CHAPTER ONE
DEMOGORGON IN THE DARK
THE VANISHING OF WILL BYERS

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1983

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"As the dust clears, you realize the party is separated, one half got through the passage before it collapsed, but the other is stuck behind piles and piles of dense rock. Neither knows if the others are alive or if they were crushed under the rubble. How do you—"

Valerie Wheeler's narration was abruptly cut off by a frantic knocking on the basement door. All eight of the teenagers crammed into the basement of Valerie and April Wheeler's house turned to look towards it, curious who could possibly be knocking at the basement door of all places. Not even a full minute after the first round of knocking, whoever was there started knocking again, still as frantic as before.

With a sigh, Valerie stood up and began making her way towards the door. As she rounded the table, she turned to look back at her friends. "No peeking!" she warned them. "Especially you, April!"

"You make me sit the furthest away from your screen specifically for that purpose," April argued.

Rolling her eyes, Valerie finally reached the basement door and opened it, not entirely surprised to find her younger cousin, Mike, standing on the other side, looking as frantic as his knocking had been and out of breath. He must have ran all the way from next door. Most wouldn't expect it to be a distance which could make someone out of breath, but the basement doors of their houses didn't face each other, meaning it was just that extra bit further.

Before Valerie could even open her mouth to greet her cousin, he was talking a mile a minute. "Do you have a demogorgon minifig? I can't find mine and I need it for our campaign but I can't find it anywhere!"

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Valerie assured him. "I wasn't gonna use it tonight, but you have to give it back tomorrow. Come on in, I'll get it for you."

She gestured for him to come inside, closing the door behind him. As Valerie headed back over to the table all her friends were sitting at, Mike trailed a little behind her, bouncing on his heels as she knelt down to dig into the bag she kept all of her Dungeons & Dragons supplies in.

When they saw who it was, everyone chorused their hellos to Mike, who gave a small wave back, keeping his eyes on Valerie as she tried to find the minifig he was looking for. There were a few people in the room he was more familiar with than others, like Diana Buchanan, whose younger brother Nathan was friends with Mike and was over at his house right now, alongside their other friends, Will Byers, Dustin Henderson and Lucas Sinclair. Diana also lived next door to Valerie and April, which meant she was only one house away from Mike as well. Dustin's older sister, Rebecca, was also in attendance, sitting next to her boyfriend, Xavier. And then, of course, Mike was also most familiar with April, who was Valerie's sister and another cousin of Mike's. 

Everyone else he only knew through his cousins or as the friends of his friends' siblings. There was Adam McDougall who lived next door to the Byers Family. Valerie didn't know if Mike could tell yet that Adam had a huge crush on his older sister Nancy, who was a year younger than Valerie. Then there was Zoey and Lacey Maxwell, who were twins. Xavier Moffat, who had been dating Rebecca Henderson for a few months now, was a new addition to their friend group, only really joining them after he befriended and then started dating Rebecca even though Valerie had known him through the Dungeons & Dragons group at their high school, Hellfire Club.

"Aha!" Valerie proclaimed, finally fishing the demogorgon figurine out of her bag. "Here you are."

"Thanks, Val! I'll give it back tomorrow!"

Now with the thing he'd come for, Mike practically ran back to the basement door, leaving Valerie to hurry after him so she could close the door behind him. He was probably anxious about leaving his own players unattended with his notes about their game, so Valerie couldn't blame him for rushing.

It was Valerie who had introduced Mike to the game Dungeons & Dragons nearly five years ago now. He'd been as captivated by the game as she had been when she first discovered it by chance at the library. After teaching him how to play and running a few one-shots for him, he'd become fascinated by the idea of running the games just as Valerie did, so she happily taught him how to DM a game. Once he got his friends into it, there was no going back. Even if they hadn't run games by themselves for a year and a half. Now, Valerie and Mike even planned their campaigns together, running ideas by each other and helping to fix any problems they were having.

"Alright, where were we?" Valerie asked, sitting down in her seat at the head of the table again. 

"Mike's making them go up against a demogorgon?" Xavier asked incredulously.

"Sure is," Valerie said, nodding, looking down at her notes.

Adam sighed from where he sat next to Valerie. "They're toast."

"Don't be mean!" Lacey chastised him, reaching across the table to hit his arm.

"I'm not! Do you remember the last time Val made us fight a demogorgon? We barely survived and there are seven of us!" Adam explained.

Adam was the only other person in their friend group who was a part of Hellfire Club. While the others enjoyed playing each weekend, none of them had any interest in joining their school's group. For some it was a matter of perception, not wanting their other classmates to know, but for others it was more about who else was in the club. Just because Valerie, Adam and Xavier were there didn't help when the others took a bit more getting used to. She'd never push her friends to join if they didn't want to so she couldn't fault them for not seeing just how charming the other DM in the group could be.

"He's not wrong," Diana agreed, checking her notes. "Our lovely DM was on a vindictive streak during that campaign."

Valerie scoffed and rolled her eyes. "You guys were complaining I was being too soft on you. Now you know better than to say stuff like that."

"Don't we ever," Rebecca complained. "I thought I was gonna lose Eyre that campaign."

"You nearly did," Xavier reminded her.

"And only didn't because of Dione's incredible healing skills," Diana said, flipping her hair over one shoulder.

"We could have used someone who could actually fight that session," April said.

"Oh, I'm sorry, how many times has Dione saved Elara's life?" Diana asked her, grabbing her notebook with one hand. "Don't make me start counting them."

Before her sister could respond, Valerie held up her hands. "Alright, alright. That was then, that was a campaign we did a year ago. We're here now. It's a new campaign. We should try and finish it off before my mom makes you all go home."

"She's right, you know," Adam agreed.

"Well, I always am," Valerie said with a smirk.

As everyone either complained or laughed at what she'd said, they all turned their attention back to the game. Having found where she was in her notes, Valerie was easily able to pick back up at where they'd left off.

"Oh, right, the tunnel had collapsed, separating the party, neither knowing if the other is alive. How do you proceed?"

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An hour later, Valerie was still talking her friends through how their characters were getting around the dungeon she'd planned for them. Not only were they still in the dungeon, but the two groups still hadn't managed to find each other. As much as Valerie loved seeing her friends succeed at their games, she did get some enjoyment out of seeing them unable to quickly get through a problem she put before them. It meant she'd done a good job in her planning and she took pride in being a good DM.

When the lights flickered overhead, they all stopped, looking up in confusion at the basement light fixtures. Zoey even stopped in the process of rolling the dice in her confusion.

"That's weird," Rebecca noted.

"Maybe a bird flew into a wire or something," April suggested.

Valerie gave her sister a look. "That's not how that works."

"How do you know?" April challenged.

"Because if a bird flying into a wire causes the power to flicker, it'd be flickering all the time when they sit on the wires," Valerie explained.

"Maybe a really big bird flew into a pole," Xavier suggested.

"You're not helping."

Unaffected by the scowl aimed in their direction, Xavier simply lifted a hand and got a high-five from April. "Wasn't trying to help."

"Rebecca, control your boyfriend," Valerie complained.

"Don't be mean," Rebecca told Xavier sternly.

As they laughed at Xavier's offended expression, Valerie gently turned them back towards the game. Unfortunately, that didn't last very long, as only fifteen minutes later, they were plunged into darkness as the power suddenly went out, causing everyone to stop once again.

"Maybe a bird did fly into a pole..." Diana muttered.

"Don't encourage them," Valerie chastised. "Everyone stay where you are, I'll get a flashlight. I don't want anyone tripping over each other and getting hurt."

Valerie got up from where she was sitting and headed slowly towards one of the cabinets they had in the basement, cautious of not being able to see anything and not wanting to trip or hurt herself. She fished the flashlight out of the cabinet and turned it on, using the light to guide her back towards the table.

Now with a source of light, everyone started packing up their stuff. A few minutes later, everyone had gathered all their things and were starting to make their way towards the stairs. As they made their way towards the side door which led to the driveway, Valerie's parents checked in with them, her father carrying a flashlight of his own while her mother went around lighting candles so they'd have enough light to get around the house safely.

Once her parents were satisfied with her plans, she headed out to the driveway where her sister and all of their friends were gathered. They were arranging who was going to get a ride from who and in the end decided that Adam would drive Rebecca and Xavier home since they were on his way and leaving Lacey and Zoey to make their way home on their own since they lived the opposite way.

"Hey," Adam said, standing behind his open car door. "Have the boys left your cousin's house yet? They're little, they can squish in the back with Becky."

"Who said I was the one sitting in the back?" Rebecca questioned from the other side of Adam's car.

Despite knowing the light would never go far enough to actually illuminate anything, Valerie raised her flashlight, aiming it in the direction of the house next door. "Probably. I mean it's nearly nine so I can't imagine Aunt Karen letting the boys stay that long if they weren't staying over."

"You sure?" he asked.

"I'm not walking over there just to see if their bikes are there or not, but if you want to pull into the driveway to check for yourself, go ahead."

"Nah, I believe you. See you at school."

Everyone chorused their goodbyes as they climbed into their cars. Valerie, April and Diana watched as their friends' cars backed out of the driveway and then disappeared into the darkness of the roads which weren't illuminated with street lights.

"Well, I better get home, too," Diana said once their friends were gone. "Let my parents know I'm okay and all."

"Probably a good idea, yeah," April agreed.

"See you in the morning."

The two girls waved goodbye to their friend and watched for a moment as she cut across the lawn in the direction of her house. They waited for a moment there until they were sure Diana had made it to her house, but when April turned back to head inside, Valerie lingered, looking up at one of the dark street lights.

"Are you coming?" April asked her sister.

"Does this feel weird to you?" Valerie asked, keeping her eyes on the street light.

"The power outage?" April asked, confused. Valerie nodded. "We've had them before. Someone probably just spilled their coffee on the controls or something."

Valerie hesitated. "I don't know... Something just feels off, I guess."

"What, do you have a bad feeling about this?" April joked, stepping up next to her sister again.

"I know you're teasing me, but yes." Valerie looked at her sister before looking out at the dark street once again. "I can't explain it, but it doesn't feel like a normal power outage."

April scoffed. "Okay, Luke Skywalker, let's go back inside anyways."

Rolling her eyes at her sister, Valerie did turn and follow her back inside, unable to shake the feeling of something being wrong as she closed and locked the door behind her

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an. so this chapter was short, I know, but all the next bits I could write made sense to be all together so the next chapter will be longer and cover more stuff so this is just a bit of a getting to know the characters chapter. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope to get the next one up soon, owing that I don't get sick again!