[A/N: Decided to break my promise and do some more of these. I really enjoyed writing 13 this chapter (when do I not?), felt like she was channeling a lot of 12, 11 and a bit of 10 as well. Things are really getting rolling now so I'm thrilled!

Also, thank you so much for the nice comments. Seeing that I have a couple of regulars is just wonderful!]

Chapter 7: Boy in the Box

It was almost funny how simple life became once it was purely reduced to one thing. Will had found this once he had stumbled over the lines of reality and darkness, into realms he'd only seen in his nightmares. He was terrified. Lost and alone, he had been wandering around in this new, cold world, screaming for his mother, Jonathan and his friends until his lungs felt like dry sandpaper. When it became clear to him the chance that anyone would hear him – let alone the people he loved – was virtually nonexistent, he simply broke down sobbing, sitting on top of some mushy black branch and crying his eyes out until he had no tears left. Once he had calmed down (which could've been after a couple of hours, but a couple of days as well), he tried to make some sense of the situation. Fact 1: He was in an unknown, dark place. A bad place. It reminded him strangely well of the Vale of Shadows in Dungeons & Dragons, but thinking about that made his eyes water, so he decided not to. It all seemed so long ago. Almost an eternity. How much longer would it last?

But that brought him to Fact 2: There was nobody coming for him, at least not for a very long time. In a way, these two facts simplified his life more than he was comfortable with. There was just the matter of survival in this weird, new existence. All other things secondary. And that was it.

So he set out to find a place to sleep and something remotely digestible. He spent the first night (although he preferred to measure time by how much his stomach was hurting, since it always seemed to be night in this place) at a small, unrecognizable shed overtaken by an explosion of black, oozing vines. When he woke up, he wandered around in what he thought was a couple of vegetable gardens, although the vegetables surely didn't look like anything remotely resembling plants. Still hungry, he decided to take something he thought was a tomato, and he want back to his shed to have a little bite. Bad call. After a couple of hours of intense pains coursing through his empty stomach and nearly throwing up every single ounce of liquid he still had in his body, he decided it was best to go on a diet for a while.

There were other developments as well, for sure. There was the creature he dubbed the Demogorgon (it hurt to think of those little references to old times, but he simply couldn't get them out of his head) that was still looking for him, enraged that he kept failing to catch his prey. Will had the benefit of being good at hiding, but he was wondering how much longer he could manage to stay out of sight of the menacing, snarling creature. How long it would take either for the damned thing to catch him, or for his body to give up on its own.

Then he found his home. It wasn't his home, of course, nothing in here felt like home although it sure had the appearance, but it would do for now, and he spent the time walking around in the empty, overgrown rooms. He had found a way to contact his mother, which seemed like a blessing by this time, but always before he had the chance to properly speak to her, the creature would come again, hissing and snarling as it clawed his way through the house. Feeling like he should do his best to protect his family, he ran to lure the Demogorgon away. It worked… but it wasn't getting any better for him.

And, of course, all of this was before he found the box.

The first time he came across it, he did stop to have a look, but only because it's presence seemed so… so out of place. It was the first thing that felt truly unreal to him – and that had to mean something, right? After all, it wasn't like all of this wasn't in some way absolutely surreal, although it sure as hell didn't feel like that anymore. This worried him. How long had it been since he stumbled into this world? One day? Two days?

Survival. All other things secondary.

The box was sitting in a pit filled with more of those nasty black vines, a bit leaning over, almost as if it was thrown in there by an oversized child. The plants had covered most of it as well, although Will could make out a dark blue color and the letters OLIC ALL BOX on a black panel at the top. He walked along the edge of the pit for a while, circling to study every side of the strange object. The only doors seemed to be on the front. There was a lamp on the roof, but it wasn't lit. The glass panel on the right door was shattered by a thick branch which appeared to have crawled inside. Will tried to have a peek, but all he could see was pitch blackness. Yet he could hear the strange growling the plants made, although it sounded almost… hollow. Like there was more space in the box than there appeared to be from the outside.

He took a step back and noticed the bright white panel on the left door. There was some mold on it. Wiping it off with his sleeve, he uncovered a plate, which read:

POLICE TELEPHONE

FREE

FOR USE OF

PUBLIC

ADVICE & ASSISTANCE

OBTAINABLE IMMEDIATELY

OFFICERS & CARS

RESPOND TO ALL CALLS

PULL TO OPEN

Well, that didn't appear to leave any room for doubts. A bit hesitantly, he reached out to grab the shining handle on the right door, but the moment his fingers touched the cold steel he pulled back with a loud gasp. He wasn't sure whether it was just his tired mind playing tricks on him, but it almost felt like an electric shock had shot through him. Well, yeah, an electric shock, but not one you could feel physically… it had been a… What was the word? mental one. Shrill and short, like the yell of a kid: a cry for help.

His curiosity now taking over, he reached out again, but he didn't feel the shock this time. There was merely a slight humming, which could just as well be the echoes from the forsaken landscape outside the pit. He pulled. Didn't work. He pushed, but that didn't work either; the door was stuck in its place, not moving one bit. Het let go, sighing deeply, and took a step back to question the nature of the strange thing. He was fairly certain Hawkins didn't have phone booths anymore, and especially not this kind. What the hell was a police box anyway?

He decided to leave the place and go back to his home, since there didn't appear to be a very useful hiding spot around. Yet, as he crawled out of the pit and looked back over his shoulder, he couldn't help but feel almost a certain… pity for the box. It just sat there, lost and alone, almost as if it was a kid who got lost in the woods and gave up all hope.

Well, there you have it. he thought. I've finally gone insane. I'm bonding with a dumb piece of wood.

No, that wasn't true. Well, maybe, but it almost certainly wasn't all there was to it. He hadn't imagined that short moment of connection, the shrill cry for help in his mind. Had he?

Shaking his head, he took off and left the pit behind, the box sinking in the blackness.

This was all before the thin layer of grease and dark growth disappeared and he could actually feel, no, see the face of his mother.

"Mom?" A feeling of utter joy and relief overcoming him, he started to cry her name, his face becoming soaked with tears. "Mom? Mom? Mom! Mom!"

From the other side of the red layer, the voice of his mother came, just as frantic and hysterical as his own: "Will! Oh, baby, I'm here, I'm here! Oh, thank God!"

"Mom? Please come get me! Please!"

"Oh God, Will, Will!"

He tried listening to what she was saying (not that she was saying much else other than crying his name over and over, which he couldn't blame her for, to be honest), but he suddenly heard another, deeper sound. He looked over his shoulder, taking frantic, asthmatic breaths. He saw a shadow slowly creeping up driveway that led to their house.

"Mom?" He said, turning to the red surface again. "Mom, it's coming!"

"Tell me where you are! How do I get to you?"

He barely managed to catch his breath again and he looked around, trying to possibly come up with any words that could describe this horrible place. "It's like home, but it's so dark… It's so dark and empty! And it's cold! Mom? Mom, I'm scared!"

"Listen to me, okay?" Oh, God. It was getting closer. It was getting so much closer. "I swear I'm gonna get to you, okay? But right now, I need you to hide. Can you hide?"

"Mom, please!"

"I know, baby, I know. I will find you, I promise. But I need you to be safe now! Can you hide?"

He drew breath to say that he couldn't think of any place where he would even be a little bit safe for the hideous thing that was currently creeping up on him, but from somewhere in the depths of his mind came a vision. He did think of a place. It was like the memory was simply inserted in his brain.

"There's a box…but –"

"Okay, good! Get in it and hide, sweetie. Hide!"

"But mom, I can't get it open! It's locked! Please…"

"Just try it! You need to try it, okay? Try… try hiding behind it! Right, baby? Go!"

He didn't allow himself the comfort of replying to her. Turning around, he started to run, nearly tripping over all sorts of obstacles that seemed to suddenly appear as he prayed he could manage to pick up speed. The creature let out a low, bellowing scream behind him. He ran for his life, not once looking back to see how far the beast had caught up with him, or to have a last look at the face of his mother before the thin window between worlds closed again. The box had to be open. He needed the box to be open.

He wasn't sure whether it was the fuel of his adrenaline that made him arrive at the pit before the monster caught him, or if the damn thing was simply slowing down because he wanted some fun with his little prey before he devoured it, but he also didn't care. He wasn't able to slow down in time and instead fell into the pit, hitting some of the branches as he cried out in pain. Now purely driven by his will to survive rather than his own physical strength, he crawled up and limped towards the closed blue doors. He fell against it, gripping the handle, pulling and pushing, but the doors remained shut. He could hear the monster approaching the pit.

"Please!" he screamed, simply forgotten that in all his panic and fear he was talking to a wooden box. "Please, you have to open! You have to!"

Forget it. The doors weren't opening. The creature sounded closer, so much closer. It wouldn't probably take long before he would see its mouth at the top of the pit, flaps contracting in triumph as it would let out a final snarl and come for him. He wondered whether it would hurt.

No! No! He wasn't going to die. He could still hide behind the box. He gripped one of the corners and started dragging himself to the other side, his breath coming with short, frantic gasps. Before he could even reach the other side, however, he suddenly heard a strange, humming noise. He could feel the wooden surface vibrate under his fingers. Out of nowhere, the doors opened, and he fell inside. He felt a dizziness overcoming him as he struggled to get up to close them again, but it appeared he didn't have to. He caught a last glimpse of an open mouth full of teeth before the doors slammed shut and a loud, resounding thud shook everything around him. He held his breath. The creature tried to get in, slamming against the doors one, two, three times, but he didn't manage to get through. God knew how it was possible.

Eventually, the Demogorgon just appeared to give up as Will heard a low growling and cracking of vines, indicating that it had commenced its retreat. He didn't stop listening until he could hear nothing but the faint rumbling from the plants outside and the strange, soft humming around him.

Then he just collapsed, closing his eyes with the feeling of cold metal against his cheeks.

"So you think Will is in the same place as your… what did you call it again?" Mike asked. They were back in the basement of the Wheeler home to think and discuss about what they had been confronted with in the AV room. He was restlessly leaning against the wall, trying to simultaneously listen to the woman and keeping an eye on Eleven, who was laying on the couch, seemingly drained after her small outburst at school.

"TARDIS," the woman said. "Time And Relative Dimension In Space, in case you were wonderin. And yes, I presume so."

"Why? Just because he said there was a box? It could just as well have been a cardboard one, or, I dunno, a wooden one."

"It's made of wood."

"You know what I mean."

"Of course. I also said that I wasn't certain. It's more of an itch, honestly."

"Which doesn't have to mean anything."

"Not at all. Statistically, the chance that it doesn't mean anything is well over ninety-nine percent. No, round that off to sixty, I can afford myself to be a little arrogant. Anyhow, it's about the only thing I got."

"Besides the fact that Will is alive and we could hear him talking," Mike said, rolling his eyes. The woman, who had been pacing around the room (claiming that it had been impossible to think with all the thoughts swarming about when she simply stood at one spot), briefly stopped to stare blankly at the supercomm on the ground. "Ya. That's unusual. It's quite the conundrum if you ask me."

"It's crazy." Dustin said. He was sitting on one side of the opposite couch while Lucas sat on the other – his friend had gone remarkably quiet after they had gotten home. "It's like he was in the Heathkit or something. Almost like Poltergeist."

The woman stopped dead in her tracks to cast him a funny look. "Poltergeist?"

"Yeah, the movie?"

"Seriously? You're really lucky that most races don't have broadband connection. The collective ego of the universe would increase with two hundred percent if they'd notice how many movies you're makin about them."

"Look, what if we just focus on the other things he said," Mike sighed. "He said something about home. That was it right, home and dark?"

"And empty," Lucas said, speaking up for the first time. "Empty and cold."

"Wait, did he say cold?"

"I don't know. The stupid radio kept going in and out."

Dustin sighed. "It's like riddles in the dark."

The woman felt the need to speak up, but couldn't think of anything to say. The whole situation was frustrating her. She liked riddles, of course – mysteries kept her going, but it was a lot less fun when there was something important at stake and she had no clue how to go further. In some way she felt like she was being tested. Is that what you want? she asked no one in particular. Push me to see how far I can get before I either collapse or give up? My past just incoherent strings of vague memories and yet expectin me to rely on all sorts of instincts I'm not sure I can trust? No TARDIS? No sonic? I'd say you're up to your greatest challenge so far, you mad, old...

And all of a sudden, there was a dark thought that crossed her mind só easily and purily that it simply terrified her. But of course, it doesn't have to be that way... just get them to help you find the old box. Everything gets better once you have the old box. You'll remember who you are, bring the boy home, and you can take right off to save a civilization or be a hero where they need you more than they do here...

No! No! This was not who she was. Sure, finding the TARDIS mattered just as much to her than overcoming this feeling of disorientation, but she could not let stand either of them in the way of helping these children find their friend. After all, given that Will was probably lost as well in a world that felt new and scary to him, they weren't so different at all.

…And then there was that girl, but –

"Guys, come on, think about it!" Mike sneered. "When El took us to find Will, after we found the alien, she took us to his house, right?"

"Yeah," Lucas said, frowning. "But 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," He turned the board, "…and this is where Will is? The Upside Down."

"Like the Vale of Shadows," Dustin said, almost breathlessly. The woman noticed Eleven stirring a little, but she decided not to mention it. The boys hurried to get around the table as Dustin pulled up one of the trivia books for Dungeons & Dragons.

"The Vale of Shadows is a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world." he read out loud. "It is a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase. A place of monsters. It is right next to you, and you don't even see it."

"Sounds lovely," Lucas scoffed.

"So it's like an alternate dimension?" Mike asked. He wanted to say more, but found himself unable to as they all jumped at the sudden gasp behind them. The woman was staring at them with wide eyes, mouth open, almost as if she was choking on something. "Oh, hold on! Hold on! I'm rememberin something!"

"Oh God, she's not having another heart attack, is she?" Lucas yelled, preparing himself to catch her.

"No. Shut up. All of you, shut up."

"We're not even day thing anyth –"

"Yes you are." the woman said, putting a finger on his lips. The boy didn't exactly looked pleased, but he was not moving either. "You're thinkin. Stop it. Can't think when all of those little brainwaves are distractin me."

The boys casted each other surprised looks, not sure whether to do anything. Eleven appeared to have fallen asleep. Mike seemed to find the whole situation rather hilarious, and Dustin was just watching all of it with a big grin on his face.

"Oh yes. It's comin back… well, a tiny bit. Dimensions and stars and parallel universes and blue fish and… oh." Her eyes lit up. "Oh, brilliant. That's fantastic!"

"What is it?"

"Quick. Fast. Need somethin… somethin to scratch… somethin to chalk my thoughts…"

She frantically looked around the room, then jumped on the couch, barely managing to steady herself on the bouncy cushions. For some reason she started scratching the wall, tearing small pieces of wallpaper off with her nails.

"Hey, stop that!" Mike yelled.

"For God's sake Mike, give her a marker before she messes up your whole wall!" Dustin answered, screaming in his ear. The boy quickly ran upstairs to get one and returned, swiftly handing it to the woman. "Here. But… just what are you doing?"

"Writin down my thoughts. There, very nice. Now, where are we?"

"Uh, in the basement?"

"No, not that!" the woman sneered, waving with her hand like she was trying to swat a fly. "Where are we, now and when?"

"Hawkins, November… the tenth?"

"Yeah," Lucas replied. "Thursday. They're having Will's funeral tomorrow."

"Right, 1983…" The woman scribbled a circle on the wall with the numbers in the middle. She drew another one just a few inches right of it, but left this one empty, tapping on it with her fingers as she frowned and thought. "So a dark place. And cold. Different?"

"An alternate dimension," Dustin said. The woman looked up, seemingly annoyed. "But alternate dimensions don't pop up out of nowhere. Well, they're pretty much all around you since they exist in the same universe, but it isn't… you can't just cross over from one to the other."

"No, you need Shadow Walk for that."

"Jesus, Dustin, shut up." Lucas groaned.

"It's almost like I'm missin something… but what?" She bit her lower lip, tapping with the marker in the emptiness of the circle – until she suddenly stopped. "It's 1983."

"Well, yeah, we've established that pretty much already."

"No, I don't just mean the year." She turned to them. "The Cold War. The international conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union that led to division and distrust all over the world. Key points being the Cuban Missile Crisis and the separation of Germany and Berlin with the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall. The nuclear threat was immense. 44 dark years of humanity stuck in an iron grip, all the way up until the fall of the Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991."

The boys just stared her. "Wait, the Soviet Union is going to collapse?" Lucas asked, unbelievingly. The woman pulled an awkward face. "Oh, shoot. Ignore everything I've just said. Spoilers. Anyhow, all of this makes me think of somethin."

"Well, tell us." Mike said. "You've been saying things for five minutes and I still don't understand any of them."

"Right. Yeah. Look, what if your friend – Will – is not just stuck in an alternate dimension, but in an alternate future?"

"Uh… no, still doesn't make sense."

"But that can't be," Lucas said. "I mean, you can't change time, right? It's all fixed. Cause and effect."

"No!" the woman said, pointing at them with the marker and a wide smile on her face before she turned to the wall and started drawing. "I don't blame you for gettin it wrong, honestly. People always assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect…" She drew a straight line from the circle with the current date to the empty one. "…but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint – it's more like a giant bowl of soup. With lots of noodles. Much timey-wimey stuff… Am I havin a deja vu?"

The kids stared at the enormous amount of lines she'd randomly scribbled all over the wall. It looked like a toddler's drawing.

"Meaning…?" Mike asked, still unsure of what it all meant.

"Well, look at it like this. Every sentient being has the most powerful ability in the entire universe; the ability to change time and space. The ability to make choices. Imagine if you could choose between a bowl of custard and a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Of course you choose for custard, but have you ever wondered about what could've happened if you had picked the other choice?"

"Nothing," Lucas answered. "It would basically be the same, right?"

"No, 'course not," The woman smiled. "Every single choice has an impact on the course of time and history. All those choices, all those considerations, they all help to shape the universe you're livin in. Maybe if you'd picked the cereal, you would have choked on it. Well, that's a bad example, but you get the point. The question is: what happens to the other versions? What happens to the version of reality where you picked the cereal?"

"Well I suppose they just –"

"They keep existing," Dustin almost whispered, gaping at her with the captivation of a child that had just encountered his favorite superhero.

"Absolutely brilliant, Dustin. You're right. They keep on existin. Caught up in the timey-wimey-soup."

"So that means there are literally millions of other versions of us out there?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah. No. Well, not quite, but if it helps…"

"Never mind," Mike said, "so, if I get this correctly, you're saying that Will is trapped in an alternate future of Hawkins?"

"Sort of. It's my presumption at this moment. The dark and the cold and the empty reminded me of the Cold War, sort of… where the nuclear devastation already happened."

Lucas interrupted: "Wait. Look, I know this got nothing to do with all of this… but ma'am, are you saying we're eventually going to end up in a nuclear war?"

The boys all suddenly stared at her, an uncomfortable silence filling the room. Even Eleven seemed to listen along, raising her head from the cushion. The woman simply looked at them. She was aware of the fear that had sounded through the boy's voice, but she knew she shouldn't. She couldn't.

"I can't tell you," she said, softly. "Major historical events should always be treated with a certain respect. I can't tell you about your future. You could end up tryin to change it – even unconsciously. It would cause ripples which would shatter the entire fabric of time and space."

"So you're refusing to tell us if this is all worth it. If we're going through all of this just to end up being vaporized, or something."

"Just the fact that a version of that future exists doesn't mean it's going to happen. As I said, time isn't fixed. It's flexible. Aside from that, boys, if I may ask you a honest question: do you feel it's worth it?"

That question silenced them. They could feel its weight like lead pressing on their shoulders. Eventually, Mike shrugged, and said: "Anything for Will. No matter what."

"Yeah, man, we're doing it for Will." Dustin chimed in.

Finally, Lucas nodded as well. "We can't let him down."

The woman smiled. "That's more like it."

"How can we rescue him, though?" Mike asked. "El could channel him, so it must be possible in some way, right?"

"Well, it's not that hard. Basically, all you'd need is just one fixed trandimensional connection between two powerful flux points –"

"Uh, you're at it with the impossible language again."

The woman rolled with her eyes. "Fine then. Just give me a sandwich."

"Me too, actually." Dustin said. "Haven't been able to have a snack since school. I'm starving."

"Man, screw you." Mike scoffed. "Do you want something on it, ma'am?"

"Jelly. Lots of jelly. As long as it's flexible and bouncy."

Mike went upstairs again to grab the things his strange guest had requested. By the time he returned, Eleven was fully sitting up again, curiously watching all of the things happening around her. He handed the food over to the woman, who apparently wasn't planning on eating it – she studied it.

"Right then," she said. "Imagine these two pieces of bread being two planes. In this case, the top one is Hawkins now, and the bottom one is Hawkins in a possible future. The layer separating these two planes – the jelly – is the fabric of space and time. Now 'spose you're a traveller. Would you be able to go from the top one to the bottom one?"

"No," Dustin answered. "You'd get stuck in the jelly."

"Exactly. It's space and time, and it has rules. But rules can be bent, of course. Know an awful lot about that… anyway, now imagine the two planes closin in on each other. Like this." She pushed the two pieces of bread together. It was a rather casual act, but the boys watched it as if it was rocket science. "Just until the point where… there." She poked a finger through it. "Where the layer of space and time has become so thin you could practically drive a hole through it and travel between the two planes. In comprehensible terms, this would be called a wormhole. I suspect this is how Will got missing."

"Damn. It really is an Upside Down," Lucas said.

"In a way, I 'spose."

"But how did he get through one?" Mike asked. "I mean, it's not like he's just fallen into one, right?"

"No, of course not. They're not littered about like some kind of rabbit holes. Apparently, there's somethin around here that generated so much energy it's literally torn a hole in the fabric of reality. Big enough for a boy to go through. And a TARDIS, presumably."

For some reason, all heads slowly turned to Eleven. The girl was just sitting there, on the couch, staring straight forward as she tried to evade the curious looks. She seemed visibly nervous. Noticing her uneasy posture, the woman quickly straightened up. "Right then. Currently there's a lot of questions and I know you're dyin for answers, but you better get some sleep. After all, there's your friends funeral tomorrow."

"It doesn't even make sense," Dustin sulked, although he quickly shut up when the woman threw him the sandwich.

"Come on, we have to do this for his family." Mike said. "Oh, and promise you won't tell anybody about what we've been discussing here."

"No need to. I think my parents will send me to a nut house if I tell them even a single thing about tonight." Lucas answered. Dustin looked at him with a funny face. "Really? I think opening your mouth is just enough."

"Oh, you're such an ass, man."

"Bet you'd like to kiss me then," Dustin pursed his lips, causing the boys to burst out in a loud bawling and laughter. Even the woman smiled a bit. While what they had discovered tonight was just the next small piece in a great, macabre puzzle, neither of them had forgotten how to laugh – and they all regarded this as a good thing.

While the boys said goodbye and made arrangements for tomorrow, Eleven slowly retreated to her place on the couch, resting her head against the cushions. She felt the fatigue creeping up on her again. When she closed her eyes to allow the sleep to take hold of her body, she caught a last glimpse of the woman standing in front of the wall, sleeves rolled up, hands in her pockets, thinking about dimensions and strange places El could only dream about. She kept seeing the image, even long after she felt herself slowly drifting away in the darkness. The woman. What she meant. Who she was.

Eleven slept, and she remembered.