Don't Panic - B. Hargrove

TWENTY

David didn't need long to get Dustin a dungeons and dragons campaign manual to illustrate his statement, and soon everyone had joined them to gather around the table where the kid was placing a finger on the boss in question.
"It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home. It enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers." Hopper clicked his tongue.
"Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kid's game."
"no, it's a manual. And it's not for kids." Dustin strongly disagreed.
"And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor..." "Analogy," David mumbled, but Lucas was louder as he pointed out the same thing.
Dustin glared at him.
"Analogy? That's what you're worried about?" And David was thankful he didn't have to endure that glare himself.
"Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is." "Okay!" Nancy interjected.
"So this mind flayer thing. What does it want?"
"To conquer us. It believes it's the master race."
  "Like the Germans!" Steve commented, and David could actually understand where he was coming from.
"The Nazis? " Dustin brutally corrected the older boy.
"Yeah, yeah, the Nazis." Steve nodded in embarrassment.
"Yeah, if the Nazis were from a different dimension.. totally." Dustin absently agreed.
Hopper, in the background, ran a hand over his face. He was still not getting what the kids were trying to explain, so much even David could read into that expression.
"It views other races, like us, as inferior to itself." Dustin continued with the lore.
"It wants to spread and take other dimensions." Mike bit his lip.
" We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." Lucas gestured wildly around.
They were all getting it. Even Steve.
"That's great. That's great. That's really great. JESUS! "he mumbled in panic.
Nancy only briefly acknowledged her ex boyfriends6mental breakdown and got back over the book instead. While David leaned onto Jonathan for the support, she summarized:" So if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it... We kill everything it controls."
"We win. "Dustin concluded.
"Theoretically. "David added.
Hopper reached over and took the book from Nancy, still highly unconvinced.
" Great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with fireballs or something? " The party chuckled.
" No, no, no Fire. No Fireballs." Dustin grinned .
" Uh, you summon an undead army uh, because... Zombies. They don't have brains. And the mind flayer... It likes brains. " Frustrated with the boy, Hopper smacked the manual onto the table.
" What are we even doing here? " He turned to leave.
" I thought we were waiting for your military backup! "Dustin called after the man, and David really appreciated the boy's bravery.
Jim Hopper was an intimidating man, and that 13-year-old boy dared to boss him around just like that.
" We are! " Hopper called back, immediately sparking a new conversation with Mike.
"How are we going to stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns!" "You don't know that! We don't know anything!"
  "The Demo-dogs wasn't impressed by my gun." David pointed out, but his comment was run over by Mike, continuing to challenge the man.
"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab."
"And we know monsters are gonna molt again," Lucas added.
"And we know it's only a matter of time before the tunnels reach this town," Dustin concluded the list, and David nodded at every point in deep agreement.
They had to do something. Anything. "They're right." a weak voice also agreed, and Joyce approached.
"We have to kill it. I want to kill it."

And the woman was enough to make Hopper's sternness falter. Almost lovingly, he approached her.
"Me too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."
"No, but he does," Mike spoke up again, pointing at Will on the couch. "I'd anyone knows how to destroy that thing; it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know its 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 does know where he is."

He can't spy, or he can't see. That ne they had to find a recognizable place. Hopper concluded that the shed would be perfect, and everyone spent the next few hours gluing and stabling cloths on the walls. Except for David, who stayed behind, checking Will's vitals and roughly estimating how long they had until he woke up again.
He didn't want to hear the sentimental conversation around anyway, he just wanted this night to end and the mind flayer to be banished from his brother's mind.
When everything was done, Jonathan carried their brother over into the shed, leaving it to his twin to tie him to the chair they had placed right in the middle .
Under the light of every lamp they had found in the house, all stared at the boy as Hopper approached, holding a bottle of borax under his nose, the stench intense enough to wake the dead.
So Will's eyes fluttered open, and his back snapped back as he gained full consciousness. Under his family's stares, he tried to wiggle himself free, but David had used the best hunting knot he knew, and there was no way he could free himself.
"What is this?" the boy grunted in confusion, looking around frantically, pupils tiny in the light.
"Why am I tied up?" Joyce kneeled in front of him.
"Will, we just wanna talk to you," she explained gently.
"We're not gonna hurt you."
"Where am I?"
Likely, the mind flayer demanded to know, but none of them answered. Hopper just held one of his own drawings of the monster under the boy's eyes.
"Do you recognize this?" he asked. Will shook his head.
"Hey. We want to help you. But to do that, we must understand how to kill it." Joyce tried it again in her softest voice.
"Why am I tied up!" Will screamed at her, his gaze finding David and lingering accusing.
Of course, he knew. Over and over, he repeated the question until the lights flickered, and Will's voice began to break.
"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" David couldn't take it.
That wasn't his brother. The monster had taken over his vessel completely and every scream pierced right into the older brother's heart. He could see how his mother was suffering, how Jonathan had closed his eyes and clenched his fists.
And it got only worse when Will leaned back in exhaustion, his tiny body so tired and worn out. Joyce managed to gather himself and stared right into the monsters eyes, which were the ones of her youngest son. "Do you know what March 22nd is?" she asked.
"It's your birthday. Your birthday. When you turned eight, your brothers bought you that huge box of crayons because you had used all of the ones I had given you before. Do you remember that? It was 120 colors. Every color you could think of. And all your friends, they got you STAR WARS TOYS, but all you wanted to do was draw with all your new colors. And you drew this big spaceship, the SS Doodejon, but it wasn't from a movie. It was your spaceship. "
She gulped as her voice stammered.
" A rainbow ship is What you called it. And you must have used every color in the box.
I took that with me to work, and I put it up, and I told everyone who came in, "My son drew this." And you were so embarrassed. "
She chuckled at the memory that was so fond to every Byers' hearts.
" But I was so proud. "she breathed out .
" I was so, so proud. "  David noticed how Jonathan's breathing started to shake, and he reached out to take his hand in his.
" Do you remember the day Dad left? " Jonathan spoke up." We stayed up all night building Castle Byers. Just the three of us. And it took so long because you were so bad at hammering. And Doodle was so bad too. You competed in who would miss the nail every time. And then it started raining, but we stayed out there anyway. We were all sick for like a week after that. But we just had to finish it, didn't we? "
"We just had to. "David agreed, his hand shaking together with his twin's. Maybe it could work.
Maybe the happy memories would be built as a bridge to the boy buried deep inside his brain. David hoped so with all his heart.
" Do you remember the day we first met? " Mike asked.
" It was the first day of kindergarten. I knew nobody. I had no friends and.." he sniffed loudly, a tear running down his face.
"I just felt so alone and so scared, but I saw you on the swings, and you were alone, too. You were just swinging by yourself. And I walked up to you and... I asked. I asked if you wanted to be my friend. And you said yes. You said yes." he gulped heavily.
"It was the best thing I've ever done."  David was baffled, but that declaration of love stroked something inside his little brother, and he looked... sad. As if it was really Will looking back at them.