Billy Hargrove was on something, that much was painfully obvious. The nefarious teen was sweating so profusely that he'd put a whore in church to shame. His eyes were so dilated and out of focus that the phrase 'tripping balls' couldn't even thoroughly encapsulate his current condition.

Ana could feel another migraine coming on.

After watching the utterly trashed Hargrove stumble down from the guard tower, pinballing off patrons on his way to the showers, Ana had instructed Heather to go check on him. Ana really didn't feel she had the capacity to deliver a 'Mom speech' that afternoon.

This proved a poor choice, seeing as neither teen resurfaced from the locker room within a reasonable timeframe.

'These fucking teenagers,' Ana thought. They were probably out here banging in the facilities, knowing Hargrove.

All the showers were running, that was the first thing Ana noticed as she entered. Not only was the constant sound of streaming water merging to replicate static, but the water flooding over covered her feet as she stepped forward. There was another noise, just barely perceivable over the shower, and it sounded like…scuffling?

"Hargrove? Heather?" Ana called out into the room, but no one verbally answered. However, the scuffling noise ceased immediately.

Venturing further into the showers, the water pooling around Ana's feet sloshed with every step she took.

The first stall she came to was empty, as were the second and third. As Ana rounded the fourth, a figure bolted towards her.

There was a flurry of indiscernible movement before Ana found herself thrust back into the adjacent wall. Her head hit the tiles with a sickening crack before everything went black.

This wasn't reality, that was the first thought Ana had. She'd never been in a room such as this, and couldn't fathom why there would ever be need for one.

The entire room was black, there seemed to be a light emanating from above, though she couldn't identify the source. The floor was covered in a thin layer of water, and it sloshed up around her as she wandered around the seemingly empty, and endless room.

Water, that's right, Ana had been searching the showers for Hargrove and Heather when she'd been knocked over. Ana assumed this delusion was the product of her following unconsciousness.

There was no way to measure time here; the darkness was consuming, and the silence deafening. She'd just have to wait until she woke up, or…something happened.

Sitting down on the damp floor cross-legged, she was still clothed in her lifeguard attire, and, honestly, wet clothes were the least of Ana's concern while trapped in some dark abyss; she waited.

Maybe this was what insanity felt like, trapped alone in your own mind. It wasn't a place she aimed to be for long.

Suddenly, the silence was disrupted. "What's wrong with me? What did I do wrong?"

Was that…was that Mike Wheeler? In the distance, figures emerged from the darkness.

Ahead of Ana in the black room sat a couch, the Wheeler's basement couch, which Mike was reclined on. In front of him paced Lucas Sinclair, while Will Byers set a board game up at a nearby table surrounded by mismatched chairs.

Their conversation continued as Ana took in their apparitions. They had to be apparitions, right? This was her subconscious after all, and they couldn't have actually manifested here, could they?

"I don't understand what I did to deserve this?" Mike lamented. Lucas attempted to console his friend: "Nothing. Nothing. That's my whole point."

This teenage melodrama continued to play out in front of her, and Ana couldn't help but wonder why her addled mind would manifest these dorks talking about 'women only acting on emotion, and not logic.'

Rolling her eyes and deciding it was time to turn away from the hallucinations, which were assaulting her eyes with burps and farts, Ana stoop up to tread further into the darkened room.

Upon turning though, Ana found she was no longer the only inhabitant of the room being subjected to the spectacle playing out before them.

"El?"

"Mom?"

Ana was awake.

The bright lights flooding the room assaulted her eyes after the darkness Ana had previously been encased in. Her surroundings remained blurry as her pupils struggled to adjust to the drastic change in lighting.

"Where am I?" She croaked out to no one in particular. Her head was throbbing something awful, and she clutched it with her hands in an effort to alleviate some of the surmounting pressure.

"Welcome back, sleepyhead." A male voice sounded from somewhere to her right. His tone was much too chipper, and his volume much too high for her liking. Ana only groaned in response.

The voice continued on despite her apparent distress. "You're in the hospital, take your time in adjusting." With that clarification, came the awareness of machines beeping away in Ana's periphery, no doubt monitoring her precarious condition.

As her surroundings slowly came into focus, Ana noted Dr. Sam Owens standing to the right of her hospital bed. A cheerful smile adorned his face as he looked down at her patiently, his hands clasped together in front of him.

Slowly adjusting her position to sit up in the bed, Ana winced at the ache that accompanied her movement, and asked, "how did I get here?"

As if on cue, Karen Wheeler popped her head through the door of the hospital room, and smiled upon seeing Ana returned to consciousness. "I see sleeping beauty has awoken," she said while entering the room.

Turning briefly to acknowledge the newcomer, Dr. Owens continued his explanation, telling Ana that Mrs. Wheeler had found her unconscious in the locker room, and had brought her to the hospital to be checked out.

"How long ago was that?" Ana questioned. Karen wasn't in her previous pool attire, which meant some time must have passed between her being knocked out and now.

"You've been out for the last eight hours," Dr. Owens answered while checking Ana's pupils' reaction with a flashlight.

"Shit!" Ana exclaimed, pushing the doctor away from her. Lifting herself out of the bed, Ana began ripping off the various medical contraptions attached to her person.

"We tried contacting Hopper, but no one could get ahold of him," Karen announced as though it would help.

It didn't.

In a frenzy, Ana tried righting herself in an effort to leave the room, but Dr. Owens and Karen teamed up to press her back down on the bed. "You've got a minor concussion, Ms. Thompson," Dr. Owens asserted, "you need to take it easy."

"No," Ana argued in return, "I need to get out of here."

An exasperated sigh was all she received from Dr. Owens, while Karen looked on in concern. "Alright, alright," the doctor conceded. "I'll discharge you as soon as we get you sorted."

Feeling more and more like a prisoner as the seconds wore on, Ana became agitated and snipped: "Am I dying, Doc?"

The brashness of her comment had Dr. Owens took aback. "Well, no," he confirmed after a contemplative moment.

Taking that as all the assurance she needed, Ana, again, rose from the hospital bed. "Good, then I'll be heading out now," and she made a second break for the door.

In a last-ditch effort to halt his rapidly retreating patient, Dr. Owens announced: "Ms. Thompson, we have a few things to discuss." The authority in his voice gave Ana pause as her hand hit the door handle.

Turning slowly, Ana pinned the doctor down with a pointed look, all too aware of Karen still lingering in her peripheral. "Is everything good, Owens?" She questioned with an air of emphasis.

The doctor and the school teacher held a look that shared an unspoken understanding before the doctor finally sighed in resignation. "Yes, everything is good," he confessed, finally allowing Ana to make her exit with Karen Wheeler in tow.

After Karen returned Ana to her parked truck at the pool, expressing extreme concern about Ana driving home in her condition, concern that was rapidly brushed off, Ana made her way back to the cabin, fully prepared for the ensuing shit storm that awaited her there.

The cabin was relatively quiet when she entered. El wasn't home, but a note stuck to the fridge informed her that the girl was at Max's for the day. The sound of a shower running told her that Hopper was home, however. Great, this was going to be delightful, Ana thought.

Sitting down at the kitchen table, Ana balanced her chin atop her propped fist, and contemplated how best to handle Hopper's forthcoming rage; she'd missed the dinner she'd promised to meet him at, and had seemingly disappeared for an entire evening. To say he was going to be pissed was an understatement.

Hearing the shower shut off, Ana watched him fumble around in the bathroom for aspirin from her perched position. Charging out with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, Hopper seemed to take no notice of her as he threw the pill bottle on the table next to her, and continued on to the refrigerator. Pulling out a milk carton, Ana watched in mild disgust as he guzzled from it greedily, cringing as some of the excess milk dribbled down his mouth.

This was the man she had chosen to spend her life with. He was charming, to say the least.

Finally deciding to alert Hopper to her presence, after he'd let out an impressive belch, Ana uttered a small "hey."

Clearly, he hadn't just been ignoring her, as he let out a loud "Jesus!" And stumbled back into the refrigerator in fright. The surprise though, quickly gave way to anger as she watched his face drop into a scowl.

Before he could start fuming, however, a knock at the door interrupted them, and Ana quickly jumped up to answer it in a bid to stall their oncoming dispute.

Joyce Byers stood behind the door, and once the barrier was open, she charged her way into the home. "Hopper, we need to talk," Joyce announced, all but ignoring Ana's existence.

"Now is not a good time, Joyce," Hopper asserted before rounding on Ana. "I haven't been stood up like that since Alice Gilbert in the 9th grade."

Unconcerned with the argument heating up around her, Joyce proceeded to walk into the kitchen and dump the contents of her purse onto their floor.

"Listen, I can explain," Ana started, but upon noticing Joyce's strange behavior, she changed directions. "What're you doing?"

Picking something out of the collection on the floor, Joyce told the two "just watch," before holding a magnet up to their fridge and letting it drop. She repeated the action three more times before looking back at the couple's unimpressed faces.

"Okay, you're freaking me out," Hopper proclaimed for the both of them.

Standing up and wielding a magnet accusingly, Joyce walked towards Hopper and declared, "you slipped on this, remember?" Still confused, Hopper agreed with a simple, "yeah."

At this point, Ana lost all interest in magnet talk and decided to slip away in favor of changing clothes. After all, she'd been stuck in the same ones since the incident at the pool the day prior.

From the other room, Ana could still hear the word magnetism being thrown around far too loosely for casual conversation and found her eyes rolling into the back of her head.

Ana had barely managed a quick wardrobe change before the bedroom door was being thrown open, with Hopper filling the doorway like some imposing bear. "And you," he seethed, "you've outdone yourself. You stand me up, no phone call, no apology. Were you also at Scott Clarke's house?"

The absurdity of his final question had Ana gaping at him in astonishment. "The fuck?" Escaped her mouth before she could push the words back down.

This, apparently, was not the answer to the question Hopper had been searching for.

Turning away from the bedroom, he stormed back into the living room where Joyce continued her barrage of questions about magnets, with Hopper hardly feigning interest.

Deciding it was time to end Hopper's undeserved spectacle of indignation, Ana followed him out of the bedroom and announced, "I was at the hospital," just as Joyce asked, "what if it's them?"

Pausing, for a moment Hopper grappled with which issue to address first. Obviously, magnets wasn't the winner. Turning to appraise Ana, Hopper's scowl gave way to a look of genuine concern as he asked: "You were at the hospital? Is everything alright?"

Brushing off his obvious worry with the wave of a hand, Ana merely divulged, "yeah, I hit my head. Now, let's hear about those magnets."

Despite the obvious sarcasm coating Ana's comment, Joyce took that as her cue to continue on her tirade. Arguing that "to build a machine like this, you need resources. You need scientists, you need funding, tens of millions of dollars."

Hopper's eyes had lingered on Ana a moment longer before he decided to finally cut Joyce off. "Joyce."

She wasn't deterred though. "It can't just be a coincidence, Hopper. It has to be them."

Again, he tried to halt her rant. "Joyce, stop."

"It has to be the lab," Joyce persisted as Ana watched on passively.

"It's impossible," Hopper once again attempted to assure her.

"Well, then prove it to me," Joyce challenged.

"Prove it?" Hopper asked, incredulously, in return.

Again, Ana found herself bored with their frivolous dispute, and laid down on the sofa. A nap was far favorable to their incessant squabbling. But, hey, if Hopper was arguing with Joyce, then he wasn't arguing with her. The two could have at it for all Ana cared.

Closing her eyes, Ana had managed to tune out their bickering long enough to slip into a micro nap. That is, until the argument spilled out into the yard, proceeded by the slamming of the front door.

"Ana, get your ass out here, you're coming with us!" Hopper hollered from his position next to the Blazer's driverside door.

There really is no rest for the wicked, Ana thought, before trailing after the pair.

Much to think about...