Act VI - Phoenix
"Careful Doc, this way," Murray Bauman spoke as he gently helped the old man to climb inside the car and closed the door. Then he ran to the driver's side and took the seat.
"I suppose you won't tell me what's really going on?" Murray sighed as he keyed the ignition and pressed the gas.
Dr. Sam Owens shook his head sideways and replied, "The less you know for now, the better, Mr. Bauman. This is not your battle to fight… Not yet."
"But why are we trying to find Jim Hopper?"
Dr. Owens smiled absently, "To save a child from her Fate."
He paused for a second to check the glass vial kept inside his jacket and continued, "A Fate orchestrated by none other than the man who had stolen your identity."
Murray swerved the car on to the road and pressed the gas as hard as he could. The modified V6 engines of the Chevy Chevelle roared to life as the speedometer made a dash towards the right. Murray hardened his jaw as he remembered the stage where a man had taken his last oath, 'We might be gone, but someone will take our place. YOU CAN NOT RUN FROM JUSTICE.'
"And you won't. Murray Bauman will see to that," Murray uttered inaudibly and raced his chariot through the night in search of his prey.
At that exact moment, inside a theatre where the greatest tragedy of the world was just reenacted, a boy was lost inside his sorrow. Mike Wheeler felt sad and confused because he was simultaneously a spectator and an actor in that tragic saga and he couldn't do anything to change the course of history. He sat there, not knowing what time it was, where he was or who he really was at that moment. Thousands of magical Fireflies pulsed all around him as if he was somehow drawing them towards his soul. Tears rained down his cheeks and vanished in the shade below.
"Oh, El. I felt so angry when you told me that you listened but didn't say anything for three hundred and fifty-three days. I didn't know, I'm so sorry. You sacrificed so much, for me, and I…" He choked up.
Tears welled up inside him, and he let them flow without restraint. Mike was helpless, but he was furious. He beat the ground in front of him with his small hands and the water splashed everywhere. He was going to break his arm, but it didn't matter. He was back to square one because Eleven was gone, and he couldn't do anything to bring her back.
"Why did you show me these memories? Are they Eleven's, or are they mine? Did she really feel this way?" Mike yelled at the raging darkness around him.
He shouted his frustration at the invisible audience, "Or are they what I wish El felt about me? Are they even real?"
Mike kept crying as his resolve shattered at the thoughts of the questions that would never be answered because there was no one left to answer them anymore.
"I could not take her to the Snowball. I failed her, and no matter what you show me, that's the truth," Mike sobbed quietly at his failure as the silence started swallowing his voice. The Fireflies began fading away into the night as the lights winked out one by one, heralding the end of an era of light and promises.
Back in the world where hope still walked under the stars, Ted Wheeler raced through the contents of an old chest furiously as the feeling of impending doom settled down inside his stomach. Time was running out, he felt the turmoil inside his soul, but he had no clue for what. He only knew that he needed to find the flower vase as soon as possible before something terrible happened to his son.
"GOD DAMN IT. Where is the fucking vase?" Ted yelled his frustration out as he slammed the lid of the old chest his father had left him.
Then he turned around and almost fell back onto the ground. Karen, his wife, was standing right behind him with two strange looking objects in her hands. Each of the semi-cylindrical articles had a smooth contour on one side and a jagged edge on the other side.
"THE VASE," Ted shouted and ran to his wife but froze as his eyes fell on her face. Karen was crying silently as she held the remnants of a broken promise in her hands.
She spoke quietly, "I am sorry Ted. I did this, I broke it."
A lifetime ago, after encountering the most terrible revelation in her life, Karen couldn't take the misery anymore and broke the flower vase into pieces. But Ted wasn't ready to surrender to the pain and spent the following year to assemble the flower vase together with glue. It was a meticulous endeavor because the artifact was shattered into hundreds of pieces, but Ted was tenacious. And now it seemed, that the bonds had become loose and the flower vase was split from the middle. Ted gently took the pieces from his wife's hands and set them on the bed. Then he hugged Karen and spoke softly, "No. The promise was never ours to keep anyway."
Karen glanced at her husband with a confused stare and asked, "Not ours? Then whose to keep?"
"Mike. I don't know how I know, but I felt it today. This was always his promise to keep Karen, he was there when we swore it."
Karen held onto her husband and inquired, "What should we do Ted?"
Ted gently removed his wife's hands from his neck and moved to the bed. He picked the two pieces up and turned the bottom surfaces towards the light. The vase had been split from the middle, and each side contained a pair of words that were destined to be together.
"Karen? Get the glue," Ted knew what they had to do.
"Can I get you anything?" Becky asked the girl who was squatting at Terry's feet and murmuring something to her.
"No. Thank you. But my friends are out there. They might need something," Kali responded without looking up.
Becky smiled at the young girl, "Oh. I already gave them some cookies and coffee."
She had met one of the members of the band some time ago. The big man had introduced himself as Funshine, a name which made Becky smirk even though she was terrified inside. Over the next ten minutes of conversation, she came to realize that Funshine was nothing but a big fluffy bear; hard on the outside but soft and caring on the inside. He was afraid of Jane's Fate just like the rest of his gang members were and had sworn to protect her mother, Terry, at all costs. Becky had started approving this ragtag gang of unsightly people, who were Jane's friends. She moved to her sister and stared at the expressionless face, tears kept streaking down Terry's cheek and wetting her gown.
The girl named Kali suddenly stood up, looked at Becky and spoke calmly, "She can't hear me, can she?"
Becky shook her head sideways and replied, "No. She can't. She can speak to Jane, but I don't think she can listen to anyone else."
Kali was lost in thought for a few seconds, then she addressed the sisters with resolve, "But she can see."
Becky was confused at the words, "I'm not sure if she can comprehend what she is seeing."
Kali took Becky's hand in her own and asked her to sit down beside them. Once Becky took her seat, Kali raised her head and spoke to the unknown, "The heart can see what the eyes can not. I will show you what you need to see. I will show you Jane's resolve."
Then the world went dark around Becky's eyes.
Mike was still lost inside Eleven's memories in the field of the fireflies. The halo was slowly disappearing as the lights went out one by one but did not pulse again. It was just like what Mike's father had told him about memories back when his grandfather had died. But unlike what his father had promised, the lights did not come back again. In his darkest hour, the memories were abandoning him one by one. He wondered what Eleven would have said if she knew about the fireflies.
Suddenly Mike gasped as he realized what he was really witnessing. He also remembered the strange sensation that he had felt when he arrived here; like an invisible hand was burrowing inside his soul to look for something. What did it find? Who did that hand belong to? Is it possible? The thought sent a ripple down his spine. Swiftly he looked at the void and shouted, "El? You promised that I won't ever lose you again. Then why are you leaving me?"
There was no response. Mike wasn't ready to surrender just yet. He thought for a second and shouted at the fireflies, "You think you can escape by not answering my question?"
Mike hardened his jaw and spoke with resolve, "I have waited three hundred and fifty-three days for her. I have called out to her, every night… every single night, at the exact same time, over and over again. And I will wait another three thousand years if I have to. BUT I WILL HAVE MY ANSWER."
"Eleven?" Mike begged the void for a reply.
"Mike. Please forgive me," an ethereal voice gently whispered an apology as the last remnants of the fireflies pulsed weakly one last time. Although the voice was severely distorted, Mike could have recognized it anywhere in this world.
"No," Mike shouted to the concealed whisperer. "I won't. You want my forgiveness? THEN COME BACK AND TELL ME IN MY FACE WHY YOU ARE SORRY."
There was no response, but Mike was no longer worried. He breathed a sigh of relief as he finally became convinced that Eleven was alive. Mike had no clue where he was, but he was with the girl he had lost once, and he was not going to lose her again. The fireflies were fragments of her memories, and as long as they pulsed in this vast ocean of aether, Eleven still clung on to life in the physical realm. But time was running out. Mike could feel the darkness slowly collapsing around him as the fireflies kept fading into oblivion.
"She's going away. I must save her. How?" Mike conversed absentmindedly with himself. He tried remembering the stories his father had narrated to him during childhood. Ted appeared cold and isolated to everyone else, but deep inside, Mike knew what that man embodied. The sum of all the knowledge and wisdom that his father had bestowed upon him when he was a kid could have outweighed any prize that this world might have offered him. But which story would give him the answer tonight?
Abruptly Mike remembered an old quote his father had recited to him when he was little, "Man cannot live without some knowledge of the purpose of life. If he can find no purpose in life, he creates one in the inevitability of death."
The lines knocked the air straight out Mike's chest, and he gasped audibly for breath. The reason Eleven was no longer fighting to survive because she had lost her purpose in life, whatever it might have been. Now, Mike needed to return that purpose to her, or give her a new one that would burn brightly inside her heart forever. Mike felt like a dungeon master once again, and he needed a strategy. Eleven had not departed from this earth. For some reason, she had fought death to bestow upon Mike her memories. But now that her subconscious had served that purpose, she was going to go away.
'What was her purpose?' Mike thought and realized that he required more knowledge, he needed to grasp why Eleven cared so much about him. Why would a mysterious girl with divine powers feel so much for a boy who couldn't even win a single fight in school? Why did she care so much to show him her memories before dying? What was she trying to tell him? What was she feeling sorry for? The fireflies were dancing around him and slowly kept disappearing into the background. He could still reach out to them and witness more visions until he found the answer. But some of the memories were too dreadful, and a lifetime of them was flying around him.
'Thirteen years of living in a nightmare,' Mike swallowed at the thought of the never-ending horror. Then he remembered a commitment made by a mortal to a goddess and swore an oath, "I'll protect her even at the cost of my sanity."
Mike Wheeler had rediscovered his faith in Promises once again, and this time even Fate could not hinder him. He stood up straight, the same way he had stood up in front of Troy back in the gym, the same way he had stood up to his friends who had doubted Eleven, the same way he had stood up to Martin Brenner when he tried to take her away back in the corridor.
'The same way Heroes have stood up to Fate from time immemorial,' Ted's voice rippled through the blackness as Mike spread out his arms and embraced his Destiny. The fireflies pulsed around him once and soared towards his body. In a moment, Mike's soul was shattered into countless pieces as the fireflies brought forth the memories of Eleven in all their glory. He could only scream as he was thrust into Tunnels after Tunnels, Memories after Memories, Visions after Visions.
A mirror was shattered into infinite fragments as the light from uncountable memories reflected off them and pierced the darkness with blinding radiation.
In a moment Mike was everywhere across every moment in Eleven's life. He recalled memories that even Eleven had forgotten. Mike witnessed everything that Eleven had ever seen, he felt everything she had ever felt, he laughed every time she had laughed, he cried every time she had ever cried. Mike Wheeler was with Eleven at every step of her life, watching over her and testifying her past to her present. And then he returned to the void as the fireflies slowly kept fading into the darkness once and for all.
Mike bent forward and crashed into the ground. It was too much, and his head was splitting apart from the overload of information. He pressed his palms against his ears and screamed in agony. Somewhere far away, the hands of a clock started moving towards the infinity, 'Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock.' Mike's heartbeat synced with the clock as it counted towards the point of no return. It was slowly actuating towards the time when Eleven would be gone forever. 'Shit,' Mike fought through the pain and stood up. His legs kept shaking, and the world kept swirling in front of his eyes. But he had to fight the pain to save her because he had sworn an oath.
"There's Dustin, Lucas, and Will. And Steve, and Nancy and Hopper. Oh, Joyce and Jonathan. I love them all," Jane spoke excitedly at Kali on the rooftop of an apartment somewhere in a big city.
Becky stared at the scene with a slack jaw and wide eyes. She couldn't believe what she was seeing right in front of her eyes. It was like watching a movie from inside the TV. The images were not real of course, as she had found out a few minutes earlier. There were two Kalis in that vision, one held on to Terry and Becky's hands as drops of blood trickled down from her nostril. Another one, the ethereal figure, kept conversing with Jane on the rooftop.
The image spoke to Jane, "You have so many friends. And you found them all in such a short time?"
Jane replied in an instant, "Oh no. I didn't become friends with all of them in the beginning. My first friend was… Mike."
"Mike?" Kali made a curious expression on her face as she noticed the shift in Jane's tone as she uttered that name.
Jane started stuttering, "Well… He is this boy I saw… I mean found… No, he found me."
Kali started laughing as she slapped Jane's shoulder, "You like this boy? Mike?"
"No. I mean yes. He gave me his jacket."
"And that's why you like him?"
Jane was almost blushing now. She spoke the next words in a hurry, "No. He also gave me eggos, and he gave me his watch. He also said I am Pretty."
"He did? How kind of him to give you so many gifts. But tell me, what did you give him?" Kali was clearly teasing Jane now. But the oblivious girl didn't catch the hint. She kept trying to find words to describe Mike as the images slowly started fading in the background. A few seconds later, Becky found herself sitting inside her apartment along with her two companions. Kali let go of their hands and fell back on the ground with a loud groan. Becky stood up to help the girl, but she got up a second later and spoke with a tired voice, "I have to use a lot of my stamina to make these memories as real as possible for her. I will be alright, I just need to show her one more vision."
Back in the Wheeler residence, the stressed couple was working against the clock to put the broken flower vase together. Karen carefully placed a layer of gum along the broken edges of the two pieces of the artifact and Ted gently placed one on top of the other. Then he carefully pressed them together and forged the bond. Four words at the bottom of the vase were again united as Ted triumphantly smiled at his wife who grinned back at him in response. Then the smiles were wiped from the face as all the lights in the house started flickering all at once. It looked like a normal voltage fluctuation, but the couple knew better. They could feel the calm before the storm earlier, but now, it felt as if the sky was about to crash into Hawkins. Ted held Karen close in arms as she clutched the Flower vase to her chest. They had realized that there was no escaping the storm. Through their windows, they could clearly see the outside where the streetlights and even the lights inside their neighbors' homes started flickering rapidly.
A few miles from the cabin, the headlamps of a Chevy Chevelle which was racing through the night, started to flicker as well. Murray instinctively went for the brake, but before he could stop the car, his passenger yelled, "DRIVE! MR. BAUMAN."
Murray released the paddle and pressed the accelerator as the car lurched forward with a sudden burst of speed. He got the car under control and spoke breathlessly, "What's happening Doc?"
Dr. Sam Owens clutched his hands together and whispered, "Destiny is about to challenge Fate."
A/N: I was planning to end the story in this chapter but it became too long, so I had to split it in two. The next chapter will be up tomorrow at the same time and conclude the story; the saga of Mike's Destiny vs Eleven's Fate; Fireflies.
Please let me know what you think about this chapter. This is slightly fast paced and going forward my next works like Armageddon will also pick up speed.
PS: One of my readers pm'ed to ask me if there is any source from which I draw inspiration when writing.
Apart from my rather eccentric thought process, I draw inspiration from music. I listen to various types of songs and soundtracks and when I feel that they are driving me towards a specific type of emotion, I save them in one of my mood based playlists. For this particular chapter; I listened to - 'Iridescent Collision by Bryan Nguyen' (soundtrack of Bumblebee Second Trailer) a few times in loop and got to writing. The perfect sequence of hope and epic sequences helped me to imagine the scenes in my mind before I started writing them. And music is one of my key aspirations to write.
If you guys are further interested then read this chapter first and then and go listen to that soundtrack. I hope you can imagine the sequences as the music plays in the background.
