The Other Powered Girl

Chapter 5: The Flea and the Acrobat

"What was Will talking about," Lucas asked.

"Like home...like home," Mike questioned walking around the basement. He finally stopped and sat down on the couch.

"But dark," Dustin added in.

"And empty," Lucas said, "empty and cold."

"Wait, did he say cold," Mike asked trying to remember if he heard Will say cold or not.
"I don't know. The stupid radio kept on going in and out," Lucas said.

"It's like riddles in the dark," Dustin said sadly.

"Like home...like this house," Mike said standing up once again, "Or maybe like Hawkins?"

"Upside down," Eleven said and I just looked over to her. I didn't want to say too much to the boys, they could get themselves into a lot of danger.

"What'd she say," Lucas questioned as he pointed a finger to Eleven.

"Upside down," I responded to Lucas.

"Upside down," Mike said thinking about something, "Remember when they showed us where Will was, they flipped the game board upside down? Dark and empty." He had finally put it together.

"Do you understand what he's talking about," Lucas asked to Dustin.

"No," Dustin responded as he sat up on the couch.

"Come on guys, think about it," Mike tried getting them to understand. "Remember when they took us to find Will they took us to his house," Mike said.

"Yeah. And he wasn't there,"Lucas sassed back.

"What if he was there? What if we just couldn't see him? What if he was on the other side? What if this is Hawkins," Mike said gesturing to the game board. He then turned it over, "And this... this is where Will is. The Upside Down."

"Like the Vale of Shadows," Dustin said to try and express how it was. He got up and grabbed a book and began flipping through the pages vigorously until he found what he was searching for, "'The Vale of Shadows is a dark reflection or echo of our world. It is a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase. A place on monsters. It is right next to you and you don't even see it. An alternate dimension," Dustin finished reading from the book.

"But... how do we get there," Mike questioned.

"You can shadow walk," Dustin said matter of factly.

"In real life, dummy," Lucas said.

"We can shadow walk... but maybe they can," he asked gesturing over to Eleven and I.

Mike walked over to us and nealt down to our level, "Do you know how to get there? To the Upside Down?" Eleven and I shrugged our shoulders. Soon, they left and went to Will's funeral. After the funeral they came back to Mike's house where he explained how to get to the Upside Down. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil so he could draw us a picture about how to do it, theoretically.

"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," Mike asked hopeful to El and I.

"Right," Eleven said looking to me as we were both confused.

"What we want to know is how do we know where the gate is," Lucas asked. El and I just looked at each other and shrugged, "Then how do you know about the Upside Down?"

El and I remained quiet as we looked around the basement. The Upside Down was not something that we were happy to know about. It was a very scary place and Papa would always make us go there, and it scared me every time.