THANTOPHOBIA | WILL BYERS ² ✔

The Mind Flayer [Pt.2]

We were all in the Byers' house now.

Jonathan was with Will, who was currently sedated because... the shadow monster was taking over him.

I almost cried when I had heard that.

Anyways, Hopper was talking on the phone with the lab, I think, and the rest of us were sitting in the dining room.

Hopper was yelling at the person on the other end of the phone, but I wasn't listening, I was only focusing on Will, but then Hop hung up.

"They didn't believe you, did they?" Dustin asked.

"We'll see," He replied.

"'We'll see'?" Mike said. "We can't just sit around while those things are loose!"

"We stay here, and we wait for help." Hop emphasized. He then walked away in annoyance.

We were all sitting in silence for the next few minutes. The room had a depressing and melancholy vibe to it.

Mike walked to something and picked it up. "Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?"

"Really?" I said.

"Really?" Lucas said.

"He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fund-raiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right?" Mike walked towards us.

"Wow, I had no clue." I said.

"Yeah," Lucas and Dustin jinxed.

He set the thing on the table. It was a blue cube on a black stand thing, with rubber bands wrapped all over it.

"We can't let him die in vain." Mike finished.

"Well, what do you want to do, Mike?" Dustin snapped. "The chief's right on this. We can't stop those demo-dogs on our own."

"Demodogs?" Me and Max jinxed.

Dustin then got into a whole explanation. "Demogorgon... dogs... Demodogs... It's like a compound It's like a play on words--"

"Okay," Max said, annoyed.

"I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe..." He began.

"But there's an army now." Lucas said.

"Precisely."

"His army..." Mike said, as if he were piecing things together.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"His army!" Mike emphasized. "Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too."

We all got up and followed him to Will's room, and Mike threw at us one of Will's drawings of the shadow monster.

"The shadow monster." Dustin said.

"It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him."

"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asked.

"To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything--"

"Whoa, slow down, slow down." Steve said.

"Okay, so, the shadow monster's inside everything," Mike began. "And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will."

"And so does Dart," Lucas said.

"Yeah. It's like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind."

"Hive mind?" Steve asked.