Y/n POV
El is laying on the couch, and I can feel the exhaustion rolling off of her.
Mike is talking about what we heard Will say through the radio. "What was Will saying? Like home, like home, like home...." He trails off, so I jump in.
"Dark..."
"And empty..." Lucas chimes.
"Empty and cold. Wait did he say cold?" Dustin asks.
"I don't know. Stupid radio kept going in and out." Lucas throws his head back on the chair.
"It's like home, but it's dark." Dustin goes over everything and I could practically see the wheels in his head spinning round and round.
"Home. Like his house?" Mike keeps trying to make sense of the situation.
Lucas perks up. "Or maybe like Hawkins!"
El speaks up. "Upside down."
"What'd she say?" Lucas asks.
"Upside down...." Mike absentmindedly replies.
"What?" Lucas scrunches up his face.
"Upside down!" Mike starts getting excited, and he rushes over to the D&D table, which still has the upside down gameboard on it. He flips the board right side up.
"When El showed us where Will was, she flipped the board over, remember?" Mike says. "Upside down. Dark. Empty."
Lucas turns to me and Dustin. "Do either of you understand what he's talking about?"
"No." Answers Dustin.
"I'm getting there...." I reply.
"Guys, c'mon just think about it. When El took us to find Will, she took us to his house, right?" Mike pleads with us.
"Yeah, and he wasn't there." Lucas says, getting a little annoyed.
"But what if he was there? What if we just couldn't see him? What if he was on the other side? What if," Mike says, flipping the board right side up again. "This is Hawkins, and this," He flips the board again. "Is where Will is? The Upside Down."
"Like the Vale of Shadows!" Dustin exclaims.
Dustin grabs a D&D manual, and flips the book open to a certain page. Me, Lucas, and Mike all crowd behind him.
"The Val of Shadows is a dimension that's a dark reflection or echo of our world. It's a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase, a place with monsters. It is right next to you and you don't even see it." Dustin recites.
"Holy s*it." I breathe.
"It's an alternate dimension." Mike says, getting the idea.
"But how do we get there?" Lucas questions.
"We cast Shadowalk." Dustin says matter-of-factly.
"In real life, dummy." Lucas rolls his eyes.
"We can't Shadowalk, but maybe she can." Dustin glances at El.
"Do you know how we get there, to the Upside Down?" Mike asks El gently.
El shakes her head.
"Oh my god..." Lucas says, throwing his hands up in the air.
Third Person POV, Joyce's house.
Jonathan walks in to the house. Lani stands up. "Hey, kid."
"What's going on?" Jonathan asks slowly, looking between Joyce and Lani.
"Your dad is going to stay here tonight, on the couch." Joyce says, getting up.
"I'm here as long as you need me, okay?" Lani tells her.
Jonathan walks over to the tarp on the wall and lifts it up. "What happened?"
Lani answers. "Don't worry about that."
"Mom, that thing you saw, before, did it come back?" Jonathan questions.
"Jonathan. That's enough." Lani says sharply.
Jonathan glances at Lani. "Can we talk? Alone?"
*****************************************
"You need to leave." Jonathan gets straight to the point.
"Look, I know you're upset, we all are." Lani begins, as Jonathan already starts to get annoyed. "And you need to listen to me. Your mother is sick. Really sick."
"Yeah, and you being here, you're just making things worse. Like always." Jonathan retorts.
"She took down that wall with an axe." Lani says. "She said that Will was inside of that, talking to her."
"Maybe he was." Jonathan says coldly.
"This isn't some kind of joke." Lani's voice grows sharper. "Your mom was half frozen to death, trembling when I got here, scared out of her mind, and you come in here, feeding into her hallucinations, or whatever the h*ll you you wanna call it, you're gonna push her over the edge. You hear me?" He sighs. "Look, I'm on you're side, I'm here to help. I'm gonna make things better around here, for all of us."
"Oh, thank God you're here." Jonathan says sarcastically.
Lani glares. "Do me a favor, at the funeral tomorrow, just behave. If not for me, for your mother." Lani glances around the room, until his eyes land on a poster. He points at it. "Take that down, it's inappropriate." And then he storms out of the room.
K, imma leave it there for now. Until next week, people. Have a great week and all, also, thanks for putting up with my writing this long. It means a lot.
Later ya Flayed Demodogs,
K
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It Only Gets Stranger *ST X Reader*
FanfictionY/n L/n was experiment number 10. You escaped the lab when you were eleven. After walking a few miles, you passed out. When you came too, four boys were standing above you. Fast forward three years, you are best friends with Mike, Lucas, Will, and D...
