"i can't seem to face up to the facts. i'm tense and nervous and i can't relax."

★・・・・・・★

The 5 kept walking in the woods, going nowhere in particular. Earlier they had ripped about an inch off of the bottom of Amber's shirt to tightly wrap around her arm to stop the bleeding. They couldn't go to the hospital to get stitches right in the middle of whatever this is.

"You're positive that was Dart?" Lucas finally spoke up.

"Yes," Dustin confirmed. "He has the exact same yellow pattern on his butt."

"He was tiny two days ago," Max commented.

"Well, he's molted three times already."

"Malted?" Steve asked.
"Molted."

"Basically shed his skin to make room for more growth like hornworms," Amber said.

"When's he gonna molt again?"

"It's gotta be soon. When he does he'll be fully grown, or close to it. And so will his friends."

"Yeah, and he's gonna eat a lot more than just cats," Steve commented.

"Wait, a cat?" Lucas asked. "Dart ate a cat?"

"No, what? No."

"What are you talking about? He ate Mews," Steve said.

"Mews? Who's Mews?" Max asked.

"It's Dustin's cat."

"I knew it! You kept him!" Amber half-way yelled.

"No! No. No, I... No, I... He missed me. He wanted to come home."

"Bullshit!" she cursed.

"I didn't know he was a Demogorgon, okay?"

"Oh, so now you admit it?"

"Guys, who cares? We have to go," Max said.

"I care!" Lucas shouted. "You put the party in jeopardy! You broke the rule of law!"

"So did you!"
"What?"

"You told a stranger the truth!" Dustin said as he shone the light on Max's face. And it kind of made Amber angry that he called Max a stranger.

Max scoffed and said, "A stranger?"

"You wanted to tell her, too!" she defended herself. "And Lucas!"

"Yeah but we didn't, Amber, okay? We didn't tell her. We both broke the rule of law, okay? So we're even. We're even."

"No, no! We're not even. Don't even try that. Your stupid pet could have ate us for dinner!"

"That was not my fault!"

"Hey, guys?" Amber faintly heard Steve.

"He wasn't gonna eat us," Dustin continued.

"Oh, so he was crawling to come say hello?"

"Guys!" Steve shouted.

They all turned their heads to Steve as they heard screeching and Steve went towards it. The three others did as Max stood there, confused as to why they were going to the sound.

"No, no, no. Hey, guys, why are you headed towards the sound? Hello? Hello? Shit," Max said as she ran towards them.

They walked, flashlights on as the big building came into view for Amber.

The Lab.

"I don't see him," Dustin said.

Lucas used his binoculars to try and see where the noise was coming from.

"It's the lab," Lucas said

"They were going back home," Amber finally figured out.

The five walked to the lab and saw a car. But not just any car. Jonathan's car.

"Hello?" Jonathan said. "Who's there? Who's there?"

The five came out to reveal themselves as Nancy and Jonathan said at the same time, "Steve?"

"Nancy?"
"Jonathan."

"What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?"

"We're looking for Mike and Will."

"They're not in there, are they?" Dustin asked.

"We're not sure," they admitted.

"Why?" Jonathan asked.

After he asked that, more screeching came from the lab and the now seven kids turned their heads to the noise. It was obvious it wasn't safe there. No one could survive.

They were arguing, and Amber and Max were paying no attention to it. It was normal at this point.

"We haven't seen Will..."
"I haven't seen him since..."

Those were the only sentences Amber could make out.

"The powers back," Nancy announced.

They all ran to the opening of the gate to try and open it. They all just stood there as it still wasn't opening. Dustin walked over to Jonathan to try and open the electrical gate that was having problems as they started bickering over who tries to open it. Amber just looked at Max as they both rolled their eyes at the boys.

"Hey! I got it!" Dustin said as he chuckled when the gate opened. He really didn't but it's fine.

They all ran to the gate, just standing there waiting for something to happen. Nancy and Jonathan got in the car and drove to get their friends.

"Guys," Max said.

They all stood there as Hopper's car drove and they all quickly moved out of the way.

"Let's go," was all Hopper said before they were all clamoring and saying to hurry up and get in the car. Steve finally got in and closed the car door and they drove off to the Byers House.

-

They got there and they put Will on the couch with Jonathan talking to him but he couldn't hear him cause he was sleeping. While Hopper was on the phone with the military, getting frustrated.

"They didn't believe you, did they?" Dustin asked.

"We'll see," he responded.

"'We'll see'? We can't just sit here while those things are loose!" Mike exclaimed.

"We stay here, and we wait for help," Hopper said as he walked away.

Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Amber, and Max sat at the table, mourning Bob. Mike got up and walked over to the mind puzzles Bob brought over earlier in the day.

"Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?" Mike said.

"Really?" Lucas asked.

"He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fund-raiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right? We can't let him die in vain."

"Well, what do you want to do, Mike?" Dustin asked. "All right, the chief's right on this. We can't stop those Demo-dogs on our own."

"Demo-dogs?" Max questioned.

"Demogorgon dogs. Demo-dogs. It's like a compound. I-it's like a play on words-"
"Okay."

"I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe..."

"But there's an army now," Amber said.

"Precisely."

"His army," Mike realized.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"His army. Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too," Mike said.

He walked away to get something and walked back to the table to show the picture of the shadow monster Will drew.

"The shadow monster," Amber breathed.

"It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him. But it also infected Amber, but not as much."

"And so this virus, it's connecting them to the tunnels?" Max asked.

"I never had any visions of tunnels unlike Will," Amber explained.

"To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything," Mike explained.

"Whoa. Slow down. Slow down."

"Okay, so, the shadow monster's inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will, but not Amber."

"But so does Dart," Lucas spoke up.

"Yeah," Amber spoke. "Like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind."

"Hive mind?" Steve asked. He really was clueless.

"A collective consciousness. It's a super organism," Amber explained.

"And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain," Mike said.

"Like the mind flayer," Dustin realized.

Lucas realized this too and snapped his fingers as he pointed at Dustin.

"What?"

-

Dustin grabbed Will's D&D book and turned to the page explaining the Mind Flayer.

"The mind flayer."

"The hell is that?" Hopper asked.

"It's a monster from an unknown dimension," Dustin explained. "It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brain using its highly-developed psionic powers."

"Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids' game," Hopper sighed.

"No, i-it's a manual. And it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor-"

"Analogy," Lucas said.

"Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine, fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is."

"Okay, so this mind flamer thing-" Nancy started.

"Flayer. Mind flayer." Dustin said as he cut off Nancy.

"What does it want?"

"To conquer us basically. It believes it's the master race."

"Like the Germans?" Steve asked.

Amber scoffed and said, "Uh, the Nazis?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis."

"Uh... If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally," Dustin said. "Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself."

"It wants to spread, take over other dimensions," Mike said.

"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it," Lucas said.

"That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" Steve exclaimed.

"Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it... " Nancy started.

"We kill everything it controls," Mike finished Nancy's sentence.

"We win," Dustin said.

"Theoretically," Lucas also said.

"All right, great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with Fireballs or something?" Hopper asked as he took the manual from Nancy and into his own hands.

Dustin chuckled and said, "No. No, no Fire- No Fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because... b-because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it... it... It likes brains. It's just a game. It's a game."

"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper said as he closed the book and slammed it down on the table.

"I thought we were waiting for your military backup," Dustin mocked Hopper.

"We are!" Hopper snapped.

"Even if they come, how are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot it with guns!" Mike exclaimed.

"You don't know that! We don't know anything!"

"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab," Mike argued.

"And we know the monsters are gonna molt again," Dustin said.

"And we know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town," Amber said.

"They're right," Joyce said as she came out of the room. "We have to kill it. I want to kill it."

"Me, too. Me, too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that?" Hopper asked. "We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."

"No. But they do," Mike said. "If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will and Amber."

"I don't know how. Will is our best shot," Amber admitted.

"Then Will does. He's connected to it. He'll know it's weakness."

"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore," Max said. "That he's a spy for the Mind Flayer now."

"Yeah, but, he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is."

After Mike said that, they all agreed to grab old trash and stuff to cover the Byers' shed with. They threw everything out of the shed to make room for them. They used old tarps, cardboard, and more.

Amber and Dustin dumped trash out of the trashcan to look for scraps.

"Hey. I'm... I'm sorry about Dart and all," Dustin started. "I guess I just thought he was my friend. I was wrong. I broke the rule of law, so if you want your girlfriend to take over my spot in the party, I understand."

"She's not my girlfriend. I, mean, yeah, I like her, but.. she's not my girlfriend."

"I saw you two holding hands in the bus, Amber."

"She was just scared and so was I. And this happened," she said, lightly moving her arm but not much due to the pain.

"Maybe, but I could feel it."

"Feel what?"

"The electricity."

"Steve's gotten into your head."

And with that, Dustin grabbed some stuff and walked away. Amber was confused. Dustin still had his spot in the party. He wasn't getting replaced by anyone.

Amber grabbed her stuff and went into the shed, helping the rest of them to get the shed ready. They taped and stapled things onto the wall.

Once they were done, everyone went inside except for Mike, Hopper, Jonathan, Mrs. Byers, and Will.

Dustin stood at the window as he was worrying. Everyone was worrying.

Max and Amber sat in the hall, talking.

"If he finds out where we are... will he send those dogs after us?" Max asked.

Amber could tell she was scared, and Amber was as scared as Max. They didn't have El.

"He won't find out," Amber replied.

"Yeah, but, if he does..."

"Judgement day."

-

About 30 minutes passed and they were still sitting there. The lights started flickering and they all ran to the window to look at what was happening. After a while, they stopped flickering and went back to normal. They all looked at each other as they were even more worried. After a while again, Hopper came in with Mike, Jonathan, and Joyce, saying that he was still in there and he was trying to talk but with Morse Code.

"What happened?" Dustin and Amber asked.

"I think he's talking, just not with words," Hopper replied, writing Morse Code on an old open envelope that he found.

"What is that?" Steve asked.

"Morse Code," the boys replied.

H-E-R-E

"Here," they all said.

"Will's still in there. He's talking to us," Hopper finally concluded.

Jonathan grabbed a boom box and a mixtape, going into the shed and playing it for Will. Hopper grabbed Will's walkie to talk with the others through Morse Code, repeating the letters as Will does them. Nancy grabbed a notepad she found, writing the letters down as Dustin, Lucas, Amber, and Max were figuring the letters out.

"Dash, dot, dash, dot," Dustin repeated.

"Okay, got it," Lucas said.

"C," Amber and Max said.

Nancy wrote it down.

"L," Lucas said.

Nancy wrote it down.

This went on until the letters spelled...

CLOSE GATE

The phone then started ringing.

"Shit. Shit," Dustin said. He ran over to the phone and answered, then hung up.

Then the phone rang again, making Nancy grab it and throw it off the wall.

"Do you think he heard that?" Max asked.

"It's just a phone. Could be anywhere, right?" Steve said.

But it wasn't just anywhere. It was his house. He knew it was his house. It knew where they were.

Hopper, Mike, and Jonathan left the shed as the rest were in the house, looking out the window, and hearing screeching.

"That's not good," Dustin observed.

They grabbed Will and put him in his bed as Hopper came in with two guns.

"Hey. Hey, get away from the windows!" Hopper said.

"Do you know how to use this?" Hopper asked Jonathan.

"What?" he questioned.

"Can you use this?" He asked again.

"I can," Nancy announced.

Hopper threw Nancy the gun, both cocking the guns. Everybody got ready to fight as Amber was ready to use her newfound powers.

They heard more screeching and then more growling.

"What are they doing?" Nancy asked.

They heard more growling coming for the front door and then they heard more whimpering.

Then a Demo-dog came bursting through the window as they all screamed.

"Holy shit," Dustin said.

"Is it dead?" Max asked.

Hopper pushed it slightly with his foot, declaring it was dead, as they heard creaking coming from the door. The door unlocked, opening, revealing,

Eleven. She was back and she was alive.