Chapter Text
Max Mayfield stared out the cracked, grimy window of the car as the scenery blurred by—endless rows of trees, bright and green almost seeming fake and the faint smell of cow shit that was always in the air was more noticeable after spending three weeks in California where the air always had a hint of the ocean breeze.
The silence between her and her mother stretched on for what felt like an eternity. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence—it was the kind of silence you fall into when there’s nothing left to say when you both know that no words could even remotely fix the mess you’ve found yourselves in. Max didn’t want to talk, and neither did Susan. They both knew that everything was fucked, and that was just the way things went for people like them. No one would even blink an eye if Susan were to drive off the side of the road and kill both of them. People would say that they were good-for-nothing druggies. An alcoholic mother and a burnout daughter who are better off dead.
It had been like this ever since Billy died. Every day felt like a waiting game—waiting for things to get even worse because, in Max’s life, they always did. Nothing in life had ever been easy for her. Not in Shadyside and not in Hawkins. She hated her hometown, hated everything about it. Shadyside was a curse that followed her, and she’d been running from it for years.
She could still feel the weight of her past pressing against her like a rock in her chest. Her parents had divorced when she was young, leaving her split between them, pulled in two directions. Losing Cindy had been like losing a part of herself. Then came Neil, Susan’s second husband, and his son Billy—Max’s stepbrother. Billy was a problem, always had been, even before he broke Max’s friend Nate’s arm and made their family move, but that wasn’t even the worst part.
The worst part was when things went wrong for Neil. Neil had always taken his anger out on Billy, but once Billy was gone, Neil had turned on Max and Susan. That didn't last long before their neighbors called the cops. Neil had, then, run off with most of their money, leaving them behind. Max and Susan had wound up in an old trailer park, struggling to keep the lights on and the water running. Susan had been drinking at an unhealthy level ever since Billy’s death, but when they moved, she started drinking more, though Max suspected it wasn’t just alcohol. There were signs—bloodshot eyes, strange smells, empty prescription bottles left around the house.
But it wasn’t just the physical things that got to Max. It was the constant feeling of suffocation. No matter where she went, she couldn’t escape the weight of everything that had happened. Every time she closed her eyes, she was haunted by the image of Billy’s possessed face, the terror in his eyes as the Mind Flayer took over. She could still hear his screams in her nightmares. She knew she could have done something to stop it, but she hadn’t. The worst part was that maybe she didn’t want to. After all the years of pain and torment stemming from him, she didn’t even try to stop the Mind Flayer from hurting him because in the middle of dark nights, fixing her skateboard and cleaning wounds, she had hoped for something like this and some awful, dark, twisted part of her was happy that he and Neil were finally gone. That was guilt crushed her every time she woke up, leaving her feeling hollow.
When Max had moved to Indiana, she thought that it would give her a fresh start. Away from everything in Shadyside. Away from the witch and the killings, away from all the people who knew her as nothing more than the screw-up bitch. So she decided to go by Max- not Christine and not Ziggy.
She thought Hawkins would offer her a break—a chance to catch her breath, maybe even find some peace and new friends. But especially after everything they had been through with the Upside Down, even here, in the middle of nowhere, she could feel it: the curse. It was still there, a shadow following her no matter how far she ran. She could feel the weight of it, the way it followed her like a dark cloud, no matter how far she went.
Susan, in her own way, had noticed. Maybe that’s why she’d sent Max away. Maybe that’s why she had shipped Max back to Shadyside—back to California—to stay with her real dad and sister for a week or two. Max wasn’t sure why. Maybe Susan just wanted a break. Maybe she didn’t know what else to do. But to Max, it felt like being thrown away. Sent back to a place she’d tried so hard to leave behind.
It wasn’t like it was some kind of reunion. Her dad and Cindy weren’t exactly the picture-perfect family. They were strangers to her now. The awkward silences, the uncomfortable exchanges—it was all too much to bear. There was no room for love for her left in this family. There hadn’t been for years. But Max could still remember a time when she had hoped they would be her safe place, her escape.
That’s when she had the idea. The worst idea.
She thought maybe she could recapture something—anything—from her childhood. She thought if she went back to her old summer camp in California, maybe it would be like stepping into the past. Maybe it would give her some kind of peace. A chance to forget everything that had happened. She hadn’t been there in years, but the camp still felt like a part of her. It had been her place—her escape.
But that was the moment it all went wrong.
Max had thought the curse of Shadyside was something she could leave behind. She thought if she got far enough away from it, she could escape. But it followed her. It always would. No matter how far she ran. It wasn’t just the people, either. It was the feeling of being trapped—trapped by her past, by the guilt, by the terror that always seemed to find her.
The summer camp had been her last hope, the last thing she thought could bring her some peace. But it had only sealed her fate. Max was never going to outrun her past.
It didn’t matter where she went. The curse had found her again.
And now she was truly trapped.
Camp Nightwing had been a turning point. A true fucking nightmare Max could never fully recover from, one that still haunted her every moment. She could still hear Cindy’s voice in her head, as clear as it had been in the final moments before everything went dark.
"Nothing will pull us apart," Cindy had gasped, her voice weak but determined.
"Never again." Max had echoed back.
Well, death fucking did the job. Or you could argue that it was Tommy Slater, the Camp Nightwing Killer, who really pulled them apart. He had slaughtered twelve kids that night with nothing more than an axe. He’d earned his place among the twisted history books detailing all the other ‘Shadyside Killers’ as the murderer who turned a summer camp into a bloodbath. That’s how it ended for Cindy. For Alice. For everyone else.
Max thought back to that night- it was Sarah Fier that had truly pulled them apart and she was sure of it. But no one listened, not even Nick. So in the end it would always be Tommy who people would blame.
Max could still feel the blood in the air, the screams echoing, and the heat of Nick's breath as he saved her life. She wasn’t supposed to survive that night, but he had saved her. And even now, she couldn’t decide if that was a blessing or a curse.
Sometimes, she wished she hadn’t made it. Maybe if she had died there, with her sister, maybe she wouldn’t have felt this constant ache in her chest, this gnawing emptiness that never seemed to go away. Maybe she wouldn’t still be sitting here in a shitty car seat, trying not to pull the stitches that lined her stomach, the painful reminders of the blade that had torn through her flesh.
Max was alone now. More alone than she had ever been.
The headache had started off as a dull throb in the back of her head but had quickly escalated into a full-blown migraine as the car passed the ‘Welcome to Hawkins’ sign. It was almost as if the town itself had a personal vendetta against her—like it was drawing her in, pulling her deeper into this nightmare she couldn’t escape. She pressed her palm to her forehead, willing the pain away, but it only grew worse. She could feel the blood pounding in her temples, the nausea rising in her throat.
Fucking hell.
Max ground her teeth painfully, trying to focus on anything but the pain. She toyed with the thought of just ripping her stitches open, letting the blood spill and stain the seat. She could bleed out right here, on the side of the road, and Susan wouldn’t even notice. Hell, Susan barely noticed anything anymore. She stopped having life behind her eyes a while ago; they were just bloodshot and dazed as if she was dreaming. She was just a stranger now. Another face in a long line of people that no longer cared.
Max glanced over at her mom, slumped behind the wheel. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, a kind of emptiness Max recognized all too well. Susan wasn’t here anymore. She was physically present, but emotionally, she had checked out long ago. The woman who had once been her mother had disappeared, replaced by a shell, someone who could barely remember her own name, let alone her daughter’s. Max didn’t know how much longer she could keep pretending that everything was okay.
It was the same with her dad. He had forgotten about her, too.
When Max had been in the hospital after Camp Nightwing, broken and battered and hanging onto life by a thread, her father hadn’t come to visit. Not once. Not even when the doctors told him how she had been dead for nearly two minutes. He hadn’t even sent a card or a note. Honestly, anything would have been more than enough, even just a quick “Sorry your heart stopped” and a get well soon balloon.
Then, when she was released, a cop came to the hospital to drive her to the station. He didn’t offer any condolences, didn’t say anything about how sorry he was that she had to deal with this kind of loss.
He just told her her dad was gone.
He’d killed himself, the cop had said, his voice flat, as if it didn’t matter. Which she guessed it didn’t, stuff like this happened weekly in Shadyside. For him this was a regular Tuesday afternoon.
Max had barely understood what he was saying.
The officer handed her the note, the suicide note that had been left behind. It had been short—too short, really. Just one line that felt like a punch to the gut:
"A life without my daughter is not a life worth living."
Max had stared at the words, feeling like they were burning into her. It was simple, cold, and utterly devastating. It wasn’t a plea for forgiveness. It wasn’t an apology. It wasn’t even a tearful goodbye. It was a statement of fact. She wasn’t enough.
Her dad didn’t even see her as his daughter anymore. He didn’t care enough to stick around for her. And that realization—that hurt more than anything. It felt like she had never mattered.
Maybe that was what the curse did.
Maybe it made you forget everything that had ever mattered. Even yourself.
Max closed her eyes for a moment, letting the tears slip free. She didn’t want anyone to know just how broken she really was. The anger, the bitterness—it was all too much. The darkness in her life, the pain of loss, the guilt that never stopped gnawing at her, had become her constant companion. She couldn’t escape it. She couldn’t escape it.
She couldn’t fucking outrun Sarah Fier.
Max let out a shaky breath and sank further into the worn car seat. The headache was too much now, too intense, the pounding rhythm a constant reminder that she was stuck here. That she had nowhere else to go. She could never run far enough from the horrors of her past. She had tried—God, she had tried so hard—but it didn’t matter. The darkness was always there, waiting to drag her back down, pulling her into the black hole she had spent years trying to climb out of.
There was no escape. No easy way out. She was stuck with the curse of Shadyside. And she was stuck with herself.
Max glanced over at Susan again, her eyes blurry with tears. She wasn’t sure why she was still holding on. Why she kept trying to reach out to a woman who had long since given up. This was her last person- a lifeless shell of one- but still her last.
She was alone. She always had been, and she always would be.
Her friends had their own lives now, their own problems with the Upside Down and just life in general. She knew they’d always be there for her, that they’d try to help her. But Max wasn’t sure she wanted them to. She wasn’t sure she could ever explain how dark her world had gotten, how heavy the weight of everything was. They had enough to deal with. She didn’t want to burden them. She didn’t want to be the one who dragged them down.
So, it was easier this way. Easier to keep them at arm's length. Easier to pretend she was okay. Easier to face the darkness alone and give fake smiles.
Max closed her eyes again, letting the tears fall freely now. She didn't have to be strong infront of her deadbeat mother. She didn't have to pretend it was fine. Because it wasn’t. It had never been.
And no matter how much she tried to outrun it, the darkness was always there. Waiting. Watching. Closing in.
She was just tired. So fucking tired.