"What was Will saying?" Mike asked us, his voice written with many different emotions. We were back in the living room, and the tension was high. Everyone seemed to be a little on edge after what happened at the school. My anxiety was building with every new second, I needed answers. We all needed answers. But nothing seemed clear anymore, nothing was making sense.

"Like home," I mumbled as I leaned my body against the wall.

"Like home... but dark?" Mike said as he got up from the couch.

"And empty," Lucas added.

Dustin sighed, "Empty and Cold. Wait, did he say cold?"

"I don't know," Lucas said, his voice filled anxiousness, "The stupid radio kept going in and out."

"It's like riddles in the dark," I say, mostly to myself.

"Like home," Mike continued, "Like his house?"

"Possibly."

"Or maybe like Hawkins," Lucas suggested.

"But how many small towns are there in the world?" I asked him, trying to think rationally, "There's no way we would find him."

"Upside down," El said suddenly. Her voice was small, weak, but she was still loud enough for all of us to hear. A confused look came onto my face, what did she mean like upside down.

"What'd she say?" Lucas asked, confusion also written on his face.

I shrugged my shoulders, and that's when Mike mumbled, "Upside down."

"What?"

"Upside down," Mike said as he walked over to the D&D board that hadn't moved off of the wooden table. He sat down in one of the chairs and started explaining, "When El showed us where Will was, she flipped over the board, remember? Upside Down."

Me, Lucas, and Dustin were all at Mike's side now, watching as he flipped the board between it's dark side and it's playing side. Even though the events that Mike was explaining, I still didn't understand where he was going with this.

"Dark. Empty," Mike continued.

"Do you understand what he's talking about?" Lucas asked.

"No."

"Not in the slightest."

"Guys, come on, think about it," Mike tells us.

I rolled my eyes, "We are thinking about it, and what you're saying is coming out in blobs."

"Just listen," Mike tells me before continuing, "When El took us to find Will, she took us to his house, right?"
"Yeah, and he wasn't there."

"But what if he was there? What if we just couldn't see him?" Mike explained, and I could feel something start to click in my brain, "What if he was on the other side?"

"Oh, shit," I mumbled, everything clicking in my brain at once.

"What if this is Hawkins," Mike explained before turning the board back over to the black side, "and... this is where Will is?"

"The Upside Down," I finished, breathless.

Dustin's mouth dropped open, "Like the Vale of Shadows."

Dustin immediately got to his feet, heading over to where Lucas and his backpack lay on the floor. I tried to remember back to my D&D days to try and figure out what the hell Dustin was talking about, but nothing came back to me. I used to know everything about D&D, but I guess all those memories were in a locked box in my memory somewhere.

It didn't take Dustin long to find what he was looking for, it was his D&D book. He sat back down in his chair and started going through the pages, trying to find a page on the vale of shadows, or at least I thought that's what he called them.

After flipping through about 20 pages, he finally came to a stop, and the headline read, Vale of Shadows. There was a picture of the place on the second page, and it didn't look welcoming. The place was filled with vines or dead trees, I couldn't tell the difference. And it looked dark, very dark.

"The Vale of Shadows," Dustin started, "is a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world. It's a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase. A place of monsters. It's right next to you, and you don't even see it."

"An alternate dimension."

"But... how... how do we get there?" Lucas stammered.

"You cast Shadow Walk."

"In real life, dumbass," I snapped rudely, not really meaning too.

Dustin sigh and said, "We can't shadow walk, but... maybe she can."

We all turned, looking at the tired girl that was still laying on the couch, she hadn't moved since we got back from the school. As I looked at her, she seemed almost weak and fragile, but I knew that was the opposite of what she truly is. She was strong, and nowhere close to fragile. But she was also dangerous, and has an unknown past. I feel like as this mystery is closer to being solved, more of El's past will be uncovered.

"Do you know how we get there?" Mike asked in a soft voice, "To the Upside Down?"

El shook her head lightly.

"Oh, my God," Lucas said, upsetting washing over him.

That's when a silence fell between us, all of us lost in our own minds. I knew that the boys were probably thinking about all the things we've learned today, trying to figure out where to go from here. I could guess that Lucas was being stubborn and was trying to come up with an excuse or a realistic explanation for what's going on.

But what I was thinking about was different than that.

I couldn't stop thinking about how Will's funeral is tomorrow.

~~~

The morning of Will's funeral seemed quiet.

I couldn't remember the last time the house was this silent. It was weird to not hear the TV blaring from the living room, and Dad yelling at the news or whatever's on in the morning. It was weird not to hear Mom scold one of us, or having Nancy say a rude comment to me and Mike. Holly also hasn't whimpered or cried all morning, she just wore a frown on her young face and didn't make a noise.

It was weird to miss those noises, those little things that happened everyday. I never liked the normalcy before, I wanted something to happen to change things up. But now that everything has been flipped upside down, l wanted nothing more than to go back to a simpler time.

I was in Nancy's room, and wearing the black dress that Mom got me for today. I never liked wearing dresses, they were uncomfortable and I didn't like that some of the older boys looking at my legs, thinking of something vivid. But today, I didn't bother complaining, it wouldn't do anything anyway.

"Here we go," Mom mumbled after she zipped up Nancy's dress. All three of us were standing in front of the mirror, even though the mirror was small, you could still see all three of our reflections in it.

Obviously, I was the shortest but I wasn't that far behind Mom and Nancy, who were both an average height. As I looked at our reflections, I could really see the resemblance between us. Me and Nancy both got Mom's wavy brown hair and her skinny nose. The only big difference between the three of us, is that I got the blue eyed gene when Nancy got both our parents brown eyes.

"You both look very nice," Mom says to us, her eyes written with sadness. She kissed my hair which was down and lightly curled. I never had a close relationship with my mom, obviously I didn't like the situation at hand, it was starting to keep me up at night. But I liked feeling close to her for a couple of seconds, it made me stop attacking myself for a moment and it makes me remember that someone loves me.

"Thank you, you look nice too," I mumbled to her, not taking my eyes off our reflections. I expected Nancy to say something to her as well, but she was just eyeing her reflection in the mirror, something was clearly on her mind.

Mom nodded to me then said, "Anything else? Nancy, you can borrow my black heels if you want. The ones you wore to Cathy's birthday."

Nancy shook her head lightly, "I'm fine. Thanks."

We were silent for a moment and I mumbled, "I'm fine as well."

We took together in Nancy's room for a couple minutes more until Dad called us, telling us that we needed to leave and head to the funeral. It felt weird, going to a funeral when we knew Will was alive somewhere. It just made me think harder, wanting to know where the heck he is. I wanted him to come home, I wanted to see my brother's face light up when he plays D&D with his friends again. I wanted things to go back to normal, and finding Will was the key to getting that normalcy back.

I didn't remember any of the car ride or the beginning of the funeral, or anything the pastor said. I just blacked everything out, my mind only focusing on the everything that was going on and everything we still had to do to get Will back. I released about half way through the service that I didn't want to be at this funeral with people that didn't care about him, I wanted to be out looking for him. I wanted to find my best friend again, even though when he gets back, he couldn't be my best friend again.

I was lucky that Melissa, Stacey, or Troy weren't here because I wouldn't be able to handle them right now.

I felt a shoulder lightly hit mine, and I turned to look at Lucas, who was standing beside me. I took a good look at him for a second, and I realized that I had never seen him in a suit before and he didn't look half-bad. I didn't know why the thought came into my head, but I still shook it away as soon as possible.

Lucas tilted his head towards something, and my eyes immediately fell on Jennifer Hayes, a girl in our grade, crying. I didn't know Jennifer that well but all I knew was that she was stupid enough to date Troy and get her "heart-broken" by him. But at least dating the douchebag made her popular, but I wouldn't want to be popular for that reason.

"Just wait till we tell Will that Jennifer Hayes was crying at his funeral," Dustin mumbled, a big smile on his face.

Mom immediately shushed him, and turned back towards the pastor.

The funeral ended a couple minutes later, and it ended with everyone throwing a white rose over the casket before it was lowered into the group. People started talking after that, most of them heading over to where the Byers were standing, wanting to give them their blessings and whatnot. We went inside once everyone had a chance to say their hellos to each other. I was super happy to head inside, the fall weather was cold and the light jacket I was wearing didn't keep out the cold air.

But we had a plan ahead of us now, I thought of it bringing the services and when I was ranting silently to myself. I thought about this alternate dimension and how when we figured something out, we related it back to D&D, which I released was a little weird. But I released that there was one person that could relate D&D to actual science, and that person was none other than Mr. Clarke.

I told the boys my idea after the service when all the adults were hugging and giving their blessings. They surprisingly all agreed and Lucas even said it was a good idea. I didn't release how much it made my day until some random adult said I was smiling too much at a funeral.

Mr. Clarke was standing by the food trays and we walked up to him right as he put some meat on his plate, and I could probably guess that it was chicken.

"Mr. Clarke?" I asked once we were right next to him.

Mr. Clarke turned and immediately gave us a sad smile, I was honestly getting pretty annoyed with them. "Oh, hey there. How are you guys holding up?"

"We're.... in... mourning," Lucas said robotically.

Dustin sighed loudly, "Man, these aren't real Nilla Wafers."

We all turned to look at him, and he just shrugged his shoulders in response.

Mike quickly turned back to Mr. Clarke and asked, "We were wondering if you had time to talk?"

"We have some questions."

"Lots of questions," I said, being a little over dramatic.

Mr. Clarke let out a quick sigh and the sad smile didn't leave his face. Mr. Clarke ushered us over to one of the tables that was close to the back of the room, away from the chit-chatting of the other adults. We all took our seats, Mr. Clarke on one side of the round table and us on the other.

"So, you know how in Cosmos, Carl Sagan talks about dimensions?" Mike blurted out after a couple seconds of silence, "Like beyond our world?"

The sad smile immediately fell from Mr. Clarke's face and he seemed somewhat relieved to be talking about science. I guess he expected us to talk about our feelings to him, but I didn't know any student that actually shared their real emotions with their teachers.

"Yeah, sure. Theoretically," Mr. Clarke says.

"Right, theoretically," I mumbled, somewhat awkwardly.

"So, theoretically, how do we travel there?" Lucas asked our teacher.

Mr. Clarke thought about this for a moment then said, "You guys have been thinking about Hugh Everett's Many-Worlds Interpretation haven't you?"

We all looked at each other, and I could see the boys eyeing me since I was the one who came up with this plan. I let out a sigh, and I gave Mr. Clarke a confused look, not knowing what else to do.

"Well, basically, there are parallel universes," Mr. Clarke explained, understanding the confused looks on our faces, "Just like our world, but just infinite variations of it. Which means there's a world out there where none of this tragic stuff ever happens."

"Yeah, that's not what we're talking about," Lucas tells him, quickly trying to move away from the sad stuff.

"Oh."

"We were thinking of more of an evil dimension," Dustin explained flatly, "Like the Vale of Shadows."

"Do you know anything about the Vale of Shadows?" I asked.

"An echo of the Material Plane, where necrotic and shadow magic--" Mr. Clarke said but got interrupted by Mike.

"Yeah, exactly," Mike said.

"But if a place like the Vale of Shadows did exist, how would you travel there?" I asked, trying to make sure I explained it right.

"Theoretically, of course," Lucas put in.

"Well..." Mr. Clarke said as he grabbed a paper plate and a pen out of his jacket. "Picture... an acrobat..." He drew a thin line on the paper plate then drew a stick figure on top of it. "Standing on a tightrope. Now, the tightrope is our dimension. And our dimension has rules. You can move forwards, or backwards." He drew two arrows on the plate, one pointing to the front and the other pointing to the back.

"But, what if... right next to the acrobat, there was a flea," Mr. Clarke explained as he drew a little dot next to the stick figure, "Now, the flea can also travel back and forth, just like the acrobat. Right?" He drew two more arrows next to the flea, and the teacher turned back to us to make sure we were still following along.

"Right."

"Here's where things get really interesting. The flea can also travel this way, along the side of the rope." Mr. Clarke continues to draw more arrows as he explains, and with every new arrow I could feel my eyes grow wider. "He can even go... underneath the rope."

"Upside Down," We all say together.

"Exactly," Mr. Clarke says cheerfully, happy we understand.

"Wait a minute, we're not the flea right," I asked, making sure I understand.

"Yeah, we're the acrobat," Mike said, his eyes focused on Mr. Clarke.

Mr. Clarke nodded, "In this metaphor, yes, we're the acrobat."

"So, we can't go upside down?"

"No."

"Well, is there any way for the acrobat to get to the Upside Down?" Dustin asked.

"Well... you'd have to create a massive amount of energy. More than humans are currently capable of creating, mind you, to open some kind of tear in time and space, and then..." Mr. Clarke folded the paper plate and suddenly stabbed it with his pen. "You create a doorway."

"Like a gate?"

"Sure. Like a gate," Mr. Clarke says, "But again, this is all--"

"Theoretical."

"But... but what if this gate already existed?" Mike asked.

Mr. Clarke thought about this for a moment then answered, "Well, if it did. I-- I think we'd know. It would disrupt gravity, the magnetic field, our environment. Heck, it might even swallow us up whole. Science is neat. But I'm afraid it's not very forgiving."