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DESPITE HOW EERILY TERRIFYING the inhuman screeches of the Demogorgon—as Valentina had learned was its name—were, nothing compared to the chilling silence that followed a few minutes later.
The four of them stood idly in the bedroom of Will Byers, making even less noise than the monster in the hallway as they tried to listen and hide.
Nancy had been aiming her gun at the door with one hand since the moment after her and Jonathan yelled at Steve to shut up, and he was now shaking with fear on Valentina's right. The girl was fighting shivers inside her own body.
"What's it doing?" Nancy asked. It was a question they were all wondering.
Their minds must've been on the same wavelength that night because Jonathan responded with, again, what they were all thinking, "I don't know."
No one dared to say anything else after that. They stood in silence, willing for anything to happen. Another screech, another burst through the ceiling, another breakdown from Steve, literallyanything.
Nothing came until a few longseconds later when the lights flickered. The electricity buzzed, causing all of the several lights scattered around the room to go out and come back within a fraction of a second.
Valentina, in the midst of all the chaos, had only now been able to look around at the oddly decorated room. There were lamps and string lights placed all around, a blinding sight for anyone in their occupancy.
She turned in a full circle to gaze at all the mysterious bulbs, spinning until her vision was blocked by the body of a familiar foe. It seemed as if he, too, had just discovered the strange atmosphere of the missing boy's bedroom.
Their eyes met in the middle of their rotation, putting an end to all movements of their bodies and the air between them. Everything stopped, and now the silence between them felt more suffocating than the one from the monster.
"Do you hear anything?" Nancy whispered, looking to the boy on her left while ignoring the other two teenagers standing a bit behind them. It was clear that Valentina and Steve were in their own world on this night, having arrived late to the party and caught in a heated eye-war.
"No." Jonathan's lighter flicked shut, causing the blonde and brunette to snap back into reality and jump away from each other.
Steve cleared his throat, so quietly that it was only heard by the girl who'd just been standing so close to him that she would have been able to feel the air pass through his lips, had he even been breathing in the first place while she stared at him.
The pair in front moved toward the door quietly, unaware of the suffocating tension going on behind them. Nancy reached the door first, sparing a longing glance to Jonathan and a shorter one to the other members of the group before opening it.
