Stranger Things || MALE READER

Chapter 8: Traitor

You sat in the Wheeler's basement with the kids, filling in El on what you discussed with Mr. Clarke. Mike was sitting across from her on the sofa, holding a paper and pen. He stabbed the pen through the paper he drew on and Eleven's eyes went wide. He put it down and continued talking to El.

"It would take a lot of energy to build a gate like this, but that's gotta be what happened. Otherwise, how'd Will get there, right?" he explained.

"Right." The girl agreed.

"What we want to know is, do you know where the gate is?" Lucas asked her. She shook her head.

"Then how do you know about the Upside Down!?" He exclaimed. You could see Dustin walking around the room, holding what looked like a compass. You furrowed your brows in confusion. Compasses? What does he need a compass for?

The others followed my gaze and stared at Dustin.

"Dustin, what are you doing?" Mike asked. "Dustin?" he tried again, still no answer. "Dustin!" "Dustin!" Mike and Lucas yelled at the same time. This got the kid's attention as he turned to us, stopping what he's doing.

"I-I need to see your compasses."

"What?"

"Your compasses! All of your compasses, right now!"

We all looked at each other and got out every compass that was laying around. We placed them on the table and Dustin looked at all of them. You did the same and you grew confused for a second before snapping your heads to look at the kid, realizing why he needed top see them.

Fucking genius.

"What's exciting about this?" Mike asked.

"They're not pointing north." You explained, Dustin looked at me with a smile, while Mike, Lucas and El were confused.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"He meant exactly what he said, that's not true north!" Dustin continued. "Are you both seriously this dense? The sun rises in the east, and it sets in the west. Right? Which means that's true north." He pointed with his finger.

"So what you're saying is the compasses are broken." Mike asked.

"That's not how a compass works. The needle is drawn to the Earths magnetic North Pole, so it doesn't need a battery or anything." you explained.

"So what's wrong with them?" Lucas asked. you looked at Dustin, asking if he wanted to be the one to explain or you.

"Well, that's what I couldn't figure out, but then I remembered. You can change the direction of a compass with a magnet. If there's the power of a more powerful magnetic field, the needle deflects to that power. And then I remembered what Mr. Clarke said. The gate would have so much power-"

"It could disrupt the electromagnetic field." Mike finished Dustin's sentence.

"Exactly."
"Meaning, if we follow the compasses' north..." Lucas chimed in.

"They should lead us to the gate." You finished.

Your POV

We were walking along the old railroads, compasses in hand. Lucas and Dustin in the front, me right behind them and Mike and Eleven a bit behind us.

"How much further?" Lucas whined.

"I don't know. These only tell direction, not distance." Dustin answered. Lucas just looked at him annoyed. "You really need to learn more about compasses." He added.