chapter xv .
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MASON HAD NEVER STOLEN CANDY FROM A BABY, but taking Holly Wheeler's Lite-Brite straight out of her hands was practically one in the same. She could only let out a high-pitched, offended "Hey!" before Erica was shoving a candy bar into her hands.
"For your understanding," she said hurriedly, then followed Dustin, Lucas, and Mason up the stairs to Nancy's bedroom.
Mason threw the Lite-Brite onto the bed and Dustin began unpacking all its beads, shoving them into each individual hole so that the lights filled up the entire board. When he finished, Lucas rushed to the wall and plugged it in. It lit up immediately.
"Okay, you guys seeing this?" Dustin shouted, seemingly to nobody.
Mason was still on the verge of thinking this entire thing was a prank—Val being in 'the Upside Down', that whole crew being able to hear Dustin, communication through lights. It was all incredibly bizarre. But when certain portions of the Lite-Brite began to glow brighter than the others and energy began to thrum rhythmically, some part of Mason thought this was much too complex for it to be a prank.
"Holy shit!" Erica exclaimed, and Dustin cackled loudly. Even Mason found himself breaking into a smile.
The lights began to dance around. Could the people on the other side see what Mason was seeing? Was it like some weird parallel ghost shit? He had no idea how the process worked, but he imagined Val and the others playing around with it, swirling their fingers through the lights.
"Okay, we're not moving it, but we're gonna unplug it!" Dustin called. He nodded to Lucas—he pulled the plug and immediately the lights went off. "Try it now!"
There came a moment in which absolutely nothing happened, and Mason was sure it had all been fake—a group hallucination. He was probably just going manic now that his sister was missing and he was hanging out with a bunch of Hellfire cultists. If it had come a moment later, Mason would have gotten up and left.
But suddenly, hesitantly, the Lite-Brite began to glow. It began with two lines—one horizontal and one vertical—and then another longways. H. The next was an I.
"Holy shit," Mason muttered, leaning closer to it. "That should be.. impossible."
"Hi," laughed Dustin, holding his head in disbelief. "Jesus, yeah, that worked!"
A moment later, more letters began to appear on the board. An S, a T, a U—and once those faded away, a C and a K. STUCK.
"They're stuck," Mason exhaled, peering at the screen with a furrowed brow. He scoffed lightly to himself. Minutes ago, he was pretty sure his sister was dead—and now here she was, speaking to him from an alternate universe on a child's Lite-Brite. "So they're stuck in this... Upside Down. Can't they come back through the way they came?"
Dustin looked to Mason, then glanced all around like he was waiting for a reply. "What happened to Watergate?"
"THE HELL'S A WATERGATE?" Steve muttered, brow furrowed at the board like it would provide an answer.
"Because... it's in water," Robin pieced together, "and it's a gate."
"Oh." Nancy's lips puckered in thought. "Um, no, it's..."
