Chapter 3-The Eulogy

Day Hundred and Twenty One:

Mr. Clarke was a stubborn man. He had been trying set up a strange looking contraption on his desk for the last twenty minutes but couldn't get it working, but he was far from giving up. For today's exercise, the desk had been moved to the middle of the classroom, and the chairs were arranged circularly around it. Lucas strapped a piece of tape to the last sheet of black colored papers that were being used to cover the windows. The only sources of light remaining in the classroom were the bright fluorescent tubes that bathed us in cold, white light.

"Dustin?" Mr. Clarke called out in frustration.
"Yes, my Lord?" Dustin was the epitome of earnest chivalry and knighthood. I swallowed a small laugh.
"Help me plug this thing in," Mr. Clarke sighed.
Dustin went running as Lucas came and sat beside Will and Me. We had no idea what Mr. Clarke's device will end up doing, but we were really excited. Finally, the device was correctly set up, and Dustin came and sat beside us.

"Finally," Mr. Clarke got up to switch the light off, and Dustin immediately groaned as a slap landed on his head.

"Now boys, who wants to see some magic?"
There was a click and immediately the room was bathed with a pure white light coming from the black device. It didn't look like anything we had ever seen before. Thousands of pinpricks of light emerged from the device and bathed the room with stars and constellation.
"Now kids, this is what the sky looks like!"
Mr. Clarke exclaimed, "That's the Solar System. It's really just a point of light, but in this vast cosmos, that's how big we really are."

We leaned forward to get a better look. It was fascinating.

"That's Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to our Solar System. It's about 4.37 light years from earth. Now we know how fast light travels, don't we? Mike?"
I blurted out the answer.

"That's correct," Mr. Clarke continued. I was only listening half-heartedly because for some reason I was feeling a strange pressure on my heart. I had no idea what was happening to me, but I was sure that this was not about Eleven. Though I still remembered those days like as if they were yesterday but thinking about Eleven did not cause so much pain anymore.

Throughout the first three months, we continuously searched for Eleven in the woods. We went there almost every day. Me, Lucas, Dustin, and Will, the four clueless boys. We went over every nook and cranny, got chased by Coyotes, fell down a stream and almost got swept away, and Lucas broke his arm, but we couldn't find her. We never discovered the bag I left behind on that fateful night either. All we could find is an empty box of Eggos, apparently eaten by Coyotes as the box was ripped open from all sides. I kept believing that Eleven probably ate the Eggos, then the Coyotes found the box. At the end of the weeks that followed, we had to stop searching. We thought that wherever she was, she was safe and was taking care of herself. I went back there from time to time and left some Food for her, those no longer disappeared.

Sometimes we encountered a ferocious wild animal in the woods. The beast would prowl the forest looking for prey, and after finding them, it would proceed to give them a lecture about the dangers lurking in the woods. The beast was the Police chief, Hopper who often discovered us when we somehow managed to screw up and rescued us in the nick of time. The crazy bastard said that he was looking for the Mayor's cat.

Back in the classroom suddenly I was brought out of my trance by a whisper, 'Mike...'
'THE FUCK?' I fell from my chair.
"And kids, Alpha Centauri is part of the Centaurus Constellation. It has a total of Eleven..." Mr. Clarke stopped his speech midway and walked briskly towards me.
"I, I... am okay, sorry for that, Mr. Clarke."
Mr. Clarke looked at me with concern in his eyes and nodded slowly. He went back to his pedestal as I mechanically climbed back into the chair. Lucas grabbed my arm, but I assured him with a nod. Then I closed my eyes to find Eleven, 'SHIT.' I could have sworn that I felt a presence nearby. Someone was watching over me, someone was trying to speak to me, someone who did not know so many words, but still tried as hard as possible. Someone a lot like Eleven. I jerked my eyes open. It was not Eleven, it was one of the tricks my mind used to play on me when I lost her. 'No more,' I focused on the Stars above.
"...Eleven stars, they burn brightly in the night sky. You can easily find them..." Mr. Clarke continued.

I came home early that day and went down to the basement. The tent was still up, but I didn't keep the Falcon or the T-Rex in there anymore, no Eggos either. But I had a daily routine to perform. After going inside, I sat down, grabbed the Supercom, turned to channel eleven and started reciting my day to Eleven. I didn't leave anything out because I was not ashamed to tell her anything. Then I got up and sneaked through the back door.

After ensuring no was looking at me, I took my cycle and rode towards Lock Nora. It was a chilly night. Slight breezes sent ripples in the canopy overhead as I raced towards the meeting spot. The journalist was waiting for me there. He was a strange man for sure. He had a long black beard and always wore tinted glasses and a hat even if it was not snowing or raining. He said his name was Murray Bauman.
"Ah... Master Mike, you're very punctual!" He tipped his hat to me as I bowed my head and walked towards him after leaving my cycle.

I had no intention of becoming his friend. I just wanted some information that he could get for me. He knew about a lot of things, and he had a lot of resources. I made a deal with him a few weeks back. I'll help him look for Barbara, and in return, he'll help me find Eleven, who he referred to as the Russian spy. That was better in my opinion. We sat down on a shady bench at the corner of the street. Murray handed me a can of soda and brought out a can of beer and took a sip. "So, does this look right to you?"

He handed me a large photograph. It showed a strange looking board which was illuminated by red lights. The board was full of photos and had red lines made of strings connecting them. I was shocked to see how much he got right, the characters, the events, the dates, nearly everything. Except for two critical elements. First, Eleven was still a Russian girl to him. A deadly Russian spy with super-cool abilities, but all within normal human boundaries. Second, he got the timeline wrong, most of it anyway. 'He is dangerous.' I grimaced at the thought. He managed to get the truth, though only half of it, and I was not going to correct his mistakes. I did not want Eleven's face plastered across America, 'Super-girl is real, and she's American.' The fewer people knew, the better. I nodded and gave him small instructions to fix his diagram.

"Now, did you find anything?" I asked impatiently.
Murray sighed, "I had that ash analyzed in a lab on the East Coast."
I perked up, the proof was finally coming.
"I'm sorry Mike, that ash was too deteriorated to make a full identification, but..."
I swallowed bile in my throat.
"They found carbon, that's basically ash. So something organic burnt in the fire. Now it could also be the wood but..." Murray stopped. I wanted to kick him in his nuts.
"...they also found traces of human skin."
I wanted to rewind the tape that was playing those words. I was too shocked to speak.
"Now you need to tell me how you got this ash. It might be a homicide. Where in the forest did you find it?"

The words hit like a jackhammer to my abdomen, I gasped for breath and bent over. Then everything came rushing in as the dam shattered forever. A torrent of memories flooded my soul and started choking me up. I was too weak to speak anymore. So, I got up and left without a word. Mr. Murray didn't try to stop me, but he had a look of concern in his face.

I kept paddling aimlessly as I didn't have any destination. I hated even the fucking bicycle for no damn reason. This was not the bicycle on which I carried Eleven to the school and also helped her escape the 'Bad men.' But I hated it nonetheless.
'The magic is over. Welcome back Mike Wheeler, I missed you,' The voice from the classroom was back, and he sounded excited.
I wanted to burn the bike down, alongside that fucking lab. And with it, all those people who worked there. I kept paddling as fast as I could to run away from the pain. Then when I couldn't paddle anymore, I stopped.

I found myself standing at the edge of the Quarry. The same place where they found Will's fake body, the same place where Eleven saved my life, the same place where I learned the most valuable lesson in life, 'Friends will do anything for each other, even sacrifice their life.' A lifetime ago I had jumped in the Quarry on instinct, not knowing what would happen. But somewhere back in my mind, I knew that El would save me. I took a deep breath and went to the edge of the Quarry and sat down, looking at the dark water below. Thoughts came crashing into my mind.

Eleven, who was she to me?

Moments flashed by through a video camera that was playing in my mind. The picture was so bright that it felt as if I was living them at that very moment. I remembered the fierce looking girl in the yellow shirt whom we found in the woods while looking for Willand I clearly recalled how all her fierceness went away in an instant when she laid her eyes on me for the first time. I could only see relief and happiness on that beautiful face. Some would say that Eleven looked like a boy, but I never gave a damn. I neither loved her like how Steve loved Nancy nor loved her how Dad loved Mom. She was a part of my soul and her gender or looks never mattered to me.
"SHE WAS MY FRIEND," I screamed at the unknown, and it echoed back its support.

I reminisced the days when she was hiding in my basement, living on Eggos and leftovers. She was magical in every sense of the word. It was not the powers that enchanted me, it was her innocence. Before meeting Eleven, I didn't care about girls at all. They were loud, short-tempered and threw tantrums all the time. But something changed inside me when I met her for the first time. I am not ashamed to admit that I fell for her. I fell in love with her because she transformed my life, with nothing but unspoken words and unacted gestures.

Let me explain. She liked me, but not like how Nancy ogled over Steve day in and day out. After the first date, Nancy wouldn't stop talking about Steve at all. El didn't say much. In fact, she never said that she liked me. I would like to think that she didn't know the words. But the truth is that she didn't need to. Dad used to say, "Your behavior is your identity."
And her behavior revealed her soul to me, unlike anyone I had ever known. Eleven was weird, she was a freak, and she could do things no other human on this planet was capable of doing. She could move things with her mind, even as large as a van. Distance didn't phase her, she could find people from across the dimensions just by looking at their pictures. She could carry their voices through the radio. She could do a lot of things, but those were not the ones that freaked me out. What really got me was how loyal she was to me, to Mike Wheeler, the nerd and the complete loser from Hawkins Middle School.

I was still amazed by what little it took to make her happy. I remembered telling her that she was pretty and she was shocked beyond belief. She looked most content that day which left me baffled. It was a simple compliment, but apparently, it was the best anyone had ever given to her. She kept repeating that word, "Pretty," as if she was trying to convince herself that she heard it correctly. She was shellshocked that there was anyone in this world who thought that she was pretty.
'You were El. You were the prettiest girl in the world,' I mumbled because I didn't have the energy left to shout anymore.
Lucas and Dustin smirked as they thought that I was joking, well I wasn't. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life, and the list included Clara from school, who won the beauty pageant three times in a row.

Tears came crashing down my cheeks and disappeared into the dark void below my feet. I wondered how many people had arrived here to cry their hearts out to give rise to such a massive pool, probably millions. El kept returning to my mind. She was amazed by the little things that we took for granted. The Lazy Boy was one of the crappiest things I had ever seen in my life, only Dad liked it. But she was ecstatic when I made her sit on it and pulled the lever. I remember her smiling for the first time that day, a smile so pure I had never seen that from anyone except Holly. How little it took to surprise her. She was like a child. Everything in this world was new to her, even something as pathetic as frozen waffles.

And so was Mike Wheeler. I never got to know what made her so attached to me, or what made me grow so fond of her. Did I love her because she was beautiful? I don't know. I never thought about her like that. But she was pretty, and I wanted the world to recognize it. I was determined to see the day when the world would look at Eleven and ogle at her beauty. But I needed a venue, 'SNOWBALL!'
She could come to the Snowball with me, but I needed to dupe her because no sane girl would go to the Snowball with Mike 'Loser' Wheeler. But Eleven was oblivious of that fact.

So, when I casually threw the suggestion about her going to the Snowball with me, I was fully expecting her to say yes because I was sure she didn't know the implications. I felt a tinge of guilt because I was taking advantage of her. She never went to school, and her choice of boys was limited to Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, and Lucas Sinclair. It was a natural choice. But then when I looked into her eyes, my heart stopped. She was looking at me with those big, soulful eyes. And in a moment I realized that she knew. I had no clue how, but she knew what going to the snowball meant, and I was scared shitless. What if she said no? What was I going to do? I felt the moment slipping.

Mike Wheeler was used to getting rejected by girls, most of the girls in school wouldn't even consider becoming friends with me, let alone going to the snowball. It shouldn't have scared me, but it did. It scared me so much. I couldn't lose her. I thought about at all my strategies, babbled a few nonsensical sentences and then I straight out thurst my lips toward her. I wanted to kiss her just like how it showed in the movies. Girls usually said Yes after that. I was going to kiss her... well, not like how I caught Nancy and Steve one day. But I just wanted to quickly touch my lips with hers. Mike Wheeler was not going to suck face... she met me part way. She leaned in at the exact moment when I did. My heart stopped as her lips touched mine. It was the answer, it said 'Yes.'

'Yes,' not like 'I would love to go to the snowball with you Mike Wheeler,' but 'Yes,' like 'I'd love to spend the rest of my life with you, Mike Wheeler, wherever it takes us.'

I put up my shaking palms to my face. These were the palms that were wrapped around her hands when I made that promise to Eleven in that classroom, 'I promise that I would take you to the snowball.'
'I promise that we'll always be together, whatever it takes.'

A promise that was finally broken after all these months. Eleven was gone, like warm breath on a pane of cold glass that yielded to the elements after a finite amount of time. She came into my life for a few days, but it felt like an eternity. Now she was gone, and I accepted its finality. She was not dead, I could never admit that. Eleven had gone to someplace better than here, and she would never come back. I wished that she would find someone there who would feed her Eggos, call her Pretty and kiss her with all the emotions I had evolved for her.

"Sorry, Eleven," I got up and apologized to her. It was time to go. My life needed to move on, whatever was left of it. I was sure that I would never find someone like Eleven ever again, and I was not talking about her powers. Then something went through my mind like a signal from deep space. Purely by instinct, I took a step towards the edge of the cliff. A faint Echo shot out from the aether, 'Mike! DONT!'

I smiled and yelled at the unknown, "You were always there for us when we ran into trouble, weren't you, El? Do you feel my pain now? Shouldn't you be here to save me now?"
Silence greeted me in response. I looked at the water below, it was quite far away. Last time when I made the jump Eleven caught me. She couldn't save me this time. But I kept looking at the water, what if?

'NO,' the rational part of my mind screamed. 'You dolt. You cannot jump. She's gone, and you have nothing to gain by jumping. You are not going to save anyone, think about your friends and family.'
Faces flashed in reverse order on the screen that was playing back my memories inside my head. Dustin, Lucas, Will, and the twelfth night when they rescued me from certain death. I remembered the D&D games, I recalled them standing by me when Troy came for me, I witnessed Dustin's face as he begged me not to jump while having a knife on his neck. I remembered Lucas, panting, as he drew the target on the demo-gorgon that night to save us. I remembered Mom, Dad, I remembered Nancy. The countless nights that I cried with my head buried in her chest, how she comforted me while crying herself. They had given me so much hope and so much love, I couldn't throw it all away.
I made up my mind. Eleven wouldn't be here to save me tonight, or ever. But I'll remember Eleven, forever. Maybe someday I'll discover time travel and go back in time to rescue her. But until that day comes, its goodbye.

"Goodbye Eleven. If you can hear me, please know that I loved you and always will. And I promise that I will never forget you." I finally said it out loud. It felt like a heavy rock crushing my soul, but it felt good. I finally delivered her Eulogy. If she were out there looking at me now, she would be happy. I wiped my eyes and stood up.

A sweet voice broke through some unknown shield and echoed inside my heart, 'I will always love you, Mike Wheeler. Wait for me!'

I lost my footing and headed straight towards the lake.