A/N: Content Warnings: Fear, Language, Disturbing Content, Death.
The wind whistled over the dark grounds of Hawkins Lab as two scientists left through the main entrance. "Thanks," the woman said to the man when he held open the door. Chatting, they headed toward their vehicles in the lot, failing to notice another man standing in the shadows near the doors they had just left exited.
Taking advantage of their inattention, Hopper quickly snuck through the glass door that had not yet closed. Inside he crept through the halls, checking around corners and peeking into empty offices to be sure the coast was clear. He ambled down an office corridor, imitation wood paneling passing him by, when he suddenly heard the approaching sound of indistinct chatter. As quickly as he could he ducked in a nearby room and pressed himself against the wall, breathing heavily. Two other scientists entered the hallway, immersed in conversation. Neither noticed Hopper and he waited for them to pass his hiding spot.
Once they were gone, the police chief continued his quest. The fluorescent bulbs shone brightly above him as he headed directly for the one place he had seen being guarded when he had been there previously. Hopper paused in front of the corridor that was sectioned off by the hazmat tarp. He glanced back down the hall he came from before sighing, shrugging his shoulders, and unzipping the tarp. He carefully stepped down the hall, turning another corner, and coming to a set of double doors.
These doors proved to be locked, halting his progress. To his right he noticed a key swipe pad, but before he could even begin to contemplate a way in he registered the click of a gun directly behind him.
"Hands up. Hands up!" The same suited man that had escorted Hopper and his officers before ordered him at gunpoint. The man was flanked by a soldier who also had a weapon aimed at him.
Hopper raised his hands in surrender. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." He pivoted and slowly faced the two men.
"Forgot all the cameras, bud?" The suited man asked.
"Look, Dr. Brenner asked for me specifically, okay?" Hopper lied smoothly. "How else do you think I got in here?"
Giving him a wary look, the suited man pulled the radio from his pocket. "What's your name again?"
"It's Jim Hopper," Hopper replied with mock incredulousness. "Chief Jim Hopper."
"Yeah, I've got Jim Hopper-"
Immediately, Hopper drew back his right fist and punched the man hard in the face. With a loud grunt of pain he fell to the floor, Hopper pulling the man's gun from his belt before he reached the ground. He then forced the other soldier back against the wall, pressing his arm out to the side and taking his gun too.
"Come again?" The radio responded. Hopper ignored it, tucking the soldier's firearm In his belt and keeping his own gun aimed at the man's face. He reached down and held up the man's badge on his chest.
"Hey, you mind if I borrow this?" He yanked the ID from the man's uniform and took a few steps back. His gun still trained on the soldier, he swiped the badge through the keypad. There was a buzz and the doors opened.
Watching for a sign of movement from his hostage, Hopper entered the corridor beyond. Once he was on the other side the doors closed and he lowered his gun. He found another keypad and, raising his gun again, he shot at the system, destroying it. The man turned and searched the dark halls of the lab with his flashlight, looking for any sign that Will was there.
"Will?" His voice seemed to echo and he turned back to view the empty corridor behind him to make sure he wasn't being followed. He pointed the flashlight into a dark and abandoned laboratory, cautiously moving forward through the halls. "Will? Will?"
He soon found himself in a tiny room which contained a small bed and bedside table. Looking up, he noticed a security camera in a ceiling corner trained directly on the bed. He moved the flashlight over a stuffed lion sitting on top of the gray covers and landed on the nearby wall, seeing two taped up drawings seemingly made by a child.
The first drawing depicted a table with what looked like a cat on top. Above the cat was a hanging lightbulb. Two stick figures, one tall and one short, were drawn beside the table. The tall one was labeled 'Papa' and the short one had '11' over it.
The second drawing was a bit similar to the first. Instead of a table and a cat, there was a rectangle and a rainbow. There was still a small stick figure label '11', but instead of a tall one named 'Papa' there was a medium sized one. The name above that figure's head was smudged, unable to be deciphered.
Hopper's face stiffened as he processed the sight in front of him.
In the Wheeler's basement Eleven's head rested on a pillow, her feet propped up next to Mike as she lay across the sofa. Lucas sat in a recliner across from them, Dustin not very far away on the bottom of the basement stairs. Mike looked between the three and drummed his knees anxiously. He was growing frustrated. They had been rehashing the day's events for over an hour, but so far they had come up with nothing.
"Who was that?" Mike asked. He needed to know. They had all heard the other voice before the radio was fried. "The one who told Will to run?"
"Why does it matter?" Lucas slumped over, as if hopeless.
"Maybe they have Will! If they could find who the voice belonged to, then they might find their missing friend. Seemed like reason enough for him.
"But Will didn't say anything about being with someone," Dustin replied.
"C'mon!" Mike knew that the voice had something to do with Will's disappearance. "El, do you know who that was?"
The girl simply shook her head. Eleven hadn't recognized it, and she had told them on the way back to his house that she hadn't seen who it belonged to either.
"Well, then what was Will saying?" Mike struggled to remember. "Like home...Like home...but dark?" He stood, his mind going over half-formed possibilities that made no sense.
Lucas folded his hands in front himself and bowed his head. "And empty," he added.
Dustin sighed, attempting to recall the other part. "Empty and cold. Wait, did he say cold?"
"I don't know," Lucas replied irritably. "The stupid radio kept going in and out."
Dustin sighed again, looking up at the ceiling. "It's like riddles in the dark."
"Like home. Like his house?" Mike asked, spinning around as he remembered that Eleven had taken them to Will's house when attempting to show them to where he was hiding.
"Or maybe like Hawkins," Lucas suggested.
"Upside Down," corrected Eleven tiredly.
Lucas furrowed his eyebrows and looked at Mike. "What'd she say?"
"Upside Down," Mike repeated. It all dawned on him at that moment.
"What?"
"Upside Down," Mike said again emphatically. He hurried over to the table in the middle of the basement holding up the Dungeons & Dragons game board. "When El showed us where Will was, she flipped the board over, remember?" He flipped it right side up again as his friends huddled around the table, then he flipped it back to the way Eleven had left it, finishing, "Upside Down. Dark. Empty."
Lucas looked to Dustin for help. "Do you understand what he's talking about?"
"No," Dustin replied blankly.
Why did he have to do all the heavy mental lifting in this group? "Guys, come on, just think about it." Mike needed them to get the picture. "When El took us to find Will, she took us to his house, right?"
"Yeah," Lucas said. "And he wasn't there."
"But what if he was there? What if we just couldn't see him? What if he was on the other side? What if this is Hawkins." Mike flipped the board right side up again. "And…" He flipped it back upside down, "...this is where Will is? The Upside Down."
Dustin's eyes widened as the pieces clicked together. "Like the Vale of Shadows." They all looked at each other, stomach dropping.
"Will?" Hopper was running through the corridors of the facility now. He had found several white hazmat suits in a dark room, alarms blaring faintly from somewhere in the distance. He kept searching, the beam of his flashlight bouncing off empty room after empty room, holding his gun firmly in front of him. "Will?"
He heard the approach of the guards, whipping his flashlight back to see if they were near.
Hopper darted to the end of a corridor and found an elevator. He pressed the call button several times, hearing distant shouts of men coming to apprehend him. Beams from flashlights appeared around the corner and soon he could see the guards come dashing toward him, just as the elevator doors opened and he stepped in.
"I see him! Stop!" A guard shouted, but the elevator doors closed Hopper within before they could reach him.
Mike watched as Dustin pulled out the large guide for Dungeons & Dragons, opening it to a page titled 'The Vale of Shadows'. Dustin read aloud to the others, "The Vale of Shadows is a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world. It is a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase. A place of monsters."
Mike's eyes widened. The Demogorgon... it couldn't be a coincidence. He and Lucas looked fearfully at one another as Dustin quietly added, "It is right next to you, and you don't even see it."
The elevator doors opened and Hopper peered into the darkness, lit only by his small flashlight. He noticed flurries floating in the air, like weightless snow. Sensing danger, Hopper continued calling quietly, "Will?" Electricity flickered and he coughed, the air seeming almost as if it was congested. "Will? Will?"
"An alternate dimension." Mike echoed, freaking out inside.
"But ...how...how do we get there?" Lucas asked, voice sullen.
"You cast Shadow Walk," Dustin replied. But they couldn't shadow walk outside of the game.
"In real life, dummy." Lucas clearly had the same thought as Mike. This wasn't a campaign, they couldn't just rely on the skills of their fictional counterparts to save the day.
"We can't Shadow Walk, but…" Dustin peered down for a moment before looking at the sofa. "Maybe she can."
Mike and Lucas both turned to stare at Eleven. She stared back blankly, her head still resting on the pillow after being wiped from her earlier demonstration. She was their only hope at this point.
"Do you know how to get there?" Mike gently asked. "To the Upside Down?" She gave a small shake of her head, her expression remaining blank.
"Oh my God!" Lucas sighed heavily and Mike frowned. Of course she didn't. He and Dustin stared down at the image in the article. It was indeed a dark, cold looking place.
Hopper walked into the control room of an underground lab. He covered his face with his arm and coughed again, the particles acting like irritants to his airway. He froze as his flashlight illuminated something in front of him.
"What the hell?" Hopper's eyes narrowed and he dropped his arm. Stepping closer, he examined an extremely strange sight.
There was a wall infested with some type of plant-like phenomenon. What looked like vines seemed to spread out of a fleshy mass. It was large and it was ugly. And most unsettling of all was that the thing seemed to growl and pulse, like a heartbeat. A dim, orange light from within pulsed along with each beat. He reached out to touch the weblike substance over the center, but as he did he heard movement behind him.
Hopper spun, spooked by whatever it was. His hand jumped to the gun he had tucked back into his belt, and he pulled it out and held it in front of him. Next to a tank of green-tinted water, a man in a hazmat suit appeared and walked toward him.
"Hey! Hey!" Hopper shouted, but before he could react he was ambushed by another suited man who quickly stabbed him in the neck with a syringe, sedating him immediately.
Part Five: The Flea and the Acrobat
Jonathan rushed through the front door of his home with every intention of talking to his mother about what he and Nancy had discovered. What happened instead was that he found her curled up on the couch next to his father, of all people, with drinks in their hand. They both quickly sit up at the sight of him.
"Hey, kid," said Lonnie.
"What's going on?" Jonathan asked, narrowing his eyes at the pair. Why was his father here?
His mom answered for him, "Your dad's, uh, going to stay here tonight. On the couch." He began to look around the room, noticing a tarp covering the wall near the front window.
"Yeah, I'm here as long as you need me, okay?" Lonnie added. He didn't need Lonnie. Nobody did. "How are you holding up?"
Jonathan chose not to answer his father, instead strolling over to examine the mysterious addition to his living room wall. He pushed aside the blue tarp to see that someone had ripped a hole into the house, he turned and flashed his mom a concerned look. "What happened?" The hole in the wall hadn't been there that morning.
"Don't worry about that," Lonnie replied dismissively.
But again Jonathan ignored him. "Mom...that thing you saw before, did it come back?"
Joyce mouthed mutely, furrowing her brows and widening her eyes at him, like she couldn't believe that he was actually asking. But Lonnie stepped in before she could answer. "Jonathan, that's enough."
Who was he to give orders around here? Jonathan cast Lonnie a very significant glare. "Can we talk?" He asked. "Alone?" He wanted the man out of their house. He made his way down the hall, followed by the unwelcome guest on their couch. Once they reached the inside of his bedroom, Jonathan turned, ready to pounce. "You need to leave," he said, keeping his voice low so his mom wouldn't hear.
"Look, I know you're upset," Lonnie replied quietly. "We all are. But you need to listen to me. Your mother is sick. Really sick."
'We all are'? That was a funny joke. He knew Lonnie wasn't upset. Jonathan leaned closer and spit out with venom, "Yeah. Well, you being here, you're just making things worse, like always."
He knew how things went with Lonnie around. Everyone's feelings would be pushed to the side as it became all about how Lonnie felt. What Lonnie wanted. And he was willing to bet what little money they had left that Lonnie had an ulterior motive to be there in the first place. Lonnie didn't care about Will.
"Worse?" The man asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah!" Jonathan couldn't help raising his voice. After everything their dad had put them through, how dare he show up now.
Lonnie gestured back to the living room. "She took down that wall with an ax. She said that Will was inside and that he's talking to her."
"Yeah. Maybe he was," Jonathan shrugged. Of course his father wouldn't understand, and he wasn't going to help him.
"This isn't some kind of joke. Your mom was half-frozen to death when I got here. Trembling, scared out of her mind. You come in here and you start feeding into her hallucinations or whatever the hell you want to call it, you're gonna push her right over the edge. You hear me?" Lonnie asked. Jonathan brushed off his words, staring back at the man with hatred in his eyes. "Look, I'm on your side. I'm here to help. I'm gonna make things better around here for all of us."
Jonathan scoffed at that. His father couldn't make anything better for anyone, except by leaving. "Thank God you're here," he deadpanned. He backed away from Lonnie, wanting as much distance between them as possible.
"Do me a favor," Lonnie said with a glare. "At the funeral tomorrow, just behave. If not for me, for your mother." They stared at one another in silence for a few seconds before his father pointed at a poster on his bedroom wall of the 1981 horror film The Evil Dead and added, "Take that down. It's inappropriate."
Jonathan clenched his jaw and watched Lonnie leave the room. One thing was for sure. That poster was never coming down as long as he lived.
Mike sat in front the mirror on his dresser as his dad leaned over him from behind, arranging a tie around his neck. The day of Will's funeral had arrived, and he literally would rather be anywhere else.
"Good," Ted muttered, adjusting the fabric carefully..
"Ah. Dad you're...you're choking me." Mike tried to loosen the tie to no avail. The older man only continued to fiddle with the accessory.
"Ah...there. It's supposed to be a little tight." His dad finished backed away, examining him in the mirror. "Looks good."
He thought he looked kind of stupid, personally. But the whole idea of going to a fake funeral was dumb to begin with. But knowing this was a loosing battle, Mike sighed heavily and made his way downstairs.
Miles away, behind the Byers' house, sat Castle Byers. The Byers' family dog trotted into the small wooden structure and, with a sad whimper, he lay across the mattress inside, letting out a whine. Inside his room, Jonathan criticized his reflection as he struggled with tying his own tie.
"Ugh!" He pulled it off in disgust and slammed it on his dresser, looking at his reflection in irritation.
At that moment Jonathan and Mike shared the same thought. What was even the point?
"Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." The pastor paused, looking up from his bible at the mournful gathering. Mike was surprised that so many people had shown up for Will's funeral. They each held a rose in their hands, some yellow, some white. And one red. He blinked emotionlessly as the pastor continued, "It's times like these that our faith is challenged. How, if He is truly benevolent...could God take from us someone so young, so innocent?"
He looked over at Will's brother, Jonathan. The older teen wasn't listening to the speech, instead peering around at the guests, looking equally disgusted with the proceeding. Mike listened to the preacher carefully as he stared at Jonathan, considering his words. God, if there was such a being, hadn't taken Will. Not yet, at least.
"It would be easy to turn away from God," Pastor Charles went on. "But we must remember that nothing, not even tragedy, can separate us from His love."
Mike glanced around where he and his friends stood at the faces that had shown for the proceeding. He didn't recognize many of them, but that wasn't surprising because Will didn't have many friends. Neither did Will's older brother. But he must have had at least one, he realized, as he noticed an odd looking stranger. An older teen with long blond and black hair who Mike could have sworn that he had seen walking on their street the other night.
The night he had found Eleven.
Feeling a nudge in his side, Mike turned his head to Dustin, who was also nudging at Lucas while grinning and nodding to someone in the crowd.
"We are here today to find comfort in the truth of scripture, and to surround Will and his family…"
Mike and Lucas turned to see what Dustin was trying to point out to them. A pretty blonde girl standing a few feet away stared down at Will's coffin, crying. They watched in shock as Dustin whispered, "Just wait till we tell Will that Jennifer Hayes was crying at his funeral."
For some reason, he had a feeling that Will wouldn't really care.
His mom leaned down to shush him and his friends, giving them stern glances. At the end of the proceedings, Mike watched as the guests tossed their roses, one by one, onto the small, humble coffin which had been lowered into the open slot where Will's body was meant to rest. He noticed that Jonathan's strange friend had specifically left a red rose, which stood out among the copious amounts of yellow and white left by everyone else. Whoever the guy was, one thing was for sure...
Will would have thought he was cool.
As people filed away from the grave site, Jonathan saw Mrs. Wheeler walk up to Lonnie and give him a hug. "I'm so, so sorry," She whispered.
"Oh, thank you so much for coming," His dad replied. His mom stood idly behind Lonnie, her arms folded, staring down at the wooden box in the ground.
Ted moved forward and shook Lonnie's hand. "Yeah, if there's anything we can do…"
"I appreciate it. Thank you so much," Lonnie nodded at Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler. Jonathan took a moment to glance around and spotted someone he hadn't expected to see there. That boy, the strange quiet one from school.
It seemed like he was everywhere nowadays.
He watched as the blond that had been following him all week walked farther into the cemetery, the opposite direction from everyone else. Was it a sign to follow? He decided it was and went after his strange classmate. A little bit away from the gathering he found who he was looking for, seeing the boy sitting on a tombstone, the letters etched into the stone long since eroded.
The mysterious teen was staring into space with a vacant expression. Jonathan slowly approached him, seeking answers. "What are you doing here?"
"I came for the funeral," the faint voice replied. The blond turned to stare at him, raising his brow as if the answer should have been obvious.
That was not what he had meant. He shoved his hands into his blazer pockets and sighed. The blond stared intently at his face, seemingly waiting for another question. Jonathan didn't make him wait long.
"Y-yeah, I get that." He felt his nerves go into overdrive, mentally steeling himself for what he was about to say. "Why are you here if you know Will isn't dead?" The boy tilted his head at him, and Jonathan wanted to squirm again under the piercing gaze. For whatever reason, this strange teen made him so uncomfortable.
The boy's voice emphasized the last word of his question as he asked, "I know that ?"
"Yeah," Jonathan nearly shouted. Of course he did! The guy had basically told him that his mom was right about Will being alive the day prior. "You said so yourself!"
"Is that what I said?" The boy again emphasized the same word.
Okay, no he hadn't said that exactly, but Jonathan could read between the lines. "Look, stop playing around. You said some vague crap about truths and lies, and then you implied my mom knew the truth and I didn't." He was running out of patience. "Even I can make sense of that."
He thought back to those words. 'It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.'
The other boy's mouth twitched, as if he had heard something amusing. "You stopped thinking with your head."
"Okay, yeah." Jonathan scowled, skin growing hot. Talking to him was exhausting, honestly. "And my heart told me that my mom wasn't crazy. That Will isn't dead."
"If that is what your heart is telling you, I suggest you listen." His classmate dropped down from the stone, brushing his black pants clear of dirt and slowly beginning to walk away. "Our mind can often play tricks on us."
Wait. Jonathan blinked rapidly. Wait, what? That was it? He wasn't going to admit to knowing Will was alive?
"H-hey!" He moved forward and quickly grabbed the other teen's shoulder, spinning him back around. The boy's face hardened and he cast his eyes down to the offending hand. Jonathan suddenly felt compelled to let go of his shoulder, and so he did, stepping back. "Sorry. Just- just tell me how you know. Please."
"I read in a book that grief can cloud one's judgement." The expressionless boy gazed at him for a brief moment, making him feel so small. "You seemed to be consumed by grief. And as they say, 'a mother always knows'. Who better to rely on when your judgement is clouded? It seemed like appropriate advice given your circumstances." Giving Jonathan no opportunity to respond, the boy turned around and departed from the cemetery. He watched the boy disappear in the distance, unable to believe what he had just heard.
The guy didn't know anything? He just repeated some platitudes he had read in some books?
Jonathan was starting to understand why the other boy never spoke to anyone. It was as if he didn't understand how to interact with people like a normal human being. The church bell tolled as more people quietly left the cemetery for Will's reception. He turned and noticed Nancy waiting by a black cast iron fence.
It was time to go over their plan, and Jonathan felt relief at the knowledge that she would at least be easy to speak to.
A/N: Who would have thought, this whole time the classmate didn't know anything. He was just weird.
I always wondered, was the reason there were so many people at Will's funeral because the Byers were well known? Or was it just because it's a small ass town and it was a tragedy.
Until our stars next align!