Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Fear was a common emotion that most people felt when they became unnerved. Or when they felt a odd chill go down their spine, which only caused another emotion to stir. Nervousness is next and the person begins to feel shaky and trip over their words, maybe get sweaty palms if their lucky.
But Vee was familiar with the two emotions all too well.
He bit his nails as he tapped his foot on the ground, in a rhythmic motion, and watched as Mike started to explain something called: the flee and the acrobat. Which Vee didn't understand until he started to talk about gates and such. It seemed in this case . . . him and El were the flees, the critters that lingered in the hairs of animals, sometimes humans, like microscopic pests. They could get around anywhere and anytime they wanted which applied to the two lab rats too. And the monster that lurked in Hawkins woods.
Mike poked the pen through the paper he demonstrated on which made El and Vee jump a bit. "It would take a lot of energy to build a gate like this. But that's got to be what happened," he said, his tone very soft when he talked to El. "Otherwise, how'd Will get there, right?"
El gulped with a nod, "Right."
"What we want to know is, do you know where the gate is?" Lucas questioned but El shook her head immediately as he said it and once he gave Vee his attention as the eye contact made the bald boy look away, giving a slow shake of his head.
Lucas scoffed, "Then how do you know about the Upside Down?"
Vee found himself playing with the fabric of his pants instead of replying to the boy's great question. He'd rather not say why he knew about the upside down, it'd only cause problems and upset people. He could already feel the tension in this room just because of the boys desperation to find this gate. But that would only get them put in danger and killed.
They didn't know what lied behind that gate . . . neither did El or Vee. But the boy could sense that whatever was inside there, other than the monster, wasn't good. Nor would it feel threatened by a group of kids who were in way over their heads.
El looked at Dustin to try and take the attention off of them, which worked cause both of the boys immediately looked in the direction of their pacing friend. Who for some reason had a compass. "Dustin, what are you doing? Dustin?" Mike asked, but the Henderson boy didn't pay him any attention. He just spun around in circles with his compass.
"Dustin!"
"Dustin!"
Dustin finally looked towards his friends and started to stammer over his words. "I . . . I need to see your compasses."
"What?"
"Your compasses. All of your compasses, right now!"
Immediately the two boys searched around the basement for as many compasses they could find and once they did find them, they slammed them all on the table. Dustin adjusted them all in the same direction just to see if his suspicions were right. "What's so exciting about this?" Mike asked, still confused about what was happening with the boy.
