.
She stopped for a brief moment and guzzled down some water, shoving the bottle back in her bag with her phone charger and pepper spray.
Most people thought she was crazy for running with a backpack, but honestly, the weight helped her, kept her grounded and steady as she continued further down the trail, well-worn paths disappearing, replaced by people who’d forged their own paths regardless of the danger ahead of them.
She wished she could be one of them.
But Emma knew she was a coward. After all, what kind of person couldn’t even kill themselves when given the chance?
Her mind drifted back to the lighthouse, back to the dreary white walls and monotony of her time Upstate, and how when her parents had picked her up, she’d almost wished she’d told the doctor the truth so they could give her so much medication she overdosed.
Instead, she was driven back to her messy apartment and even messier life, where all her friends had moved away and left her behind to go chase something better.
Meanwhile, she was still stuck. Working a dead-end job at a motel with the vain hope that maybe someday she’d save enough money to get out.
She dreamed of Denver, Los Angeles, anywhere that would take her.
But when her rent came due, all those dreams were crushed under the weight of her last paycheck disappearing in seconds.
So she worked.
She cleaned.
She ran.
And sometimes, she watched TV to take her mind off it.
It never worked though. She always ended up right back to where she started from. Alone, friendless, and without any money to bail herself out.
She collapsed on the cool earth, staring up at the trees like they would swallow her whole.
The sun had moved and before long it would be setting.
Her skin prickled at the thought of being out after nightfall and once again her brain whispered that horrible word in the back of her mind.
Coward.
Pathetic.
Spineless.
She bit down on her cheek, tasting metal in her mouth as she drew blood. Her wrists itched.
She wasn’t a coward, Emma reminded herself. She was surviving.
Surviving what? That voice hissed, crawling up her spine and settling deep into the crevices of her brain. It hadn’t left her since her visit Upstate, and even the medications she was on couldn’t stop it from slithering in, unwanted.
Her backpack rattled and she pulled out the aforementioned pills and swallowed them down eagerly. It quieted the voice just for a moment, but she knew it was only a matter of time before it came back.
A few people jogged past her, and when she stared at her watch, she knew it was time to head home, even though she wished more than anything to let the earth devour her whole.
Nobody would miss her, she thought. She was a tiny dot in a large canvas and nobody had even bothered to text or call while she’d been out.
Her life, ultimately, was meaningless.
Which made the next few events all the more confusing.
The first thing that happened was she tripped on the hike down, catching herself on a rock and wincing as her knee scraped the earth.
Blood dripped down her shin but she quickly wiped it up and sucked it off her hand, continuing her hike back down to the trail.
The second thing that happened was the sudden cut off of her music halfway down the trail. Not that unusual, considering there were a lot of dead spots in this part of town. She was certain she’d downloaded the entire playlist before she left, but maybe she’d forgotten one or two songs. Emma simply huffed and shoved her phone and headphones back in her bag.
Now that the music was gone, the world seemed a lot scarier, especially with the trees closing in and the skies getting darker.
The sun was disappearing, replaced by a soft summer wind that brushed against bare skin and left goosebumps in their wake.
Her stomach tightened and her footsteps quickened.
She could almost see the end of the road when the last and strangest event happened.
She fell.
Long and hard, through something that felt wet and not wet at the same time. Fleshy and skin-like, it bubbled in bright orange lights that danced before her eyes in a haze. It swallowed her whole, stealing the air from her lungs as she struggled for air.
Her chest began to collapse in on itself, pressure building further and further until she was certain it was going to pop.
It was like drowning.
For the briefest of moments, Emma floated, orange bubbles blowing from her nose as she struggled against the pressured walls surrounding her.
On instinct, she kicked, and that had been her mistake.
Fingers, slimy and spindled, wrapped around her ankle and pulled.
She screamed.
NOVEMBER 10, 1983
Emma broke the surface with a gasp.
Water stuck to to her skin, arms and legs aching as she tread in the middle of what looked like a giant pond. She shivered, spots dancing before her vision as she began to swim.
Her arms cried out with each stroke, still feeling the phantom limbs grasping hold of her ankle as she kicked her way forward.
Cold air, colder than when she’d left, brushed over her soaked skin, hair raising and teeth chattering as she gasped for air, trying and failing to fill her lungs with as much oxygen as she could muster.
Emma’s lungs ached with each breath, but she forced herself to continue forward.
Sheer cliffsides close to 200 ft tall surrounded the pond on all sides, except for a lone patch of gravel giving way to a lonely road.
There was no way to describe the events in her head, no way to rationalize how she’d fallen into what felt like a vat of gelatine only to end up breaking the surface of a makeshift lake.
And that wasn’t even tackling the fact that something had pulled her further down.
She surmised she must have kicked the creature or person free and then swam up when she finally regained control of her limbs.
Her heart pounded in her ears, backpack still secured on her shoulders. She slammed it down into the gravel, her hand coming away with sticky tendrils of goo and slime. It smelled foul and made her want to gag.
Miraculously, however, nothing inside was damaged. Her phone was probably shot, along with her headphones, but she forced herself to focus on pulling herself free.
She coughed out a mouthful of water that tasted like sewage, knees and elbows scraping against the ground, stripping her skin until the tiny rocks lodged themselves deep into her wounds, agitating them further.
Turning on her side, she coughed out a mouthful of water again, then another, until finally the wet sensation tickling her throat disappeared and she could breathe normally again.
Her stomach felt heavy, along with the rest of her, but she crawled to her knees and began to survey her surroundings.
Stars shone brightly with no moon, Emma able to pick out the constellations from memory as she began to look for anything familiar.
It was all strange to her.
The jagged cliffs stood as imposing guardians of the night, blocking any and all light from all sides as she finally opened her bag to survey the damage.
To her surprise, nothing inside was wet. Her phone even still worked, despite it being on half battery. Still enough to open up a map and figure out what was going on.
Except it refused to work.
In fact, everything related to the internet did.
Google, Maps, even Lyft.
Nothing seemed to work. She wasn’t even able to get more than one bar, which dashed her hopes of calling her parents fairly quick. It still told time though, and according to the device, she’d been in the damn lake for near three hours.
Jesus, no wonder her body hurt so much.
Still, there seemed to be a renewed spring in her step as she stood on her feet, walking towards the empty road with her pepper spray clutched tightly in her hand.
Tall trees surrounded her on every side, chittering and growling erupting in the back of her mind as she forced herself to stay on the beaten path.
Her shoes sloshed and swished with every step, socks squishing uncomfortably against her skin as she continued her march forward.
Emma’s pace quickened as something snapped in the twigs behind her and then morphed into a full blown run as a growl, low and threatening, reached her ears.
Her legs carried her farther, lungs gulping up air easier. Maybe the lake had actually helped her body recover from some of the damage being sick did a while back.
Spending your twenties drinking during a pandemic wasn’t exactly the smartest decision.
It didn’t mean her legs didn’t burn as the trees whipped by, or that her side wasn’t splitting in pain as she pushed through bushes and thistles and nearly tripped over gnarled tree roots.
The stars provided little light to guide her, and her pulsing heartbeat drowned out any noise as she continued her sprint.
Thank god she’d taken up running as a hobby otherwise she probably never would have made it past the first mile.
The world flew by in a flash, and as she crested the top of the hill, a familiar shape started to come into view.
“Hey!” Emma yells as a shadowed figure pauses right at the top of the hill, “Hey! Wait! I need help!”
She doesn’t say what from, but she hopes a disheveled girl drenched in sewer water and not dressed for the weather is enough for someone to reach out a hand. Her hope stops in her throat when she sees the figure is male.
Shit.
She clutches her pepper spray tighter, legs running faster as she finally manages to scramble up the last few feet into the figure’s arms.
Her lungs burn, lactic acid churning in her thighs as she clutches tightly to the man who’d caught her, praying he was a good one and not a creep.
“Holy shit, are you okay?” His voice sounds familiar, but she can’t quite place it. Emma shakes her head, still gasping for air as her eyes dart to the woods behind her. The trees mark a barrier between the animal and civilization, although she’s certain she’s never heard an animal make that kind of noise before.
“Something was chasing me,” She wheezed, clutching tighter to the man’s forearms, “I think– I think I outran it but—”
Low chittering cut off her words.
Her blood turns to ice.
“Jesus,” The figure says in disbelief. His voice is young, like a teenager’s, and she can’t figure out where she knows it from. It tickles the back of her mind, teasing the nerves as he steadies her. “Okay, look, my house is right down this way, you can stay there until this…thing disappears.”
Air burns as she gulps it into her lungs, nodding out her thanks as she finally finds her footing.
Her heart slows and she finds herself staring into a pair of eerily familiar chocolate brown eyes.
It’s only when the rest of the figure comes into view of the porchlight her stomach jumps into her throat and her blood runs cold.
She’s going insane.
She’s hit her head or is in a medically induced hallucination.
That’s the only logical explanation she can find.
It’s the only one that would explain her situation right now.
Because what other rational reason would there be for her to be shivering in a wet t-shirt and bike shorts, bleeding and bruised, in the arms of Steve fucking Harrington?
The teen blinked.
Emma wanted to throw up.