Chapter 23: Sweet Dreams are Made of These
"We meet again…" IT says in a cheeky voice and then lets out a chuckle similar to those pesky human clowns. The three deadlights dim themselves to a soft blue colour to allow its visitor to feel as comfortable as possible. It was as if IT was welcoming a guest into his home… or rather his domain
However, the noise emanating from the entity had an otherworldly quality to it, deeper and raspier, much more sinister than the standard laughter of a human. While the Flayer found such expressions of joy positively irritating and maddening coming from his prey, there was something about these deadened lights that was even more aggravating than it wants to wraps its fleshy tendrils around the orbs and squeeze the life out of them… if it had life. Why this thing enjoyed a human-like form was a mystery, especially something meant to bring laughter and joy to the tiny children.
The Flayer continued to float in the same black void where both beings had first encountered each other, pleased that it had not shifted into one of its greatest fears.
"Tell me, is the reason for your return is that you have considered my little proposal?" IT chuckles again.
The Mind Flayer communicates nothing, not wanting to give the other entity the satisfaction, but what IT had proposed sounded like a good idea…
…
Flashback to approximately a week ago, although time has little meaning in this beyond.
"Perhaps we could help each other..."
"How might we go about doing so?" the Flayer had asked.
"What sort of abilities do you possess?" the Deadlights inquired.
"More than you can imagine," it says in an almost smug manner, feeling great pride in its abilities.
Suddenly, the blue lights began to spin in a circle, forming an almost perfect circle and illuminating the space with a bright and eerie blue light. The Mind Flayer floats backwards, unsure of what is occurring, a flicker of fear enters its mind.
Just then a large geyser of water erupted from the center of the blue circle, spraying the Flayer. Again, the reining being of the Upside Down recoiled in horror, let out an inhuman shriek and attempted to flee. It tried to find a way back to its world, where everything was safe and dry, but could not. It floated in random directions to avoid one of its greatest hatreds, but the powerful stream of water remains fixed on its bodies and tentacles, no matter where it moved.
"You cannot escape what you fear… You are in my domain… you have no power here" a booming voice echoed, it was as loud as thunder and seemed to shake everything around the two entities.
"HOW DARE YOU!" the Flayer had shouted. It attempted to stay strong in the face of adversity, but water suddenly became flames and caused searing pain to its tendrils.
Another monstrous roar of pain erupted within the seemingly soundless and inescapable void.
The flames surrounded the monster from all angles and the pain within was too great to be described in any human terms.
"STOP! STOP!" the Flayer begged, finally giving in to its greatest fears.
All of a sudden, the fire vanished and the two were left in the dark. The circle of blue lights became three solid orbs again and remained still, it seemed to have proved its point well.
"You may be powerful, but you are far from an omnipotent being, as I have learned from my millions and millions of years on this planet… everything has a weakness, no matter how small or insignificant…such things can be used for exploitation… and fear…"
With wounded pride, the Mind Flayer pondered the words before stating, "If… that was true, then you must have one."
There was a lengthened pause between them before there was a response.
"You are correct," the seemingly wiser IT admitted. "I do have a weakness or two, however, I do not allow them to be revealed, especially to others and I do not allow myself to become cocky… any longer… It happened once before, and it will never happen again."
There was another pause between the two creatures before it continued.
"And that is why I propose that we work together, our combined abilities will leave little chance for weakness to be discovered and used against us. Together, we could take over the human world and make it how we want it to be."
"We can end everyone…" the Flayer pondered, the spark inside its mind growing.
"Not so fast… We will still need some of them as a source of food. Your precious little 'pets' will have to munch on something…With my ancient knowledge of these humans and your less than desirable minions, we shall work to make the world our own."
The three lights glowed brightly with excitement, which caused the Flayer entity to float back to avoid any heat. While it seemed like an… excellent idea of how could it know to trust this…IT. This previously unknown deity seemed to have far superior abilities and an ego to match. The ambitions were desirable and the potential invigorating, but how could they… whatever those humans called it, work together. The one from the Upside Down did not take to being bullied by anything or forced to do what IT wanted; such partnerships should not be considered without proper thought.
However, the Flayer's hesitations were detected by IT's telepathy.
"Or you can spend the next several years hiding, with the tentacles tucked between the legs because you are again outmatched by those humans. Your ideas for revenge will always fail if they know what you fear. Tell you what... I shall give you some time to think about it and we will converse…until we meet again…"
In a flash, the Mind Flayer is back in its own realm as ash rains down upon the barren wastelands and a Demogorgon curled up inside a slimy tree to rest, pleased that its great controller was complete and in charge once again.
…
The Mind Flayer refuses to answer, too prideful to admit that its plans on its own could likely lead to defeat once again, by a mere child as well. However, the Deadlights could read the thoughts through telepathy and is delighted to have the deity come back in shame to admit that IT's plan was the best for both.
The dim blue lights decide to do something to "close the deal."
IT reaches forward with its mind and merges its abilities with the other entity.
An orb or a bubble is conjured for both of them to gaze through (if they had eyes). Within the bubble appears the sleeping face of a girl, a human girl who was very familiar to the Mind Flayer. An image of Jane or Eleven appears in the conjured circle.
"Is this the child giving you all the trouble?" IT asks.
"She is the bane of my existence. She was the first to contact my pet in my realm and the brat did not realize that she created a link between our worlds. What made it worse was the fools she was with insisted on exploiting that link and create a doorway or 'gate' between them. I tried to send my favourite pet out to stop them, while also allowing it to bring food back for everyone, but they continued to press. Their foolish ambitions and assumed superiority over all creatures in my world led to mass death and my plans to slowly consume them were going well… until she returned and closed the gate."
As the entity from the Upside Down explains what occurred, IT is scrolling through the memories, silently pointing out the flaws and mistakes made in the attempts to conquer the humans. While it was amusing that the plans were stopped by a child, IT could not say much considering it was also brutally attacked and nearly beaten by a group of children… Children it hoped to include in their upcoming plans.
"I have never seen such abilities in humans… the best I could ever see was certain humans' ability to read others' thoughts and view images of the past and future. Hardly, the magnitude of what this… Jane can do."
"She is what stands in my way of ending their world. Her will is strong and not always the easiest to break. Her weaknesses, like all humans, are their desire for connection and she has quite a few. While her companions are nothing but a nuisance, they give her hope…" Even thinking the word causes the Flayer great pain and illness.
"Well then…" IT says. "Perhaps this is our starting point…"
…
Jane rolls over in her sleep, cuddling her pillow tightly. The wind rustles the trees outside her room, the branches casting shadows across her window. The darkness of her room was no longer a paralyzing fear and she had recently removed the nightlight that Hopper had given her, finding sleeping in the dark easier and more relaxing now. She hated what the lab had done to her, leaving her the scared little child for such a long time, but now, with normalcy and routine, she was stronger and better than before.
The memories of summer flood her sleeping mind; shopping with Max, ice cream with all her friends, learning to swim, watching the fireworks on the Fourth of July, riding bikes, and spending time with Mike.
He appears in front of her, while they stood out in the field where Dustin had set up Cerebro. Beautiful flowers surround them and she runs to him, his strong arms wrap around her. She knew he was hoping to one day say those three words… the words that Max said were dreaded in a relationship, but Eleven did not believe her. While Hopper said them to her all the time, she knew those three words meant something different and more meaningful when said by boyfriends.
"I…" Dream Mike begins to say.
Dream Eleven shuts her eyes, beaming in happiness.
"Hope I am still your Papa…" a voice says.
The girl's blood goes completely cold and she knows something is wrong. Her stomach turns so violently that she feels as if she's going to throw up.
Pushing back from the hug, Eleven opens her eyes again and it's not Mike holding her… it's…
"Papa…" she gasps. The beautiful field has vanished, and they are both back in the lab.
Tears fill her eyes.
"Where's Mike?!" she shouts in her dream. She raises her hands to end him… while Kali, her sister, had insisted that he was alive, she still was unsure about whether it was true or not. He had never sought her out and perhaps that was because he really was gone, but he would still haunt her and she could end him in her mind. However, when she tries to use her powers, but they do not work as her former father stands unharmed in the vacant, sterilized hallway of the Hawkins Laboratory, fluorescent lights flickering. Eleven knows this hall, her room… or rather her prison was at the end, where she'd be forced to go if she was bad.
The fear fills her body completely and she begins to shake. Tears rush down her face as she backs away, ready to run.
"Why did you leave me Eleven?" Papa continues. "Why did you try to kill me?"
"You're a monster!" she shrieks.
"You're still my little girl…"
Jane turns to run, only for her to be staring at the opened face of a Demogorgon. Its gangly arms reach down almost to the floor and its sharpened teeth are so close she could reach out and touch them. She screams out in fear.
However, when she turns back, Mike stands there; only it's not Mike. His eyes are yellow and when he grins at her, his teeth are pointed like a shark's.
"El…" he says in a voice that is not his own. "Come… come float with us."
…
Meanwhile, in the real world, the girl's reaction to the nightmare was becoming more and more intense.
"No… No…" Eleven moans in her sleep. She clutches the blankets tightly and tosses back and forth. "S-Stop! Go away."
Hopper's eyes open to the sounds of distress. He had fallen asleep in his usual easy chair after drinking a few cold beers like he usually did after a long day on the job. The TV is showing static, casting sharp shadows around the otherwise pitch-black living room
"Jane…?" he asks.
Her door is open a crack and he can hear her rolling around. He gets up from his chair, several of his joints cracking in protest but he enters the room.
Nightmares for her were nothing new; Hopper knew that the girl had lived through absolute hell in her formative years and such torture could hardly be forgotten. He'd had come into her room many times to comfort her when she woke up screaming that Brenner was coming to get her, but something about this nightmare was different. He wasn't sure how he knew this, maybe it was a gut feeling, but something was not right. He pushes open her door and turns on the light.
She continues to thrash around, the light not bringing her into consciousness.
Her bed begins shaking and he is unsure if it's her telekinesis or not. Despite the uneasiness, he goes to her side.
…
"Come and join us, Janie," the yellow-eyed Mike taunts. "We're waiting for you."
Suddenly, a bullet goes through Mike's head, leaving a red spot in his forehead. His body collapses to the floor. The shot came from behind them, probably from Papa.
"NO!" she screams through her tears. "MIKE!"
She collapses to his body, trying to shake him awake. While she knew that wasn't Mike, it was still his body and now he was dead. There is blood pouring into a puddle on the floor, his face is pale and lifeless. Eleven feels as if her heart is being ripped from her chest. She shakes him and continues screaming.
"MIKE! MIKE! MIKE! MIKE! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME!" she yells.
…
"Jane, Jane…" Hopper says. He tries to gently shake her awake, but she thrashes around. Her face is soaked with tears and sweat. "Wake up, it's only a nightmare…"
"NO! NO!" she continues to scream.
…
Papa suddenly appears in front of her and Mike, but his shoes have strange fluffy balls on them. As her eyes follow upward, Brenner/Papa is dressed in some kind of dirty striped suit with big puffs on the shoulders and more orange fluffy balls in the middle like buttons. It was unlike anything she'd seen before. His face is the same, except his eyes, which are glowing a very deep yellow… the same as Mike's were. He smiles, revealing sharpened teeth.
"We're waiting for you Jane…" he says.
The center of Papa's face opens, revealing thousands, maybe millions of more teeth. It leans forward in a demonic-sounding laugh to consume her and then everything goes black.
…
In a flash, Eleven wakes up screaming, expelling her telekinesis in a powerful wave. She creates a large crack in her closet door but the push from her mind is so powerful that it collapses inwards and falls to pieces on the floor.
Hopper is shocked by the display of power but turns back to his daughter.
He pulls her into his arms and strokes her hair.
"It's okay…" he says soothingly. "It's okay, I'm here."
The poor girl is unable to say anything she's in so much shock. She leans into her real Papa and just sobs uncontrollably into his chest. The images of Mike dead and Brenner having turned into a monster flash in her mind leave her feeling sick and unable to control herself. She clings to him as tightly as she can, pleading for the nightmare to go away
"It's all right, it was just a dream…"
"So… real…" she utters.
"It only seems that way, but dreams can't hurt you…"
…
"Very impressive," the Mind Flayer says, pleased by the shattered state in which the human girl was left.
IT also feels great satisfaction. Thanks to their combined abilities, the ancient evil was able to go beyond its hibernating form and enter the child's dream, something it could never do before. The fear conjured by the girl was like feeding IT an energy bar; it felt amazing, a much-needed revival considering its defeat from children previously. So nutritious and intoxicating.
"And that was just a warm-up," the lights say. "There is more that we can do… together."
There is a pause as the Flayer looks at the seemingly shattered image of the girl in the bubble. It was glorious and very satisfying to see her fears exploited and had humans crying and weak. This could work… for both of them.
"I believe we have ourselves an alliance…"
A/N: Please follow and review.