☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

°•. ┊ Daylight┊.•°
✧ ˚ ━ we're the new romantics, act one

CHAPTER SEVEN — the mind flayer

✧

"You're positive that was Dart?" Lucas questions as the six of us walk back down the railroad tracks once again.

    "Yes. He had the same exact yellow pattern on his butt." Dustin explains.

    "He was tiny two days ago." Max says.

"Well, he's molted three times already."

"Malted?" Steve questions.

"Molted. Shed his skin to make room for growth like hornworms."

"When's he gonna molt again?" Max asks.

"It's gotta be soon. When he does, he'll be fully grown, or close to it. And so will his friends."

"Yeah, and he's gonna eat a lot more than just cats." Steve states.

"Wait, a cat? Dart ate a cat?" Lucas grabs Dustin's arm, halting him. This causes the rest of us to stop as well.

"No, what? No."

"What are you talking about? He ate Mews." Steve says as if Dustin needs a reminder.

"Mews? Who's Mews?" Max questions looking over at Steve and I.

"It's Dustin's cat." I tell her

"Sam!" Dustin shouts.

"I knew it! You kept him!" Lucas speaks.

"No! No. No, I... No, I...He missed me. He wanted to come home."

"Bullshit!" The rest of us watch as the younger boys argue.

"I didn't know he was a Demogorgon, okay?"

"Oh, so now you admit it?"

"Guys, who cares? We have to go." Max reminds.

"I care! You put the party in jeopardy! You broke the rule of law!"

"So did you!"

"What?"

"You told a stranger the truth!" Dustin argues, pointing his flashlight at Max.

"A stranger?" She asks, offended, stepping towards the pair.

"You wanted to tell her, too!" A growl sounds from our right and Steve, Lila, and I turn. We start to walk towards the noise, while the argument continues.

"But I didn't, Lucas, okay? I didn't tell her! We both broke the rule of law, okay? So we're even. We're even."

"No, no! We're not even. Don't even try that. Your stupid pet could have ate us for dinner!"

"That was not my fault!"

"Son of a bitch." I mutter.

"Hey, guys?" Steve calls.

"Guys!" The three of us snap, causing them to finally shut up. Another growl sounds and we start running towards it, the kids following.

"No, no, no. Hey, guys, why are you headed towards the sound?" Max asks, before hesitantly joining us. We slow our pace as we approach a drop.

"I don't see him." Dustin says.

"It's the lab." Lucas informs. "They were going back home." After a brief pause, we make our way down the hill rather quickly. We trek through the woods, until finally reaching the street.

"Steve?" Nancy and Jonathan say in unison. I snicker a little, it was just unnecessarily funny.

"Nancy?" Steve asks.

"Jonathan?" Dustin and I question.

"What are you doing here?" Nancy asks. Steve repeats her question. "We're looking for Mike and Will."

"They're not in there are they?" I inquire, worry in my tone.

"We're not sure." Nancy replies.

"Why?" Jonathan questions. More growls emit from the building, making all of us turn to look at it. My hand absentmindedly reaches for Steve's, he accepts it, interlocking our fingers and softly caressing the back of my hand with his thumb. I feel a pair of eyes on me, so I glance around and I see Nancy looking at mine and Steve's hands, my eyes trail down and my mind fully processes the gesture. I slowly retract my hand from his, and turn my head back to the building. In my peripherals, I notice Steve's eyes are on me. I feel bad about pulling my hand away because I didn't want to, but I didn't want to hurt Nancy. The group goes back and forth about the last time they saw the seemingly missing boys. My eyes are trained on the building, the lights begin to shine through the windows.

"The power's back." I inform. All of us rush to the security booth, trying to find some way to open the gate. Jonathan being the first one in, starts to push buttons.

"Let me try." Dustin says.

"Hang on..." Jonathan hushes the boy.

"Let me try, Jonathan!" Dustin pushes the older boy out of the way and he repeats Jonathan's previous action of pushing the button multiple times.

"Son of a bitch! You know what..." Dustin gets annoyed with the thing and presses the buttons angrily. The rest of us just stand around, not knowing what to do. The gate finally opens. "Hey, I got it." Jonathan and Nancy return to the car and drive through, the rest of us wait at the entrance. Max grabs our attention and we all move to see what she's looking at. We see Jonathan and Hopper's cars speeding towards us. I feel Steve tug on my arm, as everyone moves out of the way. Hopper stops, and instructs us to get in, all of the kids enter first, taking up the back seat, Delilah sits in the middle of the front, leaving me to sit on Steve's lap. I don't know how exactly, but I know Lila planned this. It's too perfect for her. The ride wasn't awful, just slightly uncomfortable. But I was more focused on Hopper's explanation of his past couple of days.

We drive to the Byers residence and sit around figuring out what the next step is. Will is unconscious and Hopper is on the phone with God only knows who. I'm sitting on the counter with Steve leaning against it on my left. Once Hopper hangs up the phone, Dustin asks whether or not they believed him. He says that we'll see and Mike isn't too happy with that answer. Hop tells us that we're gonna sit and wait for backup. The room falls quiet again, until Mike stands. "Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?"

"Really?" Lucas asks.

"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?"

"Yeah." Dustin and Lucas say simultaneously.

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

"What do you want to do, Mike? The Chief's right on this. We can't stop those Demo-dogs on our own." Dustin states.

"Demo-Dogs?" Max questions.

"Demogorgon dogs. Demo-Dogs. It's like a compound. It's like a play on words..."

"Okay." Max shuts him up.

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

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

"Precisely."

"His army." Mike speaks. Steve and I look at the kid and then at each other.

"What do you mean?" Steve questions.

"His army. Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too." He says before walking to another room, the rest of us following.

"The shadow monster."

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

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

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

"Whoa. Slow down. Slow down." Steve says, taking the drawing of said monster. It's definitely deserving of the term 'monster.'

"Okay, so, the shadow monsters inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will."

"And so does Dart." Lucas finishes Mike's sentence. I think I'm catching on to their plans, but who fucking knows anymore. It's been one hell of a day and I'm exhausted. And in desperate need of a shower.

"Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind."

"Hive mind?" Steve inquires.

"Oh, it's a collective consciousness. It's a super-organism." I tell the boy, earning weird looks from the people around me. "What? I had a cool science teacher once too."

"And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain." Mike states.

"Like the mind flayer." Dustin breathes. Lucas snaps as if what he said makes complete sense.

"What?" Max, Steve, and I ask collectively. The kids go out and gather everyone around the dining table. Dustin slams down some book on said table.

"The mind flayer."

"What the hell is that?" Hopper asks the question any normal person in the room is thinking.

"It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers." Dustin explains.

"Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids' game." Hopper argues.

"No, it's a manual. And it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor..."

"Analogy." Lucas and I correct.

"Analogy? That's what you're worried about?"

"It's the correct term, dude." I tell him, earning an eye roll.

"Fine. Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is." Dustin sneers.

"Okay, so this mind flamer thing..." Nancy starts.

"Flayer. Mind flayer." Dustin interjects.

"What does it want?" She asks.

"To conquer us, basically it believes it's the master race."

"Like the Germans?" Steve questions. I hold back my laughter.

"Uh, the Nazis?" Dustin corrects.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis." Steve remarks.

"Uh...If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally. Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself."

"It wants to spread, take over other dimensions." Mike says.

"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." Lucas states.

"That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" Harrington mutters, stepping away from the group.

"Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it..." Nancy starts.

"We kill everything it controls." I breathe.

"We win." Dustin jumps in.

"Theoretically." Lucas reminds us that this is all possible, but not based on any real facts.

"Great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with Fireballs or something?" Hooper questions, taking the book from Nance and looking over it.

"No. No, no Fire...No Fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because...because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it...it... It likes brains. It's just a game." Dustin rants.

"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper asks rhetorically.

"I thought we were waiting for your military backup." The Henderson boy speaks.

"We are!"

"Even if they come, how are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns." Mike argues.

"You don't know that! We don't know anything!"

"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab." Mike retorts.

"We know the monsters are gonna molt again." Lucas added.

"We know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town." Dustin finishes.

"They're right." Joyce chokes out. We all turn towards her. "We have to kill it. I want to kill it."

"Me too, Joyce. Okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."

"No. But he does." Mike speaks, approaching his friend. "If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know its weakness."

"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore. That he's a spy for the mind flayer now." Max says.

"Yes, but it couldn't attack us or spy on us, if it didn't know where to go." I start. "What if we find someplace that's unrecognizable to Will. We'll wake him up and ask him questions, but he won't be able to figure out where we are."

"I get what she's saying. We just need to take Will somewhere he doesn't know." Jonathan adds.

"Not even that. We could turn a room here into a plain, dark undefinable place."

"Where?" Lila asks.

"I have no idea." I confess, turning to the elder Byers boy. "It's your house. Any ideas?" Jonathan mentions the shed out back. Hopper and Mike go to check it out. Once Hopper has emptied the place out, he has Nancy and Steve start taping and stapling up tarps to the walls. Delilah and I are with Lucas and Dustin sifting through the trash for anything useful. The boys have a conversation; Dustin apologizes for everything having to do with Dart and they talk about Max and Lucas. It was sweet. Soon enough, we're all in the shed taping up cardboard to the walls. I'm standing on a footstool, while Lucas hands me boxes and pieces of tape. I'm on my toes, placing the last strand of tape down, when I lose my balance and fall flat on my ass. Everyone stops what they're doing. Nancy and Steve start to approach me, when Max stops them.

"Give her a sec." She says. I take deep breaths waiting for the pain in my tailbone and shoulder to pass, when it finally does I stand to my feet. All eyes are on me. "You good?"

"Yeah. I'll have a couple bruises tomorrow, but it's fine." I reply. The kids return to their stations and I go to get back on the step stool.

"Nope." Harrington states, shoving me out of the way and taking the tape out of my hand, stepping on the stool and placing it on the cardboard. "We don't need you falling again and getting seriously hurt." I roll my eyes and move on to another wall, helping Max with her task. We finish everything and the rest of us return to the house, while Hopper, Joyce, Mike, and Jonathan stay out in the shed with Will. I'm sitting on the couch with Delilah, watching Steve take practice swings with his bat. No one's talking, we're all just stressed about whether or not Will is going to figure out where he is. It's been about seven or eight minutes and they all reenter the kitchen. Dustin asks them what happened. We gather around Hop as he sits down and starts writing on an old envelope.

"I think he's talking, just not with words." Hopper states.

"What is that?" Steve questions.

"Morse code." The boys and I answer. My response makes the teenagers in the room look at me in confusion, once again, before returning their gaze back to the paper. Do I come off that ditzy?

"You're just full of little surprises, aren't you Firefly?" Steve whispers, dangerously close to my ear.

"You don't know the half of it, Stevie." I respond. Hopper spells out the word.

"Here." The kids say simultaneously.

"Will's still in there. He's talking to us." Hopper concludes. Jonathan runs off, grabbing a stereo and a tape, then the four of them return to the shed to talk to Will again. The rest of us sit at the table with a morse code decoder, while Nancy writes the letters the kids give her, as Hopper beeps it to them. I'm leaning over Nancy's shoulder, as the words start to fully form. C-L-O-S-E-G-A-T-E.

"Close gate." We all speak collectively. We have no time to sit with the information because the phone begins to ring. All of us rise, Dustin and Nancy running towards the phone.

"Shit. Shit." Dustin hisses, while slamming the phone against the hook. We all release a sigh of relief, before the device rings again. This time, Nancy rips the phone from the wall and chucks it down the hall.

"Do you think he heard that?" Delilah questions.

"It's just a phone. It could be anywhere. Right?" Steve retorts.

"Sure, but if you're wondering where you are and you hear a phone, your mind will probably register it as the most familiar place with said phone or even the ringtone." I huff. We are so screwed. An all too familiar growl sounds in the near distance and we all walk to the window closest to it.

"That's not good." Henderson breathes. They run back into the house and the kids are at the front windows. Hopper commands them to move away from them.

"Do you know how to use this?" Hopper asks Jonathan about a gun. "Can you use this?" The boy looks taken aback by the question.

"Give it to me. I can use it." I state. The man tosses it to me; I cock the gun and prepare to fire it at whatever the hell comes through those doors. There's a line up, Hopper with his gun, Steve with his bat, then me. The noise gets dangerously close and moves around the house. We all turn to our right and then back to the front of the house. There's strange variations of the growls, then it goes quiet, until one of them is thrown through the window. This causes everyone to jump back and scream. The creature isn't moving, so we approach it slowly.

"Holy shit." Dustin breathes.

"Is it dead?" Max questions. Hopper kicks it lightly with his boot. We hear a creak from behind us and turn to the front door. The deadbolt unlocks and we all ready our weapons of choice once more. The chain on the door is now undone. The door opens slowly and in walks a girl, wearing dark clothing and a lot of eye makeup. Our weapons lower. Mike pushes past Hopper and I, moving to get a better look at the person before us. The two share a longing gaze.

[word count: 2874]

lexi's letters; guess who's back. back again...