Jim Hopper had been the one to find me and drive me home. He was careful when he spoke to me—probably because he knew what it was like to lose a loved one—but I hadn't spoken a word since I saw them drag Will's body out of the water. It all felt surreal, like a strange dream that somehow wouldn't end. I sat in the back of the police car as the sheriff drove me home, staring out the window as trees raced by.

"You okay back there, kid?" Hopper asked in a soft tone. I didn't look up or reply to him. All I could think about was that red body warmer that had somehow engraved itself into my memory, as if tattooed on the inside of my eyelids. My body felt numb and I allowed myself to wonder: what if this was all a dream? What if I was just having a long, excruciatingly realistic nightmare. I could wake up to my stupid alarm clock any second, it would just be a regular morning and I would have breakfast with Will and Jonathan before school, I would have boring classes and cheerleading practice and I would sneak glances at Steve Harrington as he and the other guys on the basketball team practiced on the other side of the gym room—

"Alright, we're here. Do you need a minute or do you want to come inside with me? Hopper asked, waking me up from my thoughts. I finally moved, turning my head to meet his gaze in the rear view mirror. "I'll come," I said softly.

Hopper got out and opened the door for me—with the back doors always being locked for safety reasons—and I slowly followed him to the front door of my house. He knocked and by the time I had stepped onto the porch, mom opened the door.

"Hopper," she started before she saw me. "And…Lori, what's wrong?" she frowned, clearly being able to read my face well enough that something was not right.

"Can we talk inside?" Hopper asked, and mom stepped aside to let him in. I followed, planning on simply taking a seat and zoning out again, but mom stopped me by putting her hands on my arms.

"Sweetie, talk to me, you look like you… what is it?" she asked, changing her choice of words last minute. I couldn't look her in the eye when I spoke.

"They found Will, mom," I croaked, my voice pathetically weak. "By the quarry. He…the water…" was all I managed to say as my eyes welled up with tears again. I don't know how I expected my mother to react, but I at least expected something. Instead she remained silent, looking from me to Hopper and back to me.

"H-Here sweetie, have a seat," she said as she walked me to the couch and sat me down. "Stay put, okay? I'll talk to Hopper," she said before walking off to the kitchen, where Hopper had walked to. I heard their conversation, somehow sounding much further away than it actually was. There were other cops walking around the house, shining their torches onto the walls. Apparently mom had seen something in the walls, which made it only more evident to me that she wasn't far off from completely losing it.

At some point Jonathan joined me on the couch, his hand rubbing my back as he attempted to comfort me. I could tell from his breathing and jagged movement that he was doing his very best to stay composed, as he too just now found out that Will was no longer with us.

"Our working theory right now is that Will crashed his bike, made his way over to the quarry and accidentally fell into the water."

How long had he been struggling in that lake? Had he tried to swim to shore? Had he even been conscious, or had the drop been so high he hadn't survived the landing on the water in the first place? I couldn't bear to think about him suffering in those last moments. How scared he must have been. Scared, cold, alone. Had he known he was going to die? What had been his last thought? Had I told him I loved him recently? Surely he knew, right?

I was only able to wake up from my spiralling thoughts when my mom opened a cabinet and held up a bunch of Christmas lights, claiming how Will had talked to her through them not too long ago.

"Talking?" Hopper repeated.

"Uh-huh, one blink for yes, two for no."

I stared at my mother, wanting to yell at her to wake up and stop talking nonsense. But something in me stopped me from doing so. I waited, wanting to hear more of what she had to say.

"And then I made this so-…so he could talk to me," Joyce continued, gesturing at the wall on which she had painted the alphabet, each letter painted under a lightbulb. "Cause he was hiding from..that thing."

"That thing that came out of the wall?" Hopper asked, and I could hear from his tone that he was having a hard time trying to even entertain my mom's words.

"Yeah," mom confirmed, but Jonathan had finally gotten up from the couch and walked over to her.

"Mom, come on, please," he interrupted her, pleading with her to stop.

"No, you don't understand, it's after him! He is in danger, we have to find him," Joyce protested, her voice getting more emotional as she turned from Jonathan to Hopper.

"This thing, what was it exactly?" Hopper asked. "It was some kind of animal, you said?"

"Uh no, it was… it was almost human, but it wasn't. It had these long arms and…it didn't have a face."

I watched Jonathan leave to go to his room, the door slamming shut as mom continued her story and Hopper tried to talk her down. He mentioned his daughter and how he had seen her after she had passed away. For a moment I thought that this must have been the same thing, for both my mom and for me, but it didn't feel right. What I had felt in the woods, it wasn't grief. He hadn't even been found at that point, so the timeline wouldn't make sense either. As much as I wanted my mom to come to terms with reality, I couldn't deny that a part of me wanted to believe her. I, too, had heard and even felt Will, after all.

I eventually went to bed after the cops left. Where I hadn't been able to sleep earlier, I now fell asleep almost instantly after my head hit the pillow. I slept fitfully, dreaming about walking through the woods aimlessly, searching for Will. In my dream, he talked to me.

"This way, Lori," he would tell me, only to start singing a song that he and Jonathan both really liked. Something by The Clash I believed. He sounded far away sometimes, closer by other times. He didn't sound scared or in danger. He sounded normal, happy almost. I followed the sound of his voice, walking around the woods for what felt like hours, until Will's singing was interrupted by the sound of my alarm clock. I was sure that today, the sound of the alarm clock was going to be one of the more pleasant parts of my day.

I didn't want to go in with mom and Jonathan to see Will's body. I wasn't required to—the two of them were more than enough to identify him—so I sat in the waiting area with Hopper as they went inside. I fumbled with my fingers, picking at my nails as we waited.

"How are you holding up?" Hopper asked. I shrugged lightly. I didn't know how I was feeling. I was in a strange limbo between grief and disbelief. A part of me was tired and wanted all of this to be over with, but another part wouldn't, couldn't believe that it was actually happening. I didn't know why, but there was something just not right, something that prevented me from truly believing he was dead.

"I'm fine," I eventually said. I wasn't going to bother him with my internal struggles. He would probably suggest that I'd go in and see him anyway, that it would help with accepting reality. But I knew that it wouldn't change anything. I had seen Will's body the night before, I had already been presented with visual evidence. It was something else, something intangible that was making me doubt…everything.

"You're doing well, kid," Hopper said, and I managed to smile faintly. "It's not easy, any of this, but you and your mom and Jonathan will be okay."

I nodded, finally looking up at him. "Thanks, Hopper," I said, and I meant it. I knew he meant well, but there was no way I could get him to understand what I was feeling at that time.

We both looked up when Jonathan walked out of the coroner's office, his face gaunt. He took a seat next to me and rested his elbows on his thighs, his head hanging low. He looked like he was going to be sick, but I suspected he had already thrown up inside the office and was now trying to calm down.

I tuned out the conversation between Hopper and Jonathan. I was tired of talking about it, hearing about it. I wanted it all to go away, to wake up from this living nightmare already. I was about to get up from my seat to go and catch some fresh air outside, when mom barged out of the coroner's office, followed by the coroner himself.

"Ma'am, you have to sign this."

"I don't know what you think that thing back there is, but that is not my son," she insisted, turning to leave.

"Mom," Jonathan started as he got up from his chair, followed by Hopper who said "Joyce, wait a second."

Mom gave both of them a firm "no!" before barging out, and I quickly got up and followed her. "Mom, wait!" I said, running after her to catch up with her.

"No, Lori, I don't care if nobody believes me, but that isn't Will," she said, waving me away, but I grabbed her hand when I caught up to her.

"Tell me more, what makes you think it isn't Will," I said, wanting to believe her, so badly. A part of me knew that she was on the right track, that we had both heard and seen things that didn't make sense, and maybe we could figure them out together.

She looked at me, surprised to not be argued with for once, but I could see in her face that she didn't know where to start. "I just need to think, you should go home with Jonathan-" she started, but I interrupted her.

"I don't think he is dead, either," I said, letting the small suspicion tat had been brewing deep inside me come to the surface. We looked at each other for a few seconds before she gave me an understanding nod, squeezing my hand softly before continuing to walk, dragging me with her. "I just need to gather my thoughts, but I will try to explain things to you the best I can. I know it will sound strange-"

"I heard him, he spoke to me yesterday," I interrupted again, and she looked up at me in surprise. I tried to keep my voice down so that others outside wouldn't overhear us—the last thing I needed was people (especially people from school)—hearing us talk about how we had been talking to Will through Christmas lights and in the woods, after his death had already been announced on TV.

"At Castle Byers. I…I couldn't see him, but I heard him, and…he touched my hand," I said, balling my free hand into a fist as if that could bring the feeling back. Mom listened to me with a slight frown on her face but nodded, deeply in thought as we both tried to make sense of the situation, when Jonathan's car stopped next to us and he hopped out of it, following us.

"Mom, Lori, hold on!" he called, and I wanted to stop walking but mom kept dragging me along. "Just go home Jonathan! Lori and I will walk home," she said, trying to keep pace, but Jonathan stopped her on the sidewalk.

"Will you just stop?" Jonathan pleaded, pulling on her shoulder to make her turn around to face him.

"Go home, Jonathan," mom repeated.

"No, this is not a good time for you to shut down."

"Shut down?" mom repeated with a frown, but Jonathan wasn't having it.

"We have to deal with this mom, we have to deal with the funeral."

"The funeral?" mom repeated loudly, earning a few stares from people around us. So much for keeping a low profile. "For what, for that thing back there?"

"Look, Jonathan, it's okay, I got her, just let us-"

"God, not you too, Lori," he groaned. "Let me get this straight. Will, that's not his body because he is in the lights, right? A-And he talks to you too, in Castle Byers, he even holds hands with you," he said, turning to me, and I could feel my ears heat up in embarrassment. "And there's a monster in the wall? Do you even hear yourselves?"

"I know it sounds crazy, I-I-I sound crazy, it is crazy, I know that!" mom yelled, and I turned away, running my hand through my hair. At this point, more people had stopped to stare at us and I hated it. I wanted to yell at them to go away, but I knew it would make things even worse.

"Will is calling to us, and he is out there and he is alone and he is scared! I don't care if anyone believes me, I am not going to stop looking for him until I find him and I am going to bring him home. I'm going to bring him home!" she repeated before stomping off.

"Mom-" I started, but I knew it was no use. I quickly followed after her, leaving Jonathan to yell after us in the street.

"Yeah, we'll while you're talking to the lights, the rest of us are having a funeral for Will! I'm not letting him stay in the freezer for another day!"

I felt torn. I wanted to comfort Jonathan, to explain to him what was going on, to make him understand, but I needed to talk to mom. We had to figure out what was going on, and at this point, she was the only person to even slightly understand where I was coming from.

We walked home together in silence. I wanted to ask her questions, to know more about her experiences, but I knew she needed time to think. When we finally got home Jonathan wasn't there. Mom had brought Will's cassette player into the living room and was playing one song on repeat: the one I had heard Will sing in my dream.

"This can't be a coincidence. There has to be something going on," mom said after we had both explained our experiences, with the lights, the wall, the woods and the dreams.

"But where do we even start? He can communicate with us, sort of, very rarely, and we have no way of knowing how to get to him," I said over the music, getting more energetic by the second. The more I allowed myself to entertain this, to become hopeful again, the more sure I became of the fact that ha couldn't be dead. Especially since mom had specifically asked whether he was alive, and the Christmas lights had blinked once for yes.

"We stay here and we wait for him to talk to us again," mom said, gesturing towards the wall with the letters painted on them. "This is our best bet when it comes to him talking to us."

We waited, the song looping and looping, until that familiar static feeling came over me again and I put my hand on the back of my neck.

"Mom," I said, our gazes meeting. "He's close by, I can feel it."

Mom's face lit up and she turned around, trying to spot any blinking lights, but my attention was fixed on the wall next to the window. I thought I heard something, like a whimper or a soft cry.

"Mom," I could barely make out through the music and I pressed my ear against the wall, straining to hear better. Mom turned the music off, the room now doused in silence until Will's voice was clearly audible.

"Lori," he said and I gasped as I pulled back from the wall.

"Will," I answered, banging on the wall with my flat hand.

"Lori!" I heard again, louder this time, and now there was banging coming from the wall as well. Mom hurried over and pressed her ear against the wall as well.

"Will, is that you?" she asked desperately, and Will clearly replied with a "mom!"

Mom started clawing at the wallpaper, revealing not the drywall behind it, but a strange, almost skin-like film that was see through, albeit very cloudy. Behind it, the first thing I noticed was the bright red bodywarmer. I quickly ran to the front door and yanked it open, running outside, but nobody was there. Clearly he wasn't here, wherever he was.

"Mom, it's coming!" I heard Will's trembling voice when I hurried back inside, and my stomach tightened at the fear in his voice.

"Tell me where you are, how do I get to you," mom pleaded, her hands raking over the film separating us from Will.

"It's like home, but it's so dark… It's so dark and empty. And it's cold, mom!"

"Listen to me," mom sobbed, and I joined her, putting my hand on the film as well. It was much too thick to rip or poke through. "I swear, we're going to get you out of there, but right now, I need you to hide!"

"Mom, please!" Will begged, and I felt my heart break into a thousand pieces.

"We're going to get you out as fast as possible, Will, I promise," I urged, focusing on the barely visible face of my little brother. It was almost impossible to make out, but I could see his big, pleading eyes, and that was all I needed to find all the courage and determination to get him out of whatever hellhole he had ended up in.

"We will find you, Will, but you have to run now! Run!" Mom ordered him, and Will obeyed, disappearing from our view as the film slowly started to shrink, overtaken by the drywall again. I turned around and scanned the room, my gaze landing on the axe my mom had slept with the night before on the couch. I grabbed it and quickly walked back to the wall, hoisting it up high in the air and swinging it into the wall. I repeated the action, knowing deep down I was too late now that the film had disappeared, but I couldn't not try.

All that came from it was a big, gaping hole in the wall that revealed our front yard. Mom and I both stared out of it for a good while as we caught our breath. At least we knew for sure that Will was alive now. Maybe not safe, but alive.

The last thing I expected was for my father to show up, but sure enough, there he was. I was sitting on the couch, still trying to process what had happened, mom sitting against the coffee table, when he pulled up in his car. Mom was the first one to get up and go outside to greet him, and I slowly followed. Dad and I weren't exactly on great terms, especially after Jonathan had told me how his visit had gone down on the first day Will had gone missing. But seeing him now was still a comfort somehow.

"Hey, princess," he greeted me when I stepped outside. He let go of mom, who he had been hugging, and walked over to me before wrapping me into a hug as well.

"Hey, dad," I said softly, closing my eyes and hugging back weakly.

"Come on, let's get the two of you inside, it's freezing out here," he said as he let go and ruffled my hair. I walked back inside and sat down on the couch again, nervously rubbing my sweaty hands over my knees. Both my parents went inside as well and mom joined me on the couch, while dad looked around the room in silence, his hands planted on his hips. He must have thought we were insane.

"Alright, first, alcohol," he said, walking to the cabinet where we always kept the liquor. I wasn't surprised he suggested a drink, it was how he usually handled…well, pretty much everything.

He poured two glasses, one for mom and one for him, and got me a can of soda from the fridge.

"Drink. It will calm your nerves, help you think straight, yeah?" he said as he sat down next to mom, who was now sitting in between dad and I.

"I don't know what to do," mom mumbled, clearly still frazzled from earlier events.

"I know, I know…" dad said in an attempt to comfort her.

"This whole time, I could feel him" mom continued. "He was…he was so close, he was right there. I knew he was alive, our hands… our hands were almost touching. Now it's like I … like I can't feel him anymore." The last few words came out in a sob.

"Whenever he is…close," I said, bringing my hand up to the nape of my neck, "I can feel it… physically feel it. I feel it before hearing or seeing anything. But now… he isn't here. Mom told him to hide, and… he did. He went somewhere else," I said. I wanted to add that he went somewhere safe, but that was just wishful thinking. There was no way of knowing whether he was actually safe.

I eyed my dad carefully, skeptical of what his reaction would be. I doubted he would believe us, but a part of me hoped, since it was the two of us who confirmed this story, that he would believe us.

The two adults looked each other in the eye for a moment, before my mom said: "don't look at me like that."

"Like what," dad answered.

"Like how everybody is looking at me, at Lori, like we are out of our damn minds."

"Hey," dad started, making both mom and I look at him. "You're not gonna like this but I need you to seriously consider the possibility that all this… it's in your heads."

I should have known better than to hope for more. From him, of all people. Mom and I scoffed at the same time. I got up from the couch and started pacing around the room. My gaze fell upon the hole in the wall, or rather the tarp that was now covering it, courtesy to dad's handiwork. It had started to rain by now, and it was the only thing that kept the water from coming inside.

"You remember your aunt Darlene?"

"No, this is not that," mom insisted before he could get another word in.

"You know, when something like this happens, your mind makes up stuff for you to cope, you know? I mean Jesus, there is a funeral tomorrow for our little boy and you're saying his body is fake."

"His body is fake," I blurted out, glaring at him, but he chose to only reply with a stern look thrown at me.

"How do you explain that he is in the wall?" he continued. It was silent. I didn't know how to explain it, and I knew that neither did mom. "It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't."

I started pacing around again as they continued their conversation. Dad mentioned something about talking to a shrink or a pastor, to help with the grieving process. I wanted to yell at him, but I knew that I would only be making things worse, and possibly upsetting my mom, which I didn't want to risk. I picked up the can of orange soda from the coffee table and opened it. I took a sip, but the taste went flat in my mouth. I put the can down and picked up mom's glass, which was still filled with the string liquor dad had poured for her.

"Lori, don't-" mom started, but I had already downed the drink before she could get another word out. Dad sighed and shrugged when mom looked at him. "Better here with us than out there all alone or with some random people."

When Jonathan's car pulled up to the house, I retreated to my room. It was exhausting enough to have to sit through one of Lonnie's lectures, I didn't need Jonathan to scold me as well. I was lying on my bed, all the lights in my room turned off, when there was a soft knock on my bedroom door.

"Hey Lori, you awake?" Jonathan asked. I considered pretending I was asleep, but I couldn't bring myself to, not while Jonathan was still under the impression that Will was dead. If that was real to him, and he wanted to be around me for comfort, I would give it to him.

"I'm awake," I said as I sat up on my bed. Jonathan opened the door and entered, closing the door behind him before flicking the light on and taking a seat on my bed.

"Listen…everything you and mom said, about Will, about… the monsters, the wall… I-I think it might be true."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. This was the last thing I had expected to hear from him.

"Nancy saw something in the woods today, and pointed out one of my photographs, so I enlarged and brightened it and…this came up," he said as he pulled a photograph out of his pocket and unfolded it. It was hard to make out anything in the dark and grainy picture, but sure enough, on the right side of the paper was the blurry outline of a humanoid shape. It was large, and almost exactly the way that mom had described it.

"Where did you take this?" I asked, taking the picture from him and holding it up closer to my face to see it better.

"I took it in the woods the night Barbara disappeared," he said. "I was out there looking for Will when…well, it doesn't matter why I was there, I took this picture and that thing showed up on it. What if that's what took Will," he said, and I looked up at him, a glint in my eyes.

"So you do believe us now," I said, and Jonathan nodded. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you guys earlier. It's been…hard, and this is definitely all…messed up," he said, looking down at his hands.

"No, Jonathan," I said as I reached out and took one of his hands in mine. "I understand why you had to reject the idea. It…definitely sounded crazy, and you were just trying to keep us sane and…do what had to be done in case, you know…if Will had actually been…" I said, trailing off into silence as I couldn't bring myself to actually finish that sentence.

"Yeah, well… I-I think you should tell Nancy what you saw. I think she can help us find Will, and Barbara as well," he said and I nodded.

"Tomorrow after the funeral, we'll sit down and talk things through. I don't know how much time Will has before that thing finds him. The sooner we figure this out, the better."

We said our good nights and both went to sleep. I didn't want to go to the funeral—I thought it was bullshit and a waste of time—but I also knew we had to keep up appearances and if I didn't go to my brother's own funeral, it would raise a lot of eyebrows. I weighed the importance of seid eyebrows (a part of me didn't give a shit about what other people thought), but there was a chance I might actually get in trouble or had to talk to doctors or other people "concerned" about me, and that would only delay me more than I already was. It was better to get it over with.

"You look just like your mom, you know that?" Lonnie told me as we waited for Jonathan to join us in the living room. I was wearing a black dress and my hair was tied back in a low ponytail. Had I had bangs, I probably would have looked exactly like a younger version of her, maybe with hair a little bit lighter than hers. Our brown eyes were the same and we had the same bone structure, but my face and frame was filled up a little bit more. Baby fat, Mom used to affectionately call it, usually accompanied by squeezing my cheek, which had always made me giggle.

I didn't know how to reply to my father, so I just didn't say anything. The longer he was staying, the more I loathed his presence. I knew he didn't believe me or mom and that he would be pushing the shrink narrative even after the funeral. As long as he didn't try to be more present in my life, I was fine with it. He had made his decision to leave, and he would have to deal with the consequences.

"Ready for the funeral?" Jonathan asked and I almost jumped. I hadn't noticed him coming out of his room. "Dad's just getting mom," he added, pointing over his shoulder towards Will's room.

"Yeah, I'm ready," I said with a small smile, though it was a genuine one this time. "Let's get this thing over with and then find Will."