Chapter 13: The First Failure
POV: Adam
November 15th, and Adam knows with sickening certainty that tonight at Steve Harrington's party, Barb Holland will die unless he intervenes—the first real test of whether his knowledge can change fate, whether power means anything when weighed against the momentum of destiny.
He's spent three days preparing for this moment, positioning his creatures with military precision around the Harrington property while his system calculates probability matrices that should guarantee success. Scout maintains overwatch from the oak tree that overlooks the backyard pool, while three juvenile Demodogs spread through strategic positions in the woods that border Steve's house.
[OPERATION: SAVE BARB HOLLAND]
[CREATURE DEPLOYMENT: OPTIMAL]
[PORTAL MANIFESTATION POINT: IDENTIFIED]
[SUCCESS PROBABILITY: 73%]
[CONTINGENCY PLANS: 4 ACTIVE]
The numbers should be reassuring. Adam has mapped every angle, identified the exact location where the Demogorgon will emerge, timed his intervention to prevent Barb from ever reaching the pool's edge. His creatures understand their roles—create distraction, force her back inside, disrupt the predator's hunting pattern before it can establish dominance.
I know what happens. I know when it happens. That has to be enough.
But as Adam crouches in the bushes fifty yards from the house, watching teenagers stumble through social rituals that feel absurdly innocent compared to the horror about to unfold, doubt gnaws at his certainty like acid.
Through the sliding glass doors, he can see the party in progress—Steve holding court with casual arrogance, Nancy nursing a beer she doesn't really want, and Barb Holland sitting alone by the pool's edge with the isolated dignity of someone who knows she doesn't belong but refuses to pretend otherwise.
She's so young. They're all so young.
The thought comes with a twist of grief that belongs to both Michael Thompson's parental instincts and Subject 017's stolen childhood. These kids should be worried about homework and crushes, not interdimensional predators that hunt in the spaces between heartbeats.
Scout sends a pulse of readiness through the bond, the creature's predatory focus trained on the pool area where reality will soon tear open like infected flesh. The Demodogs respond with their own signals—position secured, targets identified, ready to strike on command.
Everything's ready. Everything's planned. This will work.
The party progresses according to the script Adam remembers from another life, another world where these people were fictional and their pain existed only to serve narrative purpose. Nancy follows Steve upstairs with teenage bravado masking teenage uncertainty. Tommy and Carol provide cruel commentary from the safety of chemical courage.
And Barb sits alone by the pool, cutting her thumb on a beer can while isolation bleeds from her like a wound.
Now. It starts now.
Scout responds to Adam's mental command, creating just enough noise in the tree above to draw Barb's attention. She looks up, frowning at the rustling branches, then stands with the careful movement of someone who's had just enough alcohol to question their equilibrium.
Perfect. She's moving away from the pool. The plan is working.
But the Demogorgon doesn't emerge from the woods as Adam expected. It doesn't rise from the pool's depths like some chlorinated nightmare. Instead, reality tears open directly beneath the diving board itself, the portal manifesting with violent suddenness that sends waves cascading across the concrete deck.
Wrong. This is wrong. It wasn't supposed to happen like this.
The creature erupts through the dimensional breach like vengeance given flesh—eight feet of predatory perfection, flower-faced and terrible, moving with the fluid grace of something that exists purely to hunt and kill. Its eyeless head swivels toward Barb with mechanical precision, drawn by some combination of scent and movement and the electric taste of fear.
Adam's Demodogs respond instantly, launching themselves from concealment with loyalty that transcends species. But they're juveniles attacking an apex predator, puppies trying to bring down a wolf. The Demogorgon swats the first one aside with casual violence, its claws opening the creature's throat in a spray of black ichor.
Scout abandons his position, diving from the tree with desperate courage, but the distance is too great and his injured companion's distress bleeds through the bond like physical pain.
No. No, this isn't how it goes. I'm supposed to save her.
Adam breaks from cover, running toward the pool with speed born of panic and determination. But reality moves at its own pace, indifferent to his desperate need to rewrite its cruelties.
Barb turns toward the sound of splashing water just as the Demogorgon's jaws close around her waist. Her scream cuts through the November night like breaking glass—high and sharp and utterly terrified—before being muffled as creature and victim disappear through the dimensional rift.
The portal snaps shut behind them, leaving only ripples on disturbed water and the metallic scent of spilled blood.
I'm too late. Again.
But something primal and desperate overrides rational thought. Adam doesn't hesitate—he dives toward the space where the portal closed, feeling his Gate Creation ability activate with violent intensity. Reality tears open again, smaller this time, barely wide enough for human passage, and he throws himself through before consciousness can catch up with instinct.
The Upside Down hits him like a physical blow—cold and toxic and wrong in ways that make his borrowed DNA scream warnings. The air tastes of copper and decay, thick with spores that try to colonize his lungs with every breath. In the distance, something that might once have been the Harrington house squats like a cancerous growth, all twisted angles and surfaces that hurt to perceive directly.
And there, barely twenty feet away, the Demogorgon feeds.
Barb's eyes are wide with terror and the terrible understanding that comes just before death. The creature's feeding tentacle is already in her mouth, pumping eggs or toxins or something worse into her dying body while she convulses with the helpless spasms of prey caught in nature's most perfect trap.
She's already gone. Already dying. There's nothing left to save.
The knowledge hits him like a physical blow, but Adam lunges forward anyway, driven by desperate need to do something, anything, to justify the power he's been given. Scout appears beside him, limping from his fall but ready to fight, while the surviving Demodogs flank the feeding predator with juvenile bravery.
The Demogorgon looks up from its meal, flower-face petals unfurling to reveal concentric rings of teeth that gleam like surgical instruments. It regards Adam and his creatures with something that might be amusement—apex predator recognizing pretenders to its throne.
When it attacks, the violence is swift and utterly one-sided. Scout goes down first, claws raking across his flank in wounds that steam in the toxic air. The Demodogs last longer, their pack tactics buying precious seconds before superior size and strength assert evolutionary dominance.
Adam scrambles backward toward the portal, dragging Scout's limp form while his heart hammers against ribs that feel too fragile to contain the magnitude of his failure. The second Demodog falls with a wet sound that will haunt his dreams, its loyalty repaid with violent death.
I can't save her. I can't save any of them. I'm not the hero of this story.
The portal beckons like salvation, reality bleeding through in streams of warm light that promise safety and breathable air and the comfortable lie that none of this is really happening. Adam pushes Scout through first, then follows, the rift snapping shut behind them with the finality of a coffin lid.
He collapses on the Harrington's pool deck, sobbing with grief that feels too large for his borrowed body to contain. Scout lies motionless beside him, breathing but barely, ichor seeping from wounds that may never properly heal.
[MISSION FAILED: BARBARA HOLLAND - DECEASED]
[CASUALTY REPORT: 1 DEMODOG KILLED, 1 SCOUT CRITICALLY INJURED]
[FATE RESISTANCE: UNSUCCESSFUL]
[HIVE CONNECTION: 7% → 10%]
[NEW SYSTEM NOTATION: SOME FATES ARE FIXED]
[TRAUMA RESPONSE UNLOCKED: HEIGHTENED AWARENESS]
The system's clinical assessment of his failure scrolls past like an indictment written in light. No experience points for this disaster. No level advancement for learning that power without wisdom is just another form of helplessness.
Adam sits in a puddle of Upside Down residue and his own tears, holding Scout's damaged form while the weight of absolute failure settles on his shoulders like lead. In the distance, the party continues inside—teenagers oblivious to the horror that just unfolded in their backyard, to the girl who died while they played at being adults.
I knew this would happen. I knew when and where and how, and it changed nothing. Knowledge isn't power if you're too weak to use it.
The November wind carries the scent of chlorine and blood, mixing with the ozone smell that clings to his clothes like evidence of crimes he couldn't prevent. Above him, stars gleam with indifferent brightness, bearing witness to a universe where good intentions and desperate courage mean nothing against the momentum of fate.
But maybe that's the lesson. Maybe some deaths are fixed points, unchangeable no matter how much I know or how much power I accumulate. Maybe the real test isn't whether I can save everyone—it's whether I can save anyone.
Through the bond, Scout sends weak pulses of loyalty and forgiveness, the creature's simple mind incapable of blame even in the face of tactical disaster. He followed his pack leader into hell because that's what pack means—absolute trust, absolute commitment, even when it leads to absolute defeat.
I failed tonight. But there are still people worth saving. Still chances to make the power mean something.
As Adam gathers Scout in his arms and begins the long walk back to St. Mary's, he carries with him the bitter knowledge that will define everything that comes after: the future can be changed, but not easily, not without cost, and not always in the ways that matter most.
Some fates are fixed. Some deaths are inevitable.
But some can still be prevented, if he's strong enough, smart enough, and lucky enough to matter when it counts.
I'll save Will. I'll save Joyce. I'll save everyone I can.
And I'll learn to live with the ones I can't.
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