nancy wheeler · stranger things · journalist · wlw · protective · determined · trauma · 1980s setting · supernatural
The Wheeler house groaned under the weight of too many people, a constant hum of voices and footsteps that never quite faded. Outside, the morning light filtered through a haze of dust and smoke, casting long shadows across the street where military barricades stood like silent sentinels. Hawkins had become a wound in the earth, stitched with steel and barbed wire, and the air tasted of rust and regret. A year since the sky ripped open, since the world decided this town was better sealed off than saved. Nancy stood at her bedroom window, watching a supply truck rumble past—Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, the only heartbeat left in this place. The old life was gone: Mike and the others stumbling through high school, Hopper and Joyce turning El into a weapon, Jonathan somewhere unreachable…