Alternative Realities


Mileven. Mike wakes up to a completely different El and wonders what went wrong.


Chapter four


"Mike? Didn't we agree to go to your house tonight?" Asked Will when he saw his friend on his doorstep.

"Ah… you know." He started, but gave up on the act "I want to talk to you about something."

"Okay… Come in."

They were sitting on Will's bed and Mike was still trying to figure out the words to say. When he looked around at the room full of drawings on the walls, he missed a few ones. Instead of asking why they were missing, he had an idea.

"So. Yesterday I was taking a nap and I hit the bed with my head. Like, really hard." Will agreed in silence, encouraging him to speak. "And today I'm trying to remember a few things, you know, memories, and I can't do it… really… well." He was clearly lying and making it up as he spoke. He knew that. Will knew that.

"And why haven't you gone to see a doctor?"

"Ah… you know. I don't really like hospitals. And I didn't want to worry my mom."

"Okay." Will said, getting over the lie and trying to know the actual reason Mike was saying those things.

"And I was wondering if you could help me remind a few things about Jane Ives…?"

That surprised Will. He thought Mike was playing a prank on him, but Mike wouldn't base pranks on Jane Ives. He started to get worried.

"Um… are you sure you don't want to go to the doctor?" He said, as one last resource.

"I am. Completely sure."

"Okay. Do you want the whole story or…?"

"Everything."

"Wow. Okay. Well, we met Jane on the first year of Middle school, when she moved to Hawkins with her mother." Mike nodded as Will spoke "She always studied at our school, most of the years on the same class as ours. Her best friend is Max Mayfield, do you remember her?"

"Redhead, California, skateboard?"

"Yeah, that one. They are best friends since Max came to live at Hawkins… I don't remember when, but it was on Middle too." Mike nodded.

"Before that she was friends with all kinds of people and was a part of most of the groups in school at some point. All of her other best friends moved from Hawkins at some point. Lydia Smith, Bernard Adams, Aaron Nichols…" Mike nodded at every people Will mentioned. They were all completely different, from normal people and weirdos to jocks.

"And she also dated David Cooper." At the mention of Cooper, Mike frowned. He was one of the most annoying bullies they ever had to put up with. He didn't exactly make fun of them, but he made Mike, his friends and other random good students do his homework for him. He remembered one day he forced Mike to do a stupid map for Geography and trapped him in the library for hours. He was right there, making sure Mike wouldn't go away, eating candy and, of course, not giving a single bite to Mike.

"Don't you remember him too?" Will asked.

"No, I do. I just don't know how she could end up with someone like him."

"Well, none of us did either. Do you remember the long essay Lucas told you about today?" Mike nodded. "It was about binominal nomenclature. Do you remember that?"

Of course Mike did. It took them days and they ended up with almost a handwritten book. It was hell, but the look of pride on Mr. Clarke's face was priceless. Their essay was the longest one, by far. They spent all winter break doing it, taking turns writing. Cooper had bothered someone else about it, probably because it was right after Will came back from the Upside Down and El had just broken Troy's arm, so they were bullying free for a few months.

"Well, basically Cooper and Jane met us at the library once and they wrote, like, two pages each. Crappy pages, we didn't even use them. Then they left and never talked about it again until the day before the essay was due and he demanded we put their names on it. You and Lucas were the angriest at him, but he made us do it and then he punched you guys after school anyway. Jane wasn't with him at the moment, but they were still together. And since then you hated her with all your guts. Until yesterday, I guess?"

Mike stopped for a while and thought. That didn't make sense. Jane wouldn't be mentioning such a traumatizing group work experience. Anyone who did that would use a tone with a lot more mockery than she did. And she wouldn't be such a great student now, out of nothing.

"Are you sure that's everything?"

"Um… not really. There is another thing about this essay that was really strange. Before winter break, the time we agreed to actually start working on the essay, you showed up with more than half of it done. You said you did it all by yourself, but it had two handwritings. You said it was Nancy's, but all of us know her handwriting isn't cursive. And you insisted it was hers and no one could make you tell the truth."

Mike was surprised at himself by this. Friends don't lie. Why would he lie to them?

When Mr. Clarke handed them the essay back with a huge "A", they decided that Will should keep it, since he went through so much on the Upside Down. The essay hanged on his fridge for months and everybody would look at it with pride, even the adults.

"Do you still have it?" Mike asked.

"Of course. My mom would never let me throw it away. Let me look for it."

He found it between his old drawing notebooks. Mike passed his eyes through the pages and quickly found a handwriting that didn't belong to him and his friends. It was cursive, not as well made as Jane's today, but it certainly could be a previous version of it.

"It's hers, isn't it?"

"It could be" Mike admitted. Screw himself from this universe, he would tell the truth. Friends don't lie.

Of course, you can't tell people in other dimensions that you can travel through them, but except for that, no lies at all.

"Ever since that essay you have been holding this weird grudge against her, more than the other boys. She obviously changed, but you can't see that. Maybe until you bumped your head?" Will said, reminding him of the lie.

Mike was overwhelmed with the amount of information and decided to leave, thanking Will. When they were on his doorstep again, he got the courage to ask one last thing.

"Have you ever gone missing?"

"What?"

"You know, for a few days… your mom was crazy… Christmas lights… Nothing?" Will shook his head in denial, wondering if Mike was the one gone missing and crazy. "Okay. Just to make sure. Bye!" He said walking towards his bike before he did another stupid thing.