"Uggh." Robin groaned as she opened her eyes. With her hand raised to the sky and eyes squinted nearly shut, she attempted to block out the blinding sunlight.
Since when did it get to be daylight? She thought, sitting up quickly. And why am I in a field?
Thousands of tall grains of wheat surrounded her. It looked like there was nothing but field for miles.
Robin shook some stray grains from her jacket and surveyed the area. "Hello?"
She stood to look over the tall stalks. "HEY!" Her hands were cupped together, hoping someone might hear.
"Holy shit! Will you keep it down?" An annoyed voice responded.
"Steve?" Robin asked. Her eyes darted over to his location.
Steve Harrington, looking disheveled and irritable as ever, sat up and rubbed his head. "You're giving me a headache." His eyes glanced around the field. "Uhh… where are we?"
Robin shot him a funny look. "You don't remember?"
"No. Do you?" Steve replied.
Robin didn't answer. She was too busy concentrating on something far behind him.
Glancing over his shoulder, he wondered what could possibly be so captivating. "You know, if this is a prank it's not funny." Steve crossed his arms. "Did Henderson put you up to this?"
"Robin?" The sharp attitude in his voice wavered.
In the distance was a glimmering red object standing upright in the field.
Robin moved towards it.
"I see something!" She called out to him mid sprint.
"Hey!" Steve chased after her, trying to keep up. Many grains crunched beneath his feet along the way.
They skidded to a stop right in front of the object. It was quite tall and had a golden crested hour glass shape protruding from it.
Robin put her hand on it. "It's a door." She said with a twinge of wonder.
"That's not a door." Steve shook his head. He was looking at her like she was out of her mind. After all, they were in the middle of a field and the chances of this weird looking slab of red metal being a door were zero to none.
"Then why does it have a handle?" Robin started to push down on the hourglass.
"What the hell kind of handle is that?" Steve gestured. He walked behind the 'door' and rolled his eyes. "If it's a door then why does it lead to nowh—?"
The hourglass handle spun all the way around. A huge gust of wind raced through the field as the red slab parted in the middle.
"Woah! Wha—." Steve jumped out from behind the door. After witnessing a million horrors in his lifetime, he would have expected the concept of surprise to have gotten old by now. But it never seemed to, no matter how big or small. The supernatural was still startling
There in the entryway was another location. Not to where Steve was standing, but to a different place entirely.
Hesitantly, they both walked through the door. The atmosphere felt much bigger. The sky was nothing but shades of orange and red and the ground was cracked like a dried up desert. Robin and Steve were far from the ground, in fact, they were standing on something that moved and it moved fast.
Robin wandered out, looking up at the sky. "This isn't Hawkins." She said.
A small scream escaped her when she almost stumbled right off the edge of the platform.
Steve grabbed her arm before she could fall from the steep height. "Are you okay?" The sound of his voice was almost lost in the loud roaring that engulfed them.
She nodded silently.
Hoping to figure out where they were, Steve cautiously looked down.
They were on a machine with large wheels that spun and metal rods that connected their platform to another.
"I think this is a train." He looked back at her.
Robin was pressed up against the wall as far from the edge as possible. "You know, I was taking this all really well up until a second ago!" She shouted over the thundering wheels.
A narrow bridge folded out from their train car and the next, meeting in the centre. A railing popped up from underneath.
"Oh good it has railings. I was worried it might be dangerous here!" Robin said in an annoyed manor.
The pair sprinted across and hurried through the next door. After it shut, they leaned against it.
"Are we sure there are no trains in The Upside Down?" Robin looked at Steve.
He started to pace, not paying much attention to her. "If this is some Vecna mind game I swear—! We need to get back to Hawkins before something worse happens."
A neon green light flashed from the palm of his hand.
They looked down at it.
The light came from a bracket and number etched onto his skin. The number moved rapidly, suddenly stopping at 110.
"Ahh! What is that?!" Steve shook his hand, trying to get it off.
"Gross!" Robin said, looking at her own hands. "I've got one, too."
Stepping back from the hands his good friend had just shoved into his face, he took notice of the number. "Why's mine different than yours?" Asked Steve.
The number sat at 84.
"Maybe low numbers are just better than high numbers." Robin grinned.
Steve groaned and walked further into the train car.
"Or it could be worse, I guess." She shrugged and followed him, her number now jumping to 86. "It changed!" Robin said. "Do you think it's voice activated?"
"What is this place…?" Steve trailed off as he looked out at the new train car.
The car was filled with ladders leading up to different platforms floating in the sky.
Steve walked to one of the walls on the car. He felt along the side of it looking for some kind of hidden opening.
Following close behind him was Robin, holding her palm near her mouth. "Worse." She repeated into her hand. The number didn't budge. "Worse." She said louder this time.
Steve continued along the wall and looked up.
"Better?" Robin asked. Still nothing changed.
He put his ear up against the wall and knocked on it.
"If you're looking for an opening I think it'll lead to the same place, dingus." Robin said. "Whatever forces put us here probably didn't build a back door or window for us to climb out of that easily."
"Forces?" Steve pushed on the wall.
"Yeah some twisted mind trapped us here to do his little puzzles for his own personal amusement." Robin wandered over to a large colourful disk laying on the floor.
"That would be pretty twisted." He nodded.
"But that raises the question. How did we get here? Alien abduction? Are we dead?" She listed on her fingers. "Or are you right and this is Vecna? You're not a hallucination right? This is real?" Robin rambled.
Steve rammed against the wall, hoping to knock it down. "Yeah, I think this is real." He said as he rubbed his shoulder. "Any ideas?"
The disk was a giant spinner that had different coloured slots from one to six and a large arrow that connected to the centre.
She tapped the arrow. It started to spin faster and faster, causing her to fly back.
The arrow landed on number six. A pathway of tiles lit up before them. Six tiles.
Robin looked up. She observed the ladders but also noticed what looked like several slides. Raising her hand to her forehead, she tried to see to the top of the car. It was pretty foggy, but there appeared to be another door in the distance.
"I think this is a giant game of Chutes and Ladders." Robin said.
"Seriously? A kid's game?" Steve deadpanned. Wondering if she could possibly be serious, he stared at her.
"Yes." She responded, not missing a beat.
The two followed the lit up tiles eventually hitting one that lifted them to the next platform. The spinner regenerated before them. Steve kicked the arrow, making it spin again. This time the glowing tiles ended on a ladder spot.
They continued on, sometimes climbing ladders, sometimes sliding down chutes. It took a long time to get the top but they were determined, Robin more-so than Steve who trudged along. They spun, and spun, and spun again. Finally, they reached the top.
"I don't see what the point of this is." Steve said. The whole ordeal had been frustrating. It was one thing to be held hostage for some villainous plan but it was another thing to be held hostage just to play life size versions of board games. And for no reason? It was like a sick joke.
The doors swung open and they looked at their hands half expecting their numbers to drop or grow as some kind of reward for completing the game.
"Did your number change?" Steve asked.
"Nope." She replied.
They entered the next car. The sun was setting on a large forest filled with pine trees and evergreens.
"Oh great, a forest. How do we solve this puzzle?" Steve said sarcastically.
"Okay, so my theories could be wrong." Robin shrugged. She looked around a little. It was getting pretty dark. And even though they had survived sleeping in a field the night prior, Robin felt that the odds might not be in their favour if they were to do it again. The train had endless possibilities. Who knew what could be lurking in the shadows. The outside of the train was dangerous, after all. Why couldn't the inside also be?
"We need food and shelter." Steve said. It was if he could read her mind.
The strong smell of barbecue filled the car. They looked all around trying to spot where it was coming from.
There was a small crowd of people huddled around a barbecue. Robin and Steve ran over to them.
"Good evening!" One of them waved.
There was something weird about this group of people. They looked rubbery and almost inhuman. All the right human features were present but there was something off about the way they moved and the lack of glimmer in their eyes. All of them wore matching navy cloaks except for one who wore white.
The man in white stood up and held out his hand.
He must be the leader. Robin thought.
"Are you stuck here, too?" Steve asked. He shook his hand.
This man had no number. And by the looks of it, none of the others had numbers either as they all gave a small wave to the newcomers.
"No. No. This is our home." The man gestured to the sky. "We're denizens. You're the passengers."
"That's really cool and all, but when did you get on the train?" Robin tried to elaborate.
"We've never existed outside it." He laughed.
She thought it was odd. So they were holograms? Clones maybe? Shared hallucination? Robin wondered.
"I understand this might be confusing." He continued. "Most of us don't look like this." He gestured at his face.
Whatever that meant. Steve thought. They had never met another train "denizen" before.
"Can we help you?" Another one of the pack asked.
"Yeah. We need to get off this hunk of junk." Steve replied.
Robin looked at the barbecue. They were cooking what looked like rats on skewers. The expression on her face almost gave away the pure feeling of disgust that rushed over her. She hoped that there would be much more pleasant food elsewhere on the train.
"Let me see your number then." The leader said.
One of the blue cloaked members was hacking up something. Robin looked closer but Steve and the others didn't notice.
"ACK." The member's head lurched forward over and over. Finally he spat out something onto the ground.
Robin grimaced. She didn't want to look but couldn't help it. Is that… fur?
"You want to get to zero." The leader was holding and looking at Steve's hand.
Ha! Per usual, she had been right, but there wasn't time to gloat. Something was weird about this train car.
A darkness swept over them and a giant full moon shot up into the sky like a rocket.
"Steve—." Robin said with a concerned voice. She looked over at him.
Large fangs sprung from the leaders mouth and his eyes turned yellow. He sunk his teeth into Steve's arm.
"AHH!" They both screamed.
Steve decked him the leader in the nose.
The force of the blow made the man release the arm from his canine jaws.
All the cloaked members started to transform like the leader had. They sprouted fur all over and grew large and tall. Their cloaks tore, leaving nothing but hungry giant werewolves!
The pack raced after them.
"I think that one had abs." Robin said with both panic and disgust.
They didn't dare look back, fearing any slip up could make the wolves catch them. They were just barely behind, but luckily, the red door was drawing closer and closer.
Please don't be locked! Please don't be locked! Steve repeated in his head.
They both grabbed at the handle and swung it open. The stop was just long enough for the wolves to catch up. They lunged, causing Steve and Robin to fall backwards out the door.
Instead of meeting their untimely demise, their lives were spared. The wolves were glitching and frozen in mid air. The whole car turned purple and glitchy. It was a weird sight, but the pair of Hawkins passengers wasted no time investigating. They scrambled to their feet and ran across the bridge, leaving the animals behind.
At the entry of the glitching car was a severed robotic claw attached to a circuit board in the wall. Nearby it, a hooded figure had watched the ordeal. They had a big fabric pouch filled with a few green orbs.
The figure ripped the robot claw out of the wall. The sharp glitching and shade of purple faded away like a wave, returning the car to its proper state.
Finally freed from their suspended animation, the wolves all toppled to the ground.
And like the disappearing glitch, the hooded figure disappeared back through the door.