001: November 6th, 1983

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It was a slightly cold night in Hawkins, Indiana. Hayley Wheeler, the eldest sibling out of the four total, was laying down in her bed. Holly, her youngest sibling, was being put to bed by her mother, Karen Wheeler. Nancy was just laying in her room, talking on the phone with Barbara, Nancy's best friend. Mike, or Michael, was in the basement of the house, sitting at a table with his three friends surrounding him. Hayley groaned as she laid in bed. She twisted and turned and tried to drown out the noise from the shared wall between her and Nancy. She wanted to go downstairs and watch TV but she knew her dad would be watching something dumb and she would be able to hear her brother's and his friend's nonsense. Meanwhile, the nonsense that Hayley didn't like, was starting to get intense.

"Something is coming, something hungry for blood." Mike ominously said to his friends. He sat behind a cardboard box that he had to lean over to see the board game, but it was necessary, it was a part of the game. It hid what he was planning in the game. "A shadow grows on the wall behind you, swallowing you in darkness. It is almost here."

"What is it?" Will, who's sitting across from the cardboard box, asks.

"What if it's the Demogorgon?" Dustin worriedly asks. "Oh, Jesus, we're so screwed if it's the Demogorgon." As Will listens and takes in Dustin's consideration, he leans back in his chair, also worried.

"It's not the Demogorgon." Lucas said as he used his hands to talk.

Mike spoke up after they finished, "An army of troglodytes charge into the chamber!" He then reaches over the board to place down the game piece. They all laugh after Mike says this, realizing they had nothing to worry about. Mike, though, had other things planned for his friends. "Wait a minute, do you hear that?" Mike says as he now has all the boys' attention at his fingertips. "That... that sound. Boom... boom... boom!" He yells, causing his friends to gasp and flinch. "That didn't come from the troglodytes, no, that... that came from something else." The three boys looked amongst themselves before Mike continued, "The Demogorgon!" He screams out, making the same movements he did when he placed the troglodytes onto the board. They all groan in annoyance until Mike yells, "Will your action!"

"I don't know!" Will stutters as he looks around the board.

While the three boys argue about whether to cast protection or to fireball him, Mike, or the Demogorgon, gets tired of it. "The Demogorgon is tired of your silly human bickering! It stomps towards you, boom! Another stomp, boom!" The boys continue to argue while Mike continues to try and yell over them. "He roars in anger!"

They all wait in anticipation until Will yells, "Fireball!" He throws the dice onto the table but out of nervousness, he throws them a bit too hard and they all roll off the table and scatter across the room. Seconds later, they're all out of their chairs looking for them, except Dustin. Dustin stands around and stresses out, not helping one bit.

Upstairs, Hayley groans and gets out of bed after looking at the time. His friends should be gone by now. She thought. She makes her way downstairs to find her mom spilling food into a bowl.

"Hayley, can you go tell the boys to finish up? It's fifteen after." Karen states to her daughter.

Hayley nods then makes her way to the basement door to find Mike at the bottom of the stairs and the rest of his friends scattered across the room.

She sighs before speaking, "Mike. Mike!" After waiting for a response, she leans on the wall.

"Ugh, Hayley, what do you want?" Mike asks as he stood up and looked at her.

"Clean up, it's fifteen after." She told him.

"Who told you to be the authority figure?" He asks annoyingly.

"I did!" Karen yells as she continues to pour more food into a bowl.

At the sound of his mother's voice, he rushes up the stairs to try and plead his case to his mother. "Mom, wait, just twenty more minutes."

"It's a school night, Michael. I just put Holly to bed. You can finish next weekend." She said; she didn't want to listen to any arguments made by him.

"But that'll ruin the flow!"

"Michael-"

"I'm serious, mom. The campaign took two weeks to plan. How was I supposed to know it was gonna take ten hours..." Mike said. He quieted down a little at the end though. He knew it wasn't going to help his case but he only realized that once she responded.

"You've been playing for ten hours!?" She exclaims. Mike realizes that he can't come back from that so he goes over to his dad, who turns out to be no help because he's too focused on fixing the TV.

Mike decided that the pleading wasn't worth it and met his friends outside, Dustin coming out last.

"There's something wrong with your sister." Dustin states as he walks out of the house and into their garage.

"What are you talking about? Which one?" Mike asks.

"Nancy, she's got a stick up her butt." Dustin states as he walks over to his bike and looks back at his friends.

"Yeah. It's because she's been dating that douchebag, Steve Harrington." Lucas adds on as he mounts onto his bike.

"Yeah, she's turning into a real jerk." Dustin agrees as the motion sensor light turns on, followed by the boy's bike lights.

"She's always been a real jerk." Mike says.

"Nuh-uh, she used to be cool. Like that time she dressed up as an elf for our Elder Tree campaign." Dustin disagrees as he rides off with Lucas, leaving Will there to talk to Mike.

"Four years ago!" Mike yells out before giving his attention to his other best friend next to him.

"It was a seven." Will says.

"Huh?" Mike asks.

"The roll, it was a seven." Will adds, leaving Mike with a confused face. "The Demogorgon. It got me." Will then rode off into the distance without saying anything. The lights flickered at the motion sensor but Mike didn't think anything of it. Who would've?

The boys rode off into the distance, separating one by one. Lucas was the first to ride off to his house since Lucas and Mike always lived the closest to each other since they were little. Dustin and Will began to race for a comic. Will began first, causing Dustin to lose and stay at his house out of breath. Will was now all alone in the darkness.

There was nobody in sight. Due to this, the bristling of trees, the chirping of crickets and the bike wheels were extremely apparent. Suddenly, Will's bike light flickered off, causing him to take his sight off of the road to hit it back on. Once he looked up, there was now a creature in the distance that wasn't there before. It growled as Will drove off the street, falling into a pile of leaves. Will slowly got up and looked at the creature and sprinted off into the distance. It didn't matter how important or expensive that bike was to him, he needed to get to safety. He petted his dog and rushed through the house, calling out to his brother in mom, just to find out that nobody was home.

He quickly locked the door then peaked out the window to see the monster approaching his house. He ran over to the yellow phone on the wall, dialing a number for it only to result in static. He stared at the front door when suddenly, the lock started to come undone. It had locked from the outside, but how? Will didn't care though, he wanted safety. He dropped the phone and sprinted out the back door and into their brown shed. He quickly grabbed the gun off the wall and grabbed the bullets off of the shelf. He shakily loaded the gun and held it in his hand, just feet away from the door, ready to shoot at anything. This didn't happen, the monster teleported to behind Will. He felt the monster's presence and slowly backed away and put the gun down out of complete terror. The light grew brighter, and brighter, and brighter than snapped back to normal. Once that happened, the monster and Will had disappeared.

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